A Name Change for National Grid — A Solution from CSC

When shareholders at one of the world's largest utilities voted to change its name from National Grid Transco to National Grid, it was a small change in words, but one with big business impact. A CSC team worked hard to bring the changes to life for staff at the company — against a tight deadline that had legal implications for the company.

In 2002, electricity transmission system owner National Grid and the gas transmission company Lattice Group merged to form National Grid Transco, one of the world's largest utility companies. Following additional developments and acquisitions, the United Kingdom utility further strengthened its operations beyond traditional gas and electricity transmission and distribution.

To reflect the company's focus on the design, development, operation and maintenance of complex utility network services, shareholders recently voted to change the utility's name from National Grid Transco to simply National Grid. This change would emphasise the company's emergence as one of the world's largest and most successful integrated utility companies.

More than a simple name change

"Our aim is to demonstrate that we are an integrated company that brings the strength of our combined skills and experience to bear wherever we operate," explained Sir John Parker, Chairman of the National Grid Group, at the 2005 annual general meeting in Birmingham, United Kingdom. "This is more than just a name and logo change. It will provide a framework to help unify us as a company. The emphasis is on the word 'grid.' It reinforces our overall business skills of designing, building and operating complex networks in gas, electricity and telecommunications."

National Grid is one of CSC's largest clients in the United Kingdom. CSC supports mission-critical gas and electricity transmission systems and infrastructure throughout Great Britain, in addition to back office IT infrastructure and desktop support. For the CSC team supporting National Grid, 24 x 7 operations are nothing new. But the re-brand brought an unusual nighttime project for a 20-strong CSC team. Working with the National Grid IS project team, CSC brought the name change to life, starting with National Grid's Corporate Centre in central London, housing critical corporate functions and the company's board of directors.

Legal and IT implications

"Changing the company name had legal implications, which in turn meant IT implications," says Declan Kiernan, the project manager who led the CSC team. "Staff who work in departments such as Legal and Human Resources needed updated templates, e-mail addresses and applications with the new company name embedded in them on the next working day to make the company legally compliant.

"We had from midnight to 8 a.m. to install the initial batch of new e-mail addresses, convert 11 mission critical applications and deploy new National Grid branded templates across 200 servers. We also rolled out a new-look desktop build including the new National Grid logo. This will be used as the standard for all new desktops and laptops rolled out to reinforce the new name."

"The CSC team did an amazing job," says Paola Gagliano-Fawcett, IS project manager for National Grid. "There was such a huge amount of change in such a small amount of time."

Ongoing transformation

The rebranding work didn't stop there. Over an eight-week period, the CSC team worked to identify every application, document template, e-mail account, desktop, laptop and handheld device with old company names or logos, as well as identify all desktop or laptop builds and screensavers that included references to "National Grid Transco" or "NGT."

“The scope of the project was enormous, when you consider all the devices, applications and other elements that contain a company’s name," Kiernan says. "Signs, clothing, stationery, applications, screensavers, e-mail addresses and desktop builds with old company references all had to be identified, modified and in some cases tested before release."

With such a volume of changes, two CSC project managers were reassigned full time to National Grid to work with its project team alongside the CSC team. Working together, over an eight-week period they updated and tested 194 applications, every company e-mail address and electronic stationery template, and deployed desktop updates to 16,000 users.

“We had a defined deadline which was met across the board, and it enabled us to integrate smoothly with CSC's transformation team at major sites, where a major desktop upgrade has already begun," Kiernan adds.

The CSC-National Grid Transformation program will create a modern, unified infrastructure, upgrading the company’s IT and telecom infrastructure across the United Kingdom. Kiernan notes that National Grid has an unusually complex IT infrastructure, which the company has inherited as a result of the merger. National Grid has more than 50 desktop builds and over 800 servers, and CSC regularly meets 99.9-100 percent availability of critical systems and servers to ensure safe and stable gas and electricity supply throughout the United Kingdom.