CASE STUDY
Language Services & Technology Solutions
~7,500 employees, operating in 30+ countries
Programme Budget: £45 million
Our client, a world leader in language services and content technology, launched a major Microsoft Dynamics 365 Finance & Operations (F&O) transformation. The programme included integration with SKG and ExFlow to overhaul financial and procurement processes across multiple regions. Fortitude 17 (F17) was engaged to lead testing across Functional and User Acceptance Test phases, stepping into a complex political and delivery landscape.
• Late entry: Testing was onboarded late in the lifecycle, with little preparation for structured QA.
• Political resistance: A globally recognised SI partner resisted external QA leadership, creating tensions and influencing governance.
• Leadership change: The Programme Lead exited midway, replaced by the SI’s own resource — raising conflicts of interest around quality accountability.
• User impact: Many key end users were made redundant before UAT, drastically reducing business-side knowledge, engagement levels and capacity.
• Stabilize QA delivery in a politically sensitive programme.
• Design and deliver robust Functional Testing and UAT phases across Europe and Asia.
• Safeguard quality in the absence of strong programme leadership, ensuring system readiness for global deployment.
Our Approach
• Testing framework reset: Introduced structured QA planning, scripting, and execution aligned to Microsoft Dynamics 365 F&O and ISV integrations (SKG & ExFlow).
• Conflict navigation: Balanced diplomacy with assertiveness to gain buy-in from the SI partner, ensuring QA retained independence and credibility.
• End-user substitution: Identified alternative SMEs and knowledge holders to mitigate the impact of user redundancies before UAT.
• Cross-regional coordination: Orchestrated UAT execution across European and Asian time zones, embedding clear reporting and defect triage.
• Risk and governance: Highlighted delivery risks early and introduced quality checkpoints to give executives confidence in progress.
• UAT success: Delivered UAT phases in Europe and Asia on time, despite reduced user pools and political challenges.
• Conflict resolution: Maintained independence of QA while navigating resistance from the SI partner and continuing to support the newly redundant client employees.
• Leadership under pressure: Along with others, stepped into the vacuum left by the Programme Lead, ensuring testing continuity and accountability, and risk management. Ensured the SI Partner used the project/test/defect management tool to record all deliverables and collateral for future maintenance and learning.
• Business assurance: Provided executives with confidence that the £45m programme was ready to progress, backed by structured QA evidence.
Through a disciplined and diplomatic approach, F17 turned a politically fraught and under-prepared programme into a quality-driven success story. Despite late onboarding, leadership turbulence, and reduced business participation, we delivered functional and UAT phases that gave the client the assurance needed to continue global rollout.
At Fortitude 17, we don’t just test systems — we protect investments.