

Case Study
How strong leadership focussed on IT can be a vital business enabler
Client
CV-Library
Sector
Recruitment
Project Type
IT Leadership & CIO Advisory
Please note: Kerv Consult was recently rebranded from Monochrome Consultancy when it joined the Kerv Group. This project was delivered at a point when the team was known as Monochrome Consultancy.

The Challenge
One of the country’s first employment websites, CV-Library (CVL) is an award-winning job board that helps companies of all sizes and industries to hire faster, for less
They offer a wealth of recruitment products, including a database of 17 million CVs and a range of job posting options allowing employers and agencies to find permanent, graduate, contract, and freelance candidates through their site.
CVL’s board has a strong desire to push job boards and online recruitment forward. To accomplish this, they have identified a roadmap for new capabilities that they wish to offer to candidates, recruiters, and employers.
Challenge
Support CV-Library to change ways of working, improve their approach to technology selection and perform technical due diligence ahead of a strategic acquisition.
They are looking for:
- An Interim Leadership to act as Chief Technical Officer whilst a new CTO was selected and hired
- A Technical Due Diligence on the offering by a potential acquisition target with the aim of adding new features to the CV Library core service offering to customers.
- Embedding a best practice process for technology selection to enable best value from investments.
- Leadership input into key business projects and promote improved ways of working.
Solution
CV Library acquired Brilliant Jobs and have a clear plan to integrate the Brilliant Jobs functionality into their CV Library and Resume Library offerings.
The leadership team now follow a clear process for selecting the right technology to underpin their business vision.
A new CTO has been selected and is soon to start with a clear handover to expedite onboarding.
Kerv Consult’s work with CV-Library:
- Supported recruitment of several key individuals across the team (EA, Data and CTO roles)
- Developed proposals for new ways of working and new approaches to drive forward the CVL and RL solutions.
- Delivered a Technical Due Diligence process and supporting criteria which the team can use in future.
Result
CV Library can offer new features to its customers, enhancing their already market leading offerings.
Key technology decisions are now made using the new approach with clear justifications and strong business cases.
The Added Value (delivered above scope)
- Supported recruitment of several key individuals across the team (EA, Data and CTO roles)
- Developed proposals for new ways of working and new approaches to drive forward the CVL and RL solutions.
- Delivered a Technical Due Diligence process and supporting criteria which the team can use in future.
The company was founded in 2000 by Lee Biggins and Brian Wakem and within 10 years was one of the Top 10 UK websites.
Since then, Lee has steered the company to develop a range of targeted job sites and has expanded into the US with Resume-Library.
CV-Library (CVL) is also a company headquartered locally to Kerv Consult. Given this, Kerv Consult was invited by CVL’s Chief Executive Officer, Lee Biggins, to support them with IT leadership consultancy as they assessed and ultimately acquired another company.
CVL also asked us to deliver a consultancy style engagement focussed on the following:
- Technology Vendor Process – Delivery of a repeatable technology selection process that allows the business to gain more value from its investments in technology.
- Specific Project Deep Dives – Technology leadership input into:
- A project delivering a solution to allow richer communications with customers of the service, known as Automated Marketing Services
- The technical elements around the Brilliant Jobs Acquisition and Integration.
- We also were asked to provide some high-level observations and recommendations around opportunities for CVL to work more effectively, based on our experiences with other organisations.
- Mobilisation
- We were excited with the chance to work with CVL both given what they do and the fact that they were a successful local business.
We mobilised quickly and integrated well with the CVL management team, though specifically with Lee Biggins (CEO), Matthew Moore (MD) and Nolan Vernon (Operations Director).
We deployed Graeme Buntin as our lead consultant for this engagement and Dan Wright, Kerv Consult’s owner, also worked closely with the team to ensure we hit the ground running.
Whilst the original discussion was around a consultative approach, it became clear that the CVL team and culture is very delivery focussed and the organisational culture is geared towards ‘getting things done’.
This matches closely with the Kerv Consult culture and so we switched from simply making recommendations to acting as part of the team to help drive the outcomes of those recommendations. This shift in focus allowed the combined team to focus on the most critical activities at any given point and led to trust being developed quite quickly between the two organisations.
Delivery
We originally started by meeting with the stakeholders across CVL and came to understand both some of the capabilities and some challenges across the organisation.
We quickly learned that CVL has some incredibly talented people and some strong leaders. However, given how feature reach their platform is, they also have very complex technology which underpins the business.
This meant that the success of the projects which we were assessing would be dependent upon a key enabler, a new approach to integration of new technologies and features into the core solution. The CVL leadership team quickly embraced this observation and have focussed on the integration approach to make future delivery simpler.
We also quickly outlined a new Technology Vendor Process for the business. We then collaborated with CVL to develop this into a repeatable technology selection process, supported by a play book, templates and guidance. The process we delivered was fully tailorable to the complexity of the requirement but included approaches for: Requirement gathering, Business sponsorship, Solution identification, Vendor selection, Business Case and RFI/RFP engagement with suppliers.
The key elements of technology process were also able to be applied to the two key projects that we looked at;
Automated Marketing Services project was early in its lifecycle and so the team identified a business sponsor and worked through requirements, solution option, vendor down select and a business case. This approach took several weeks but allowed the CVL leadership team to consider the through life value and cost of each of the proposed options and so informed the right decision for the company.
The Brilliant Jobs activity was already in flight when we mobilised to join the CVL team. The wider commercial discussions around the potential acquisition had been ongoing, but we were able to support a technical due diligence to ensure that the solution offered by Brilliant Jobs did contain the features on the CVL roadmap. Additionally, this work quickly evolved into integration planning to allow the Brilliant Jobs solution to be implemented into the CVL platform.
We also delivered the recommendations report that was originally requested, and positively, as per CVL culture, the team had already been actioning the recommendations as part of continuous improvement as the ink as drying on the document.
Given that we quickly built trust and were able to act as one team, we could provide support above the core scope in other areas such as:
Recruitment of other IT leaders and team members into CVL. We supported interviews acting as one of the CVL team and in collaboration we were able to find great candidates to fill roles as Enterprise Architect, Head of Data, and a permanent Chief Technology Officer amongst others.
We were able to provide recommendations around the team structure which informed the organisational planning for the IT roles in the company.
We delivered a technical due diligence approach which covered over 200 assessment criteria to determine how mature some software or a platform / solution is. This helps to determine the level of risk around adopting it and is vital given the need for all aspects of the CVL platform to work in unison to provide great service to candidates, employers, and recruiters.
We mobilised an architecture mapping across the organisation which was later driven forward by the EA who was hired.
“We brought in Kerv Consult initially to help us tackle a finite array of challenges, and that has quicklyexpanded across several other focal points within primarily our technology and product areas of the Business, as we realised and experienced their value as a trusted partner.
What I have enjoyed and appreciated most during our journey so far with Kerv Consult, is besides their obvious and impressive repertoire of knowledge, expertise, and experience (all of which we have drawn upon) it’s actually their authentic, grounded, and agile approach no matter the challenge, ambiguity or complexity of the scenario in play, and this is what sets them apart, proving invaluable in helping us to navigate and progress often tough conversations into actions and decisions.”
Nolan Vernon, Operations Director
The Outcome
The key outcome that CVL achieved was that they decided and then went on to acquire Brilliant Jobs. This was the largest acquisition that CVL had ever undertaken and was strategically important for the company.
The CVL leadership team were focused and hugely competent so did a great job with the commercial element of the acquisition, but it was great to know that the decision was underpinned by the technical due diligence and input that we were able to provide.
We have now planned the integration and technical elements of the post-acquisition project and continue to work with the CVL development teams to deliver against this.
CVL is also now in a strong position when assessing new software, services, and technology to be used by the business. CVL built their entire platform themselves and have strong track record when building services and capabilities. However, given the focus on building capability internally, the team had less experience with the ‘buy’ aspects of the ‘make vs buy’ selection so wanted to standardise on a best practice approach. The work that we did allows the leadership team to be confident that a robust process has been followed when procuring new services and technology.
This engagement was highly successful for both CVL and Kerv Consult. In fact, we were commissioned to provide a second stage of activity beyond the conclusion of our initial engagement.
“I initially trialled Kerv Consult for a small digital engagement given they were a local consultancy that could address a specific challenge that we had at the time. We have since grown to trust the team and have agreed several further engagements, continuing to collaborate with them up to today. They have been willing to work and flex with our business and they do truly behave as an extension of our team. Kerv Consult has helped us in key areas, including our recent Brilliant Jobs acquisition and I would happily recommend them.”
The Relationship
Our mission is ‘to become the trusted partner for our customers’ and this is something that we feel that we have made great steps towards accomplishing this with CVL.
We quickly built trust in both directions, and we have very much enjoyed working with such a passionate team.
Dan Wright said
“It is nice to work with a local company which has grown into such a market leader and get to work with such a strong team. I am delighted that we have been able to add value to CV Library and I also enjoy that we at Kerv Consult have been able to learn a lot from the team at CVL during our time working together.”
We have been able to offer CVL flexibility, with us tailoring the amount of consultancy offered to the requirements at each stage as well as quickly focus onto new requests outside of core scope where it adds value for CVL.
Likewise, CVL have been accommodating with our team delivering this as a remote engagement and have always worked to keep us informed as to any changes in their requirements as we have worked together.
Ultimately both organisations have been working towards one common goal which has contributed to the success. We continue to support CV Library with IT Leadership consultancy and likely will until their new CTO is fully onboarded, however we are proud of the part that we played in their successful acquisition of Brilliant Jobs.
To see how we can help your Transformation, or to learn how you can benefit from our approach to ensure your projects are successful get in touch!
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Case Study
How strong leadership focussed on IT can be a vital business enabler
Client
CV-Library
Sector
Recruitment
Project Type
IT Leadership & CIO Advisory
Please note: Kerv Consult was recently rebranded from Monochrome Consultancy when it joined the Kerv Group. This project was delivered at a point when the team was known as Monochrome Consultancy.

The Challenge
One of the country’s first employment websites, CV-Library (CVL) is an award-winning job board that helps companies of all sizes and industries to hire faster, for less
They offer a wealth of recruitment products, including a database of 17 million CVs and a range of job posting options allowing employers and agencies to find permanent, graduate, contract, and freelance candidates through their site.
CVL’s board has a strong desire to push job boards and online recruitment forward. To accomplish this, they have identified a roadmap for new capabilities that they wish to offer to candidates, recruiters, and employers.
Background & Context
During the height of the COVID pandemic, the BHT leadership team made a bold decision to implement a new IT Service Management (ITSM) solution to allow them to better manage the huge spike in demand they were experiencing. They selected ServiceNow as the ITSM tool and commissioned Kerv Consult to manage a one-month implementation project.
Due to the significant pressure the NHS faced, the team rallied together and applied agile best practice to deliver a solution within 3.5 days of the project kick off (not weeks or the full month). This was the fastest deployment of ServiceNow in NHS history.
The solution immediately demonstrated considerable benefit to the team delivering the service.
Due to the success of this, BHT decided to extend ServiceNow to replace their ITSM solution used to manage their entire IT service, not just for the COVID related demand. That decision sparked this project.
Result
CV Library can offer new features to its customers, enhancing their already market leading offerings.
Key technology decisions are now made using the new approach with clear justifications and strong business cases.
The Added Value (delivered above scope)
- Supported recruitment of several key individuals across the team (EA, Data and CTO roles)
- Developed proposals for new ways of working and new approaches to drive forward the CVL and RL solutions.
- Delivered a Technical Due Diligence process and supporting criteria which the team can use in future.
Rather than simply define and build the Service Requests on behalf of the IT team, the project team invested the time to train the IT team to allow them to build their own within the system. The full credit for proposing this approach goes to the BHT Team; it was their suggestion, Kerv Consult and Unifii agilely accommodated the approach. Put into practice; instead of 15 key requests that the project was scoped to deliver, there were 85 built, tested and released, including those from the BHT IT team. The approach had the added benefit of ensuring that future service request items could be added at speed without the need for a project to update the system as the knowledge had been successfully transferred into the Trust.
ServiceNow Director of Transformation, Graham Curran, said: “The project team’s focus on collaboration and communication with users really helped make this such a successful implementation and showed the power of strong business change disciplines” which was an excellent endorsement of the project and the team.
“A great example of team work and agile delivery, this was a fantastic achievement in support of the Trust’s COVID response and has made a big difference in our ability to manage urgent requests from our colleagues across the Trust.”
Result
The clearest benefit is that incidents are resolved, and service requests are fulfilled much faster now that the new solution is in place. This is evidenced by the robust SLAs which were developed and the reporting which was built to measure them. Customers of the IT service were also delighted by the new solution as the first batch of CSAT surveys received indicated.
At the final of the fortnightly Steering Board meetings Neelesh Patel, BHT Service Desk Manager, said:
“This has taken the service forward by years, I would recommend it to any organisation”.
One of the key benefits is that BHT’s customers are now using the self-service portal to raise tickets rather than have to engage by phone. Reducing the number of calls the service team have to manage each day frees up valuable time for ticket enquiries. The customer also sees a significant benefit as the self-service tickets are assigned directly to the appropriate team to resolve those items. The result is that not only do customers save considerable time on the phone, but their tickets are automatically assigned for resolution. The shift from manual to automated assigning of tickets is a significant factor in the speed to resolution of tickets for the customers.
Interestingly, this auto-routing introduced a brand-new challenge to the BHT teams as a very small percentage of tickets are mis-classified by the customers and so are auto-routed to the wrong team. These teams mentioned that in some cases they were unsure which other team to send these tickets to as previously they would have been triaged before arriving with them.
Fortunately, this is actually a positive for the overall service, as teams do not want incorrect tickets in their queues so act quickly. Those incorrectly classified tickets are viewed within minutes of being raised and quickly passed to the Service Desk or another team which ensures that the tickets do not stagnate or age.
FUTURE
Building on the success of this project, BHT have requested that Kerv Consult and Unifii continue to support the Trust to improve their IT service by delivering against the transformation roadmap.
We have discussed a series of agile projects to implement further ITSM capabilities, wider business capabilities and ways of working as we continue to deliver against the longer-term transformation roadmap for the service.
BHT has clear plans to be the best IT team across the NHS and has already demonstrated significant progress towards that goal. Kerv Consult is genuinely excited to continue to be part of the team which will make that a reality.
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Case Study
How strong leadership focussed on IT can be a vital business enabler
Client
CV-Library
Sector
Recruitment
Project Type
IT Leadership & CIO Advisory
Please note: Kerv Consult was recently rebranded from Monochrome Consultancy when it joined the Kerv Group. This project was delivered at a point when the team was known as Monochrome Consultancy.

The Challenge
One of the country’s first employment websites, CV-Library (CVL) is an award-winning job board that helps companies of all sizes and industries to hire faster, for less
They offer a wealth of recruitment products, including a database of 17 million CVs and a range of job posting options allowing employers and agencies to find permanent, graduate, contract, and freelance candidates through their site.
CVL’s board has a strong desire to push job boards and online recruitment forward. To accomplish this, they have identified a roadmap for new capabilities that they wish to offer to candidates, recruiters, and employers.
Challenge
Support CV-Library to change ways of working, improve their approach to technology selection and perform technical due diligence ahead of a strategic acquisition.
They are looking for:
- An Interim Leadership to act as Chief Technical Officer whilst a new CTO was selected and hired
- A Technical Due Diligence on the offering by a potential acquisition target with the aim of adding new features to the CV Library core service offering to customers.
- Embedding a best practice process for technology selection to enable best value from investments.
- Leadership input into key business projects and promote improved ways of working.
Background & Context
The UK fibre broadband market is extremely competitive with numerous ‘alt-nets’ (alternative network companies) spending huge amounts of money rolling out fibre broadband networks to compete in the increasingly crowded UK market.
Around 50 such companies, backed by funds promising billions of pounds, have burst on to the UK scene in recent years pledging to take the fight to Openreach, the networking division of incumbent BT, as well as Virgin Media’s cable network. These alt-nets, who are addressing different sectors of the market in a number of ways, have forced Britain’s broadband upgrade to progress faster than it might have otherwise.
Consumer demand for “gigabit” speed broadband — more than 10 times faster than the average today — is beginning to soar, with the assumption that prices will rise to match.
Lightspeed is setting itself up for success in this busy marketplace with its excellent customer service, high-quality network and local, focused approach helping to differentiate itself from its competitors. Unlike some of their competitors, they are planning for sustainable growth with industry-leading CSAT scores, rather than just focusing on short-term customer volumes.
Global supply chain challenges, particularly those impacting technology industries, have created further risks that need to be properly mitigated.
Lightspeed must continue to balance the need for swift growth and high quality with both customer and investor confidence in order to succeed.
Result
CV Library can offer new features to its customers, enhancing their already market leading offerings.
Key technology decisions are now made using the new approach with clear justifications and strong business cases.
The Added Value (delivered above scope)
- Supported recruitment of several key individuals across the team (EA, Data and CTO roles)
- Developed proposals for new ways of working and new approaches to drive forward the CVL and RL solutions.
- Delivered a Technical Due Diligence process and supporting criteria which the team can use in future.
Rather than simply define and build the Service Requests on behalf of the IT team, the project team invested the time to train the IT team to allow them to build their own within the system. The full credit for proposing this approach goes to the BHT Team; it was their suggestion, Kerv Consult and Unifii agilely accommodated the approach. Put into practice; instead of 15 key requests that the project was scoped to deliver, there were 85 built, tested and released, including those from the BHT IT team. The approach had the added benefit of ensuring that future service request items could be added at speed without the need for a project to update the system as the knowledge had been successfully transferred into the Trust.
ServiceNow Director of Transformation, Graham Curran, said: “The project team’s focus on collaboration and communication with users really helped make this such a successful implementation and showed the power of strong business change disciplines” which was an excellent endorsement of the project and the team.
“A great example of team work and agile delivery, this was a fantastic achievement in support of the Trust’s COVID response and has made a big difference in our ability to manage urgent requests from our colleagues across the Trust.”
Driving Rapid Core Network Rollout Plan
Achieving Milestones
Without a doubt, the key result was that Lightspeed launched their service and achieved the ‘First Customer Connected’ milestone within 7 months of receiving funding. This was delivered at an exceptional pace and, moreover, the level of service has been consistently excellent since it was launched.
Operating at Scale
Kerv Consult brought its specific expertise into play when providing a framework for, and facilitating the development of, operational processes. Whilst these processes and the supporting systems continue to evolve, Kerv Consult helped ensure Lightspeed’s operational scaling stayed safely ahead of the customer demand.
Customer Adoption Soars
The quality of the network, systems and service levels, combined with a best-in-class customer, marketing and sales function, have resulted in an extremely high level of customer adoption, particularly when compared with industry norms.
Modern Hub
Lightspeed now has a fantastic head office in the grade 2-listed Fulney Hall in Spalding. Whilst waiting for the Lightspeed team to grow and reach the stage at which they are able to manage this themselves, Kerv Consult led the mobilisation of this major refurbishment.
Foundation for Growth
Kerv Consult’s close work with Lightspeed has helped ensure that the plans, network, processes, systems, operations, and agile ‘can-do’ culture are now firmly in place to help the business continue to grow and thrive.
COLLABORATION
Kerv Consult both fully acknowledged and shared Lightspeed’s ambition and approach, helping to not only introduce a hybrid ‘Wagile’ (a mix of waterfall and agile) way of working, but also to embed a positive, fast-paced, empowered culture. Collaborating with customers is one of Kerv Consult’s great strengths and this was especially evident throughout our work with Lightspeed.
The ongoing collaboration with Kerv Consult has ensured that the ever-growing Lightspeed team has been able to focus on the key activities required to build a robust and scalable business.
FUTURE
We have been extremely fortunate to work with a team as strong and forward-thinking as Lightspeed, and we look forward to continuing our successful relationship into 2022 and beyond.
To see how we can help your Transformation, or to learn how you can benefit from our approach to ensure your projects are successful get in touch!
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