Recovery: Fixing Failed Digital Programmes

Recovery is TBSCG's service for digital estates and programmes that have gone wrong. The buyer profile is specific: an executive sponsor who is responsible for a digital programme that has stalled, missed its critical dates, or failed outright; an internal team that is no longer confident in the original supplier; a procurement function that needs to recover value from a substantial investment without restarting the procurement cycle.

Common buyer situations include: a migration that has launched but never stabilised; a transformation programme that has slipped beyond credibility; a managed service provider whose performance has degraded below the operational threshold; a previous supplier that has gone into administration, been acquired, or otherwise become unavailable. In each case, the underlying programme has real value buried in it. Recovery is built to find that value and carry it forward.

The market's default response to a failed digital programme is a re-tender. The original supplier is dismissed, the failed work is treated as sunk cost, and a new procurement runs for six to twelve months before any new work begins. The cost is double: the failed investment is written off, and the recovery starts from zero.

Recovery is built to break this pattern. The diagnostic in stage 1 establishes what is salvageable from the existing programme: which technical work is sound, which content and assets can be carried forward, which integrations are functional, which team members are worth retaining. The engagement in stage 2 carries the salvageable work forward and replaces only what genuinely needs to be replaced.

For the executive sponsor, the difference is between delivery in months and a fresh procurement in years. For the procurement team, the difference is between writing off the original investment and recovering meaningful value from it.

Stage 1: Recovery Diagnostic. Two to four weeks. Structured assessment of the failed programme covering: technical estate audit, contractual position with the original supplier, internal team capability assessment, salvageability mapping, and realistic path to operational stability. Stage 1 is fixed-price and produces an evidenced report the executive sponsor can use to brief the board. Stage 1 can be commissioned as a standalone diagnostic without committing to stage 2.

Stage 2: Recovery Engagement. The remediation work itself, scoped against the stage 1 diagnostic. Fixed-scope and fixed-price where the recovery shape allows; phased and milestone-priced where the work is more uncertain. Named senior engineers on the work. The engagement is structured to deliver operational stability as the primary outcome, with documented handover so the in-house team can run the recovered platform without TBSCG.

A working programme delivered from a failed starting point. Documented diagnosis of what went wrong and what was salvaged. A retired or restructured relationship with the original supplier where required. An in-house team trained on the recovered platform. A board-readable record of the recovery that establishes value retention against the original investment.

AWS Advanced Consulting Partner. Magnolia Gold Partner. Certified across Contentful, Contentstack, Cloudinary, and commercetools. The multi-platform certification matters here because Recovery engagements rarely match the platform an incumbent partner is built on. TBSCG can take on recovery work across the modern DXP ecosystem rather than only on the platforms it has commercial partnerships with.

Twenty years of enterprise digital work for FS&I, retail, manufacturing, and global brand clients. Senior engineers on bench with platform-archaeology expertise: reading what previous teams did, identifying what is sound and what is not, and making structural calls about salvage versus replace.

The brand position: the endpoint of the engagement is your team running the recovered platform without us. Recovery exists to get the programme to that endpoint after a previous supplier failed to.

DXP Value Assessment for Financial Services as the diagnostic for buyers whose programme is not yet in failure but is heading that way. Advisory for senior counsel on whether a recovery is the right shape, or whether a fresh start is unavoidable. Grove for long-form engineering partnership after Recovery has delivered operational stability. Canopy for ongoing managed support of the recovered estate.