As one of southern Africa’s leading paper and plastic packaging manufacturers, Mpact has embarked on a long-term journey to streamline and mature its project delivery capabilities. With over a decade of using Project Portfolio Office’s scalable, cloud-based portfolio and project management tool, PPO, Mpact’s ICT team has transformed the way it manages strategic projects across multiple different business units, embracing project portfolio management as a core discipline.

Consolidating visibility across a growing portfolio

According to Zakiyya Cassimjee, a ICT Governance, Risk and Cybersecurity Manager at Mpact, PPO has become the ‘single source of truth’ for project delivery, resource management and strategic portfolio oversight. 

“PPO gives us one place where we can track, manage and communicate around our project portfolio management activities. We use it for everything, from steering committee reporting to resource allocation and portfolio demand planning,” she says.

Over the past year alone, Mpact has significantly increased the scale and maturity of its project portfolio. The execution portfolio has nearly doubled, attributed as being a direct result of improved demand prioritisation and better resource visibility enabled by PPO’s project portfolio management functionality.

“We’ve been able to streamline our demand pipeline, increase team capacity and activate many more strategic projects. PPO has also helped to identify and close delivery gaps, and improve architectural clarity, by cleaning up older or misclassified projects.”

Managing resources with precision

In addition, Mpact’s ICT resource management side has seen notable improvements, with PPO enabling real-time visibility into team allocations.

“With PPO’s filters and dashboards, we can quickly see what’s planned across the project management office (PMO) and where we need to reallocate resources. As long as the data is kept up to date - which we now do consistently every Friday - PPO gives us a reliable view into resource planning,” Cassimjee notes.

Mpact's ICT team, including systems analysts, business analysts, testers, and project managers, is actively using PPO. One development team is already fully integrated, and there are plans to onboard additional groups—such as the ERP development unit—following an internal restructure.

Tangible results: time, efficiency, transparency and governance gains

Today, PPO supports all strategic projects at Mpact, including those related to its digital transformation portfolio. However, Cassimjee notes the importance of clear project classification to avoid cluttering the portfolio with operational tasks or minor change requests.

“One important lesson we’ve learned is that not everything is a strategic project. PPO helps us maintain that governance by filtering and categorising what truly belongs in the portfolio. That visibility drives better decisions and ensures executive alignment.”

One of the standout benefits of Mpact’s project portfolio management approach with PPO is the dramatic reduction in time spent on reporting and governance.

“Previously, preparing for steering committee meetings was a manual, time-consuming process that took two to four hours per session. Now, I can present directly from PPO at the click of a button. We’re talking about an astonishing 90 percent time saving,” Cassimjee confirms.

Mpact holds around nine monthly steering committee sessions, one for each business division, making this time saving particularly significant.

PPO’s reporting has given Mpact improved visibility into project outcomes, she continues. “In 2023, we managed to activate and complete 10 projects, whereas in 2024, 31 projects were activated and 27 were completed, which was already a major improvement. This year, we’re on track to exceed that. Just five months into 2025, 21 projects have already been activated, with five completed. PPO has been instrumental in improving the project lifecycle, and giving us transparency and control over what to prioritise.”

PPO has also helped Mpact recognise when to cancel or reject non-viable projects; another key advantage of an effective project portfolio management approach. In 2024 alone, 27 projects were cancelled, many of which were duplicates or non-strategic in nature.

“Mpact has made considerable progress over the past 10 years, when initially the business faced several challenges in managing its ICT projects, including the absence of standardised processes, limited visibility into ongoing projects and a lack of structured governance,” explains Guy Jelley, CEO and co-founder of Project Portfolio Office. “We’re pleased to advise that the organisation has reached an impressive governance compliance score of 88 percent for active ICT projects, as well as an 85 percent data quality score, which is also a significant improvement. 

“Mpact is an excellent example of how, by properly leveraging a project portfolio management tool like PPO that can provide visibility across the full portfolio, PMOs are able to gain this level of governance and clarity.”

Future plans

With PPO at the core of its project portfolio management strategy, Mpact is delivering more ICT projects, faster and more effectively, while maintaining transparency and control. Moving forward, the organisation is considering expanding its use of PPO to other areas within the business, such as its industrial projects. 

“We’re already see other business users starting to engage with the project and portfolio management tool, and I believe this functionality will play a key role in driving both the growth of the business and the maturity of our project management capability,” Cassimjee