Challenge
The primary challenges faced by Liège Airport included delayed incident resolution, a lack of transparency in service delivery, and difficulties in managing IT operations effectively. The urgency of these challenges was heightened by the airport's strategic goals and the need to comply with new regulatory requirements.
Existing solutions, such as a basic incident management tool, were insufficient to meet the complex demands of airport operations. The IT team struggled to manage incidents and requests efficiently, leading to frustration among staff and stakeholders. The critical nature of these challenges in a NIS2 and growth context, prompted Liège Airport to take action to enhance its IT support capabilities, ensuring that they could meet both operational demands and regulatory standards.
BDO’s Tailored Approach & Solutions
BDO approached the project by conducting a thorough assessment of Liège Airport's IT support maturity. This involved a detailed analysis of existing governance, processes, tools, and personnel capabilities through interviews, workshops, and a review of documentation. We utilised frameworks like COBIT19 and ITIL to provide a structured evaluation and identify gaps in the current IT support model.
Our methodology emphasised close collaboration with the airport's team to ensure that the proposed actions were specifically tailored to their needs. Key aspects of our approach include:
The solutions aligned with the airport's goals by focusing on improving operational efficiency, fostering continuous improvement, and ensuring compliance with regulatory standards.
Impact & Result
Our assessment produced a clear, actionable roadmap that prioritises high‑value interventions to raise Liège Airport’s IT support maturity and reduce operational risk.
Early wins are currently already visible:
Beyond tooling and process updates, the engagement established the foundations for sustained improvement: defined KPIs, a monitoring framework and governance routines. These measures make performance and risk more transparent to executives, improve supplier management, and create the conditions for preventative actions rather than repeated firefighting.
Collectively, these changes are expected to shorten incident resolution times, increase user satisfaction, strengthen compliance with regulatory requirements and lower the total cost of operations over time.
In short, the assessment not only identified problems but also put in place the mechanisms to track progress and adapt the programme as needs evolve. It therefore serves as a practical reference for Liège Airport’s continued transition to more resilient, efficient and well‑governed IT support.
Nicolas Simonnet