Leading CIOs

CIOs seeking innovation bring work back to the UK

Mark Chillingworth — Mon, 21 May 2012 14:40:51 GMT

Given the amount of woe surrounding the world economy at present there are some that are surprised by the positivity within the Harvey Nash 2012 CIO Survey. At last week's London launch event, discussion revealed there is concrete to this positive outlook - demand.

The Harvey Nash survey headline focused on the need for organisations to move their technology strategy towards growth. With customer and worker demand for greater mobility CIOs across the world are being given greater budgets and told to shift their focus away from cost cuts to innovation, especially in mobile.

CEOs demand CIO prepare for growth and mobility

Some key discussion points came out from the launch event for the survey: skills, mobility, the economy, gender, insourcing and strategy. So let's take a look at each of these and what was discussed.

Lead panel speaker was Marks and Spencer CIO Darrell Stein. A passionate speaker Stein exhibited his usual no nonsense approach, telling attending CIOs: "You have to believe you can fix the skills gap & go & do it. No reason why we can't do it".

Challenged by BBC CIO Tiffany Hall that the IT curriculum is too dull to encourage kids to be interested in IT, Stein agreed, but also demanded everyone rise to the challenge.

"There are too many reasons why we can't, just do it. That is right [curriculum], but there are not the barriers, just do it," Stein said. Marks & Spencer under Stein has created IT graduate recruitment positions, as have rival retailers and banking groups.

On a related topic, Stein's plans to in-house parts of his IT operations back from India to the UK. A team of 50 developers are being put together at Stein's office to speed up innovation, which in turn is in response to the economy speeding up, the CIO told the audience. Going by Twitter activity it was a thought provoking announcement to many attendees, but something we hear often at CIO UK.

"It is very difficult to get innovation and the costs are harder to find with Indian inflation, speed and partnership are the big issues. Unit cost may be higher in the UK, but ultimately" explained Stein, before adding that parts of his supply chain operations are also coming back in-house.

Victoria Davison, Marsh insurance group COO agreed, saying in her observations the wage arbitrage of India still exists, but not to the level it was and she too believes that innovation is the main reason to bring work back to the UK.

Mobility is cited by the Harvey Nash survey as the engine of rapid change and the CIOs on the panel agreed.

William Payne, CIO with waste and recycling provider Veolia backed the move to onshore and in-house: "For UK plc there is an opportunity to build some good quality outsource operation that is offered to other organisations and markets."

M&S CIO Stein said he is "seeing challenges from staff as a result of what they can do on the iPhone."

Group M CIO John Donnarumma quipped, "Who thought a search engine & hardware firm with a piece of fruit on it would own mobile space?" He went on to admit consumerisation is a "pressure point" for the advertising company CIO. But as ever, a pressure point is an opportunity for CIOs.

"The business wants us to lead and organise on consumerisation and on governance," Donnarumma said.

The panel and all attendees via an instant poll agreed the smartphone is the technology that can deliver growth. Response to tablet devices was tepid.

In-house strategies and mobility put a positive note on the evening, but no CIO speaking or attending avoided the reality of the world economy.

Stein used the demise of the Clinton Cards chain last week to outline how hard the high street is for retailers. Payne added it's been a tough couple of years for Veolia, telling the audience that his company sees what does and doesn't go in the waste bins and thus providing a view of the economy.

Payne and his organisation though have used situation to their benefit.

"Local authority austerity is an opportunity for Veolia, they are opening the door to new ideas," he said. "Existing customers have never been as important as they are now."

For the 2012 survey Harvey Nash analysed the state of women in IT and women CIOs, as CIO reported. Davison of Marsh when questioned on the problem suggested that organisations needed to consider women from outside of IT to take up IT leadership roles. This agrees with the findings of the survey that showed women's communications and soft skills are required by organisations.

"The CIO is a business person, they understand operation pressure of the business, it is not the domain of network guys," Payne said of CIOs not needing to be major technology experts. "By understanding the pain you open the door to be involved in strategy".

Harvey Nash will of course call for CIOs to be positive, invest, and recruit, it's good for their business, but to have a panel of CIOs tell the audience of CIOs under lined the gradual move to investment that is taking place. Of most interest to me as an Editor was to hear the clamour increase around the debate for better training, more jobs and more local development and intellectual property taking place.

These things take time, but it will be interesting to see how the CIO community responds to the 2013 CIO Survey.

Mayors could lead local transformation

Mark Chillingworth — Thu, 03 May 2012 10:25:05 GMT

Many parts of the UK go to the polls today to vote on councillors, who will be mayor of London and whether cities across the country will follow London and opt for a mayor. Coventry, Liverpool and Salford are just some of the cities considering their mayoral future.

I hope the cities considering a mayor opt in favour. I have no real political leaning, I don't live in London, but do work most of my week in the capital and from what I see it's been a beneficial development for the capital. It took a mayor to bring in congestion charging and the policy was without a doubt the most significant policy a mayor could have introduced; improving all levels of transport in the capital.

But less about London, which dominates the news too much. Every region of the UK is mired in multiple levels of bureaucracy that is frustrating for residents, employers, visitors and those working within it. County, borough, district or unitary, the end result is that there is a constant confusion about who in authority is responsible for what. Who do you inform over potholes, litter or share an idea with for your street, town, village or city? This spaghetti junction of authority creates a stasis at the very juncture in our national history when we need decisiveness. The financial downturn following the banking failures and the widespread change going through society led by technology is putting immense pressure on failing high streets, infrastructure, education and communities.

CIOs and IT leaders at all levels of local authority have shared with me off the record that as a country we cannot continue to support so many tiers of authority, especially when financial resources are so low and the need for results so imperative. These same IT leaders are desperate to transform the local services their authorities offer through technology driven delivery and organisational efficiencies. But they can only transform so much before the need for full organisational transformation is required and that's what today's vote must begin.

Local government today is closer to Charles Dickens' Circumlocution Office of Little Dorrit and needs to transform itself into the Richard Hannay of the 39 Steps, bold and decisive. Just with a little less of the public school bravado that Hannay and our PM exhibit.

A mayor for our cities, and hopefully in the fullness of time our counties, will create a single point of contact, complaint and accountability. Whether it's those potholes, litter, traffic, planning or an idea, a central leader and office will simplify accountability and reduce the layers of confusion. I don't doubt there is justified fear that a mayor will be overtly politicised and potentially open to corruption. Recent history has reminded us of this with the MP expenses scandal. But the current system is not immune to corruption as some parts of the country can attest to.

In my own local authority, a tiny borough on the North Downs, the council has two major office buildings while a civic building of real beauty and pride to the town moulders unused. County council has a fine and large civic building and lord knows how many other sites. Mayors could put some pride back into our civic buildings, streamline operations, transform service delivery and enable technology leaders to drive through the promise IT has for local services.

Building on infrastructure

Mark Chillingworth — Tue, 24 Apr 2012 08:10:02 GMT

CIOs and organisations are on the lookout for infrastructure experts, according to Kevin Sealy at recruitment experts Korn/Ferry. Sealey and colleague Bob Concannon have been studying the trend and Sealy and I discussed it recently.

Their argument (see here) that there is a new appetite for infrastructure adds up as although budgets are not exactly over-flowing, organisations are aware that they need to exploit the changing technology landscape that consumer devices and cloud computing offer customers and workers alike.

But for organisations to exploit, but not fall into traps, requires some top end thinking and involvement by the CIO and their teams. As Albert Hitchcock, group CIO at Vodafone recently told this title:

"We have a strong need to protect customer data. I see over time a virtualised image of enterprise applications on consumer devices...but that is at least 18 to 24 months away and it will depend on the cloud environment in your organisation."

Sealy concurs in his note, adding that virtualisation has only recently matured and that cloud is growing into an alternative to outsourcing.

CIOs in a wide variety of organisations are deploying private cloud to increase the agility of their organisations, whether they are government or energy providers. This will and is challenging outsourcing.

Sealy and Concannon state in their note that infrastructure leaders will need to have strong business skills as well as technology, which is of course the same course the CIO career has followed in the last eight years.

So if infrastructure is rising up the agenda, poses two questions to CIOs. Firstly if you have a good infrastructure team you are going to need to retain them and there's some business challenges around that at present. Secondly, if you don't have the right team, you'll need to develop or recruit the required skills.

Unlock code and benefits can follow

Mark Chillingworth — Fri, 23 Mar 2012 12:02:39 GMT

There can be nothing worse for an organisation or CIO to be told that at Euro20 million project could have been done for Euro20 milion, but this is a real example shared with me earlier this week by the Software Improvement Group (SIG).

With technology ubiquitous and senior management and shareholders becoming ever aware of the business difference, and therefore costs, technology offers an organisation; the spotlight has never been more intense. Cloud computing has only served to focus the attention on technology costs. As the CIO you carry the can and have to face down any criticism.

Yet enterprise technology is bereft of credible cost benchmarks. In fact enterprise IT is up there with car ownership for being totally devoid of any clear cost measures, the only thing that seems certain is that it will cost more than you expect.

As in my last blog post, there is a growing reality coming to the cloud computing debate that it will not rip and replace acres of legacy technology in your estate and the much vaunted paradigm shift is in reality an additional business option. CIOs have considerable legacy systems or recent technology implementations that can still deliver major ROI and improve business processes. To extract the inherent value means improving the operations of this legacy. Francesco de Marchis, CIO at Play.com did just this in 2011, going back to the base code of his organisations systems and refining the code to take it from being operational to exceptional. The result was a major improvement in reliability, performance and a happier team that could focus on innovation rather than fire-fighting breakdowns.

The bulk of Play.com code is in-house and it's probably easier for all of us to be critical and brutal with something self-built, while something you've spent considerable sums on with outside providers can be harder to criticise, not that in-house development is without its costs.

Code quality checking isn't just a retrospective action CIOs should follow. The CIO at the Port of Rotterdam, Europe's busiest port took the bold decision to develop a new harbour management system in-house. As a future profile of Lourens Visser, Port of Rotterdam CIO will detail, the complexity of a harbour management system and the wide number of stakeholders made the case for developing the system in-house. Visser used SIG throughout the development process to code check and test. The result is a harbour management system project that was on time, on budget and is now being sold as a technology to other port operators.

SIG have a passion for software, this is not a group of auditors determined to pick holes in every decision a CIO has made. Dr Floris van de Broek shares the same energetic passion for technology exhibited by CIOs and he can't fathom why software hasn't kept pace with Moore's Law and delivered increases in productivity and efficiency.

From my conversation with van de Broek I get the feeling he believes it's not technology at fault, but the attitude of those that implement, which is often about throwing increasing staff numbers at a problem rather than skills. Listening to him I kept thinking of Russian Tsars using the sheer population size to overcome invading enemies.

"An audit should not be the compelling event," he told me. "Giving feedback in real time on how to develop better," is what he and his team aspire to. SIG has put the cat amongst the pigeons in Denmark with a critical analysis of the taxation authorities systems that were delivered by CSC. SIG is academic in its approach and has benchmarks for the cost of 6000 systems ranging from ERP to mortgage processing systems.

At CIO we believe in transparency and as the Editor I believe it can only be good for whole industry, CIOs and vendors. As a result SIG will be joining our roster of opinion formers on CIO and will provide more insights than a mere writer can on how we can all strive for greater transparency.

Private cloud computing is just a component CIOs say

Mark Chillingworth — Wed, 21 Mar 2012 14:05:33 GMT

A recent CIO UK roundtable discussed the principals of private cloud computing in the enterprise and revealed that private cloud computing is widely seen as a component of the overall IT infrastructure CIOs are and will be operating in the near future.

CIOs representing the engineering world, sport, education, insurance, construction, telecommunications, local and national government discussed the private cloud computing they are using, what they are investigating and where private cloud computing will not become part of their organisation.

Three key points that the CIOs raised that stood out to me follow. Organisations need to analyse their application portfolio and be ruthless. One speaker shared their experiences of a major logistics provider who decided to assess their IT estate on the principals of:

What applications we care about
What applications are core to our unique business
What applications are generic to all organisations

The key discussion of the night was that private cloud fits into the organisation not necessarily as a wholesale replacement of legacy applications and business processes, but as a part of a process. Using the private cloud for parts of complex processes and transactions will still deliver significant benefits to the organisation.

A CIO used the example of a customer following an ecommerce transaction with a retailer. The customer will, during the process, actually move across different applications, secure hosted transaction services, logistics, catalogue sites and search engines. The user is rarely aware or cares that they are shifting from application to application, hosted or non-hosted; the experience always feels the same. This CIO believes that the principals of private cloud computing will be integrated into complex business processes in much the same way to increase organisational efficiency, reduce the number of applications organisations support and improve user experience.

He described the CIO's role in this new model as that of orchestration of services.

The role of the CIO and the IT department in a private cloud environment was raised and more than one attendee saw the CIO and department begin to reflect the same business model as an HR department. Just as HR no longer carries out the provision of staff, but does provide the governance, CIOs will follow the same course, allowing self-provision of technology, but ensuring corporate governance.

On the matter of costs, widely held to be the biggest advantage cloud computing offers, more than one CIO pointed out that the cost benefits are not always easily identified and realised.

The over-riding theme that became apparent from the discussion was that elements and principals of cloud computing will and is becoming prevalent in the enterprise architecture of organisations. Despite the hype from analysts and certain parts of the technology community that make brash claims that organisations will need to wholesale shift their technology to the cloud and rid themselves of IT departments and legacy applications, the truth is very different. All present faced regulatory pressures, some sectors are more stringent than others. The return on investment of existing legacy technology is a significant factor in CIO decision making and organisations are just too complex to be served purely by cloud technology.

Private cloud is another useful technology component to enable efficient business. CIOs are using private cloud and will continue to do so where it delivers business benefits.

CIO role at no risk in information led future

Fri, 09 Mar 2012 10:17:48 GMT

Another month another vendor sponsored report claiming that the CIO role will disappear within five years. Considering the acronym means information technology it has never ceased to amaze me how few IT commentators focus on the information.

CIO again is another acronym concerning information and true enough there are those in the role that carry the badge but are not information driven. The CIO role will not and cannot die out in the next five years. We have lived in an information rich society for decades and the next few will see information richness deepen.

CIOs at organisations in markets such as finance, government, travel and manufacturing are creating business value and competitive advantage for their organisations through delivering information services. A single customer view that understands the multiple ways a customer interacts with an organisation in today's multi-channel environment is a complex information and technology task that uses the best skills of the best CIOs, not the governance and spending restriction skills of a CFO. Competition increases year on year and information enables real time decision making to win custom that could be lost. Retailers, manufacturers and telcos are already pioneering this, led by their CIOs.

Information levels will increase with machine-to-machine and SIM automation, big data won't be a future challenge, it will be the norm. With increased information levels comes the need for greater control to protect your vital customers and their data. Consumerisation, cloud computing and new regulations place the onus on good information management, not cost management.

A vendor argues in Julian Goldsmith's CIO blog that the CFO has a better understanding of business issues than a CIO. If this is the case, then the organisation has the wrong CIO. Albert Hitchcock and David Wall in this issue are key to the operations of their organisations. This criticism may be true of many IT managers, but the CIO title demands the need to be business centric.

The vendor community would be better placed to look at reshaping its business models away from licences and sales to a service model, rather than throwing stones at the CIO's glasshouse.

Cloud computing models are undoubtedly reshaping the provision of IT and in doing so they are creating a business demand for CIOs to ensure organisations seize the opportunities presented to them by one of their greatest assets - information.

100 and growing

Thu, 23 Feb 2012 10:00:45 GMT

In parallel with this issue we are re-launching the CIO 100 - available at www.cio.co.uk/cio100 - and it is with great pleasure I can announce that the top five CIOs in the 100. They are: Trevor Didcock of easyJet, Myron Hyrcyk of Severn Trent Water; Jane Moran at Thomson Reuters; Darrell Stein at Marks & Spencer and Mark Leonard at Colt.

Why were these CIOs chosen? Yes they have been on the cover and featured widely in CIO magazine, but there is a reason for this, they are the CIOs with a bold transformative story to tell. They all have board level influence and have put the CIO role and technology at the heart of what these organisations achieve. These organisations are demonstrating what a difference technology can make to their customers, workers, leaders and partners when faced with difficulties, change or opportunity. Severn Trent Water, Marks and Spencer and Colt arguably face tough challenges, whether regulatory, economic or technology changing usage. Thomson Reuters has undergone a massive merger and easyJet, our number one, has turned a business sector on its head largely through technology usage.

How were these CIOs chosen? In previous eras CIOs have been judged by the size of their estate, the budget available to them or the size of the organisation. In 2012 I believe this to be a completely unsatisfactory judgement on the benefits technology and CIOs offer organisations. We believe CIOs are the engines for business transformation.

This new CIO 100 is intended as a benchmark for all CIOs. The top 20 are what the CIO panel of experts believe to be the foremost transformative CIOs in the British economy over the last 12 months. I hope the CIO community will embrace this benchmark to see how the leaders not only transform their organisations but how they communicate transformation and operate or influence at board level.

The CIO 100 is completely subjective and we welcome open discussion and look forward to debating its existing ranking and your thoughts for the next CIO 100. Personally I expect that from this transformation onward the ranking will change radically with each year as the economy changes and different sectors grow or react to the environment they operate in.

Lastly I would like to thank all involved in the CIO 100.

Why transformation matters to me

Thu, 16 Feb 2012 10:52:44 GMT

The new CIO 100 is judged on the transformation agenda that the leading CIOs in the UK exhibit. Along with the judging panel that analysed the finalists we all felt that transformation was the most important aspect of a CIO's role in any organisation.

As I've said elsewhere on the CIO and CIO 100 titles judging CIOs by the size of estate, budget or organisational weight just has no reflection on the world we live in. And I don't just mean the world of being a CIO, but the world of being a customer, user, employee and leader.

As a country boy through and through who spends too much time riding mountain bikes up hills, down dale and through every wood I can find I see the damage to our environment that has been and is taking place.

As a father of two I worry about the long term impact of this downturn and what it will do to the standards of education and healthcare on offer in Britain and of course the long term employment prospects for my girls.

As the Editor in Chief of CIO UK though I am filled with hope because I really believe technology and in particular the internet is another example of how mankind can use its ingenuity to tackle the above problems we face. In this role I also know that CIOs are at the forefront of enabling organisations to adapt to these challenges. This is why we have re-modelled the approach of the CIO 100 to reflect the growing importance of the transformation role of CIOs.

The leaders in this year's CIO 100 are tackling these concerns of mine and the wider world. Ensuring a utility company survives a dramatic set-back and rejuvenating it and then improving processes so that its costs and impacts are lower is exactly the transformative approach I believe in.

In this depressed economy and even further depressed daily headlines easyJet shows that the British economy is still populated with entrepreneurial leaders and teams that can take on established markets. Our position in global markets may sound diminished, but organisations like Thomson Reuters and JP Morgan invest in this country for very good reasons and are leading their technology transformations from our shores.

Our retail sector has been clobbered by the downturn, but the zeal to re-invent demonstrated by Marks & Spencer, John Lewis, Tesco and pure online retailers is an exciting epoch in retail's history. Online retail can potentially reduce the impact of consumerism at certain points of the chain and the challenge now is for policy makers to reflect this in the way they deal with the nation's high streets.

The scale of the task facing CIOs and all of us is without doubt daunting, but if CIOs grasp the transformation agenda the opportunities for our organisations and wider society are endless. This is why I believe in transformation.

The CIO 100 transforms

Thu, 16 Feb 2012 10:21:53 GMT

The CIO 100 for 2012 has just gone live on this title and like the CIO's in it a major transformation has taken place in the way it operates.

The key word is transformation. The editorial team of CIO UK believe that organisations will need to embrace transformation of they are to have a place in the 2012 economy and beyond. If organisations want to transform and survive they will need to ensure they take advantage of every opportunity technology offers them.

Therefore they will need CIOs who are, in the words of our number one CIO Trevor Didcock at easyJet, "change junkies".

In the latest CIO 100 the top 20 all exhibit a strong transformational agenda in their recent track record some have already been snapped up by rival organisations as a result. The top 20 and into the leading 30 CIOs have influence with the board, executive or change committees in their organisations. From interviewing many of them, I know that they thrive on this ability to advice, influence and enable organisations to be better through technology. From the leading 30 to the 100th listing the editorial team has assessed CIOs on their responses to our questionnaires on how transformational they have been and their future plans.

The aim of this listing is to be a benchmark for the CIO community. I know of one CIO who features in this listing who attended our CIO Summit last November and from the presentations by their peers went back to their organisation and requested a seat at influential meetings and committees. The organisation gladly welcomed them.

I hope that all in the CIO 100 and those who were not able to commit entries will use it to assess the transformation projects, board level influence, business, technology, leadership and communication skills the leaders clearly have.

Which brings me to thank all whose involvement has created this new CIO 100; a big thank you must go to Zoe Dowsett, an intern who spent last summer with the CIO team researching and calling the vast majority of those featured in it. For someone so young she showed great professionalism and nascent skills as a journalist to openly ask questions and learn. I must thank everyone on the CIO editorial team. Those on the judging panel who take the time to write for CIO alongside their busy business and CIO commitments. Back at the CIO title HQ I must thank Rhys Lewis and Julian Goldsmith for their constant professionalism that allowed me to focus my efforts transforming the CIO 100. Also back at HQ Adrian Black and Adam Dougal for quickly adapting the website structure to reflect the new CIO 100. And last, but no means least thank you to the CIOs in the CIO 100, without your participation there would be no debate on the role of transformation and no CIO 100.

Outsourcing a key part of transformation for CIOs

Thu, 19 Jan 2012 15:03:24 GMT

CIO UK has been championing the cause of the CIO as the transformation leader in organisations. Throughout 2011 our cover story leaders were those that are transforming organisations whether it be Visa, BAA, the Met, retailers Boots and M&S, airline easyJet, national governments or global information providers. We will be following the same transformative zeal in 2012 and as our first issue of the year runs through the presses I can tell you that January cover star Dave Ubachs at consumer goods manufacturer Proctor & Gamble is just the sort of transformer we believe the CIO world can offer the business community.

For a CIO to be a transformer in the organisation means that they need to use all aspects of their remit to deliver transformation. That of course includes technology, but also business processes, leadership and also outsourcing.

Outourcing has been considered by many in the business world - CIOs included - as a cost cutting operation. True enough, but talk to those CIOs really making the most of outsourcing and you'll see it has more to offer.

Earlier this week I chaired a debate at the International Association of Outsourcing Professionals (IAOP) local meeting and what struck me listening to the professionals from the outsourcing world and our CIO sphere is that outsourcing and outsourcers really want to get involved in transformation. For that to happen CIOs will need to be transformative and they will need to see outsourcing as part of their transformation arsenal.

Speaking at the IAOP chapter meeting Leslie Willcocks, Professor of Technology Work and Globalisation at the London School of Economics said, "Transformational leaders make a real difference," when they are on the client side, but he added that strong transformational leaders are needed at the client and the outsource service provider to deliver real outcomes. He added that typically the outsourcing relationships that deliver transformation take an already good performance and turn it into a great performance.

A number of speakers as well as those posing and answering questions suggested the same thing transformation needs leadership and outsource service providers have to be considered as part of that offering.

And outsourcing doesn't necessarily mean our desire to see more opportunities for kids in UK IT is a false hope. We are at an early age of the technology world and as more and more emerging markets see the opportunities the internet and computing offers the more work there will be and the need for a more diverse technology community from which CIOs can source from.

Mike Altendorf, Tony Westbrook and myself have been saying in recent issues of CIO, the UK economy needs more technologists and we need to start at the very beginning to encourage kids to take an interest in just what technology can do.

In 2012 the device is no longer the crucial discussion for CIOs

Wed, 11 Jan 2012 14:51:06 GMT

"Oh you haven't upgraded to an iPhone 4" sneered the oily type with a constant false smile on seeing my Smartphone. It's a typical reaction from those who have not yet or may never discover the beauty and power of information and are instead still in the dark ages of device love.

In 2012 the device is no longer the crucial discussion for CIOs. Technology is commonplace, high speed broadband increasing towards ubiquity, while workers and customers are highly experienced technology users. As a result having the newest or most powerful technology in your pocket, datacentre, office or factory floor matters little.

What the internet and the generations that have grown up with it has created is a global culture from the wealthiest to the least paid strata that truly understand the power of information. Today workers and customers are well aware that the information they require is available, the technology they use to access that information is of no importance other than they expect to be able to access that information through the device format they have to hand, be it mobile, desktop, games console or television set. The only challenge to them is they may not know where that information resides and will therefore have to conduct a search.

Access to information has to be a pleasant journey for the customer and workforce. Thus as we will see, for CIOs those old debates about making sure the technology strategy is aligned to the business strategy are losing their value. Today the CIO's role in the organisation is to ensure that the organisation's information is managed and further utilised to the benefit of the organisation.

Mark Leonard, CIO for pan-European IT and telecommunications services provider COLT at the beginning of a major strategy overhaul at COLT said to the organisation's staff that their experience of technology at home is probably better than their work IT experience. Leonard added that this is a typical scenario in major organisations with large IT architectures.

Leonard challenged the status quo at COLT and introduced a Bring Your Own Device strategy with organisational applications delivered over an internal cloud. As a result requesting and delivery of applications is through a self-service module.

The vast majority of CIO's I have interviewed across Great Britain talk of online retailer Amazon as one of their inspirations. Retail CIOs are of course locked in a head to head battle with Amazon, but CIOs in the public sector, manufacturing, utilities and finance all cite Amazon for its usability, recommendations, information sharing, reliability and probably most importantly in this difficult economy its customer retention.

CIOs and their C-level peers that understand the value of information are enabling their organisations to flourish. Remaining with retail, the last decade has seen UK supermarket chain Tesco become a global phenomena. An understanding of information has enabled Tesco to overtake its national rivals such as Sainsbury's and Morrisons and join the global retail ranks of Walmart and Ikea. Former CEO Terry Leahy guided a management team that worked with information specialists Dunhumby to collect through loyalty cards mass levels of information that have subsequently been used to hone the retail experience, expand the business and even put Tesco in a strong position to influence products produced and then sold through its outlets.

Tesco have sought and promoted CIOs with a passion for the value of information. Richard Sykes, added that information and its access through technology are so entwined in business life that the board need to discuss this topic at every meeting. He had some board level experience with electronics manufacturer Toshiba where these topics were discussed. Yet at the ICI board meetings only the share price was ever discussed. Today ICI is no longer in business, while Toshiba remains a strong player in its market.

For many CIOs understanding information rather than technology will require a significant mindset change. But the opportunity for CIOs is significant. In the modern digital economy organisations are awash with information and as the value of trades has decreased, but the number of trades has increased the CIO is the business leader to ensure the information is correctly gathered, managed, analysed and distributed. CIOs in the music industry, major investment banks like JP Morgan, retail, government and finance are all tackling this growth in data and data resources. Organisations that only collect information and fail to react on it will be surpassed by rivals that understand information.

Technology will remain a core competence and responsibility for CIOs and for the above information value role to be achieved CIOs must deliver a reliable IT service to workers and customers. By delivering a faultless service the CIO can move up the value chain of the organisation and work with the organisation to uncover new opportunities through information.

The CIO Executive Council has conducted significant research that demonstrates that too many CIOs spend expend their efforts on maintenance of existing technology stacks.

Recent technology developments free the CIO up to move up the value chain. Gwyn Thomas, CIO for Wales says there is technology for every scenario; the most important thing is setting out the business case for its usage. The need for bespoke technology and customisation is fast fading. Jane Moran, CIO for global information provider Thomson Reuters says it is her strategy to only buy off the shelf technology and where possible to move to cloud based technologies. Thomson Reuters has standardised on SAP and put all of its HR operations around the world in the cloud.

By being the catalyst for information, the CIO will never again be accused of being non-aligned.

2011, the editor's year

Wed, 04 Jan 2012 12:36:07 GMT

So 2011 is behind us and for many it was a tough year. A while back I heard an economist, but sadly can't remember his name, on Radio 4 predict that 2011 will be a bad year for the economy and his justification for it was that there were no distractions from the difficulties. With Olympics, European football and a Royal celebration in 2012 we will see if he was right.

But 2011 wasn't all bad, as the economy proved to remain a challenge, CIOs continued to demonstrate their value to improve and simplify organisations, which helped them remain relevant and to react to the difficulties. As a result, being Editor in Chief of CIO remained one of the very best jobs in journalism.

January: I began January by calling for the CIO readership to be proud of technology and proud to be a CIO and as I write this post exactly a year later the same rings true. A year on I still see public sector duplication and business opportunities that technology can unleash. Although increasing unemployment, a theme throughout last year, is a worry to us all, I do believe that technology will improve services and allow people to innovate and then create new opportunities.

February: Written by online editor Julian Goldsmith our February issue and focus took a little tack off-course with a cover feature on a CIOs other life. Philip Langsdale may pilot the tricky course of being CIO at airport operator BAA, but he "relaxes" by operating a traditional boat builder Cornish Crabbers. The aim of this article, and we hope to do more, was to demonstrate the depth of personality that the CIO world in Great Britain has and how their pursuits demonstrate the business acumen and team spirit analysts claim CIOs lack.

March: It isn't just the big corporations that attract inspiring CIOs, in March I had the pleasure of interviewing James Thomas CIO at the UCLH NHS Trust. His hospital is at the end of the road from my office and it just goes to show that the best stories are often right under your nose. Thomas is just the sort of CIO the public sector needs; a man who sees things differently and has a vision for what technology can do to make that organisation as successful as possible. In another year when the NHS and its IT was shelled as if it were involved in the Libya crisis of 2011, Thomas and UCLH showed what bold ambition and clear understanding of contracts and usage by customers and workers can really do.

April: Team Lotus, British Telecom and HMRC, an exhausting and fun month of interview three stalwarts of Britain. Although to be honest, the new Team Lotus is a name licence to a Malaysian business, but the team operate from and build their cars in Blighty and its ambition is typical of Britain in motorsport. HMRC deputy CIO Mark Hall demonstrated that he may be a tax man, but he is prepared to be open and frank about his plans for what technology can do for the organisation and the problems they have had to tackle.

May: In-between interviewing the CIO at Boots Andy Haywood as well as retailer White Stuff, the CIO team put on the Transformation Summit. I like the idea of our events encompassing the bigger themes of the CIO role and this event focussed on transformation because transforming a business involves business, technology and leadership, you cannot transform without involving all three.

June: Andrew Turner, CIO at insurance firm Hiscox showed that finance can be interesting and as the Eurozone began to creek, Hiscox expanded successfully.

July: The cover that worried me, Ailsa Beaton, CIO at the Met Police as the summer heat increased, so did the heat on the Met following revelations of phone hacking carried out by the newspaper owned by Australian Rupert Murdoch. An earlier Met investigation failed to uncover the size of the hacking scandal and then the relationships between the Met Police and Murdoch's News International became uncomfortable reading. So it was difficult to know whether we should put the Met's CIO on the cover, but I felt that CIOs do the best they can, there will always be people who will abuse their position, we ran the cover and it has been well received by readers.

September: No summer relaxation for the CIO team as Managing Editor Rhys Lewis led a redesign of the print title, something I've been wanting to do for some time. The new look reflects the business and quality ambitions that we and CIOs have. Remodelling the magazine was a very enjoyable experience with great team spirit and brilliant contributions by the designers and photographers.

October: Flying Low was our cover line for Trevor Didcock, CIO at easyJet. Some remarked that it was a trouser joke, but Didcock demonstrates that CIOs with low budgets can and in his case, are the ones who achieve the most. IT is central to everything at easyJet and the CIO has a strong influence as a result. But there was something inspiring about Didcock and easyJet, against a weak economy this British company flourishes, it has turned a market on its head, my six journeys with them in 2011 were pleasant and they continue to innovate. Didcock and easyJet are relaxed and professional, there were no PR minders in the room to irritate and deviate and as the CIO 100 judging panel agreed, that alone says a lot for this company and its CIO.

November: The month kicked off with the CIO Summit, our second annual gathering and a tremendous success. Our ambition of keeping the event by CIOs, for CIOs with an audience of just CIOs means we had some frank and co-operative discussion and a strong sense of community throughout the day.

Gwyn Thomas, CIO for the Welsh Assembly was our cover star and showed that some of the most innovative public sector leadership is not in Whitehall. Thomas was an inspiring speaker on the leadership role a CIO has to have.

December: From the summer onwards CIO has been campaigning for the CIO community to get involved with training and recruiting the next generation of IT workforce. It's a topic we will continue with in 2012 and authors Mike Altendorf and Tony Westbrook are keen to push the agenda. There are good reasons for it: innovation, wage inflation in BRIC economies, unemployment here and yet a skills shortage show that action must be taken by CIOs.

It was a great year and I really believe 2012 will be another good year for CIOs and CIO.

New year metrics

Thu, 22 Dec 2011 12:41:28 GMT

As 2011 draws to a close, naturally we are all looking at what 2012 will offer. There is no doubt that it will be a significant year. There is excitement surrounding the Olympics, but also great concern over the economic crisis in Europe and whether the UK can capture a share of emerging markets to replace the fall in trade with our EU cousins.

One thing does look certain to happen: the way all of us measure outputs, achievements and investment returns will change. In the case of CIOs this is a welcome move and one that is occurring as a direct result of the job role finally living up to the job title.

There are two aspects to this. Firstly the economic downturn, a hung parliament and rising commodity prices show that business and economic measures of the last 30 years are not fit for 2012. Across the spectrum there is an awakening that we need to reconsider how we measure. The UK National Ecosystem Assessment was a massive government-funded research project that demonstrated that protecting our natural habitat has a wide range of economic benefits, and is now a core consideration in policy making. The government is also looking into wellbeing and happiness assessments to juxtapose against GDP, and these will affect CIOs and their organisations. But even closer to home, the way firms adopt, pay and use IT will change drastically as technology becomes a commodity. As Richard Sykes argues, much of it, like infrastructure, shouldn't even be the responsibility of the CIO or their team.

CIOs should and will be chief information officers, engaged with the information assets an organisation holds and realising greater benefits from it for the organisation, as Mike Altendorf details.

The CIO community must devise new ways of measuring the value they add to organisations. Closer collaboration with marketing, sales and R&D departments will lead to new metrics being devised. CIOs in manufacturing, retail, finance, local authorities and pharmaceuticals have told CIO of late about the transformation to their organisations they will deliver in 2012, and we're here to help create the new metrics.

A look back at 2011 for CIOs

Thu, 15 Dec 2011 11:32:49 GMT

As is traditional at this time of year we take a look back at 2011 and what it has done for the CIO sphere.

January - Joe Harley was announced as the new CIO for the government alongside his role as CIO for the Department of Work and Pensions.

Harley replaced John Suffolk as government CIO and perhaps demonstrated the Coalition government's desire to keep costs down by job sharing.

While Harley got some extra work, former ITV CIO Richard Cross got a new job as CIO at engineering and construction giants Arup Richard Cross the former CIO of broadcaster ITV has taken on the role of Group CIO at civil engineering leaders Arup. Cross had done six years with commercial TV broadcaster ITV during one of the hardest periods of its history. Although the move seemed radical, Cross has a heritage in logistics and professional services, which share a lot in common with Arup's needs.

February - Ex-CEO of HP Mark Hurd settled his dispute with the vendor that had a troubled 2011 and got through two leaders before autumn, or Fall as the Americans aptly put it if you are the head of HP.

HP paid Hurd $23.9 million in compensation following his sudden resignation in August 2009. Hurd is now with Oracle.

Major food manufacturer Premier Foods announced that its focus in 2011 would be to cut back office costs. A new management structure was introduced to bring brands together and consolidate operations.

Parent company to British Gas Centrica helped HP out though by signing a £247 million private cloud deal for seven years. HP took over the running of two Centrica datacentres and the provision of services from India.

March - Despite the continuing economic gloom throughout the year consultants Capgemini announced a major recruitment drive. The French owned firm said it would be recruiting 1000 staff in 2011 and looking for transformational and social media leaders.

Morrisons was the Johnny-come-lately to online supermarket retailing, a market dominated by Sainsbury and Tesco as well as online only Ocado. Morrisons acquired FreshDirect for £32 million in the US and plans a London operation.

March also saw Intel begin shilling its Celeron processor for laptops using the Sandy Bridge architecture.The dual-core Celeron B810 processor runs at a speed of 1.6GHz, includes 2MB of cache and draws up to 35 watts of power. The chip is priced at $86 in theUS when purchased in quantities of 1,000.

April - Bakers Warburtons announced that Jeremy Butterfield will replace Damian Ghee as IT head as Ghee took on an operational role.

Jeremy Butterfield is to take the place left by Damien Ghee as IT director at the bread brand.

Another leading northern company the Co-operative Group announced the plans for its new datacentre. Sudlows won the deal to build the new green datacentre for the new Cooperative HQ being built in Manchester.

http://www.cio.co.uk/news/3279092/ballmer-microsoft-will-not-tie-skype-to-windows/

May - Major financial services provider Aviva announced the internal promotion of Cathryn Riley as CIO replacing Tony Redshaw who went off to be IT head at American Express. Riley has been with Aviva since 1996 in a series of senior roles.

Microsoft acquired Skype after a series of rumours speculated on the deal. Microsoft paid out 48.5 billion for the voice and video communications company and said it would include Skype technology into its products such as Xbox Live and Outlook.

June- Winning praise from a wide variety of CIO and IT market watchers the Co-operative Group announced a £9 million apprenticeship scheme that will deliver 2000 jobs in three years.

While chaos continued with the IT at the Department of Health as CIO Christine Connelly announced she was leaving. This added to the woes of the NHS National Programme for IT which had already lost two suppliers - Accenture and Fujitsu - and relationships with BT and CSC were not great.

July - The nation was captured by Australian media mogul Rupert Murdoch being brought down a peg or two in a Parliamentary inquest into the mobile phone hacking carried out by staff at the Australian's newspapers, especially the News of the World. The scandal exposed the too close relationships between pillars of society such as the police and political parties and Murdoch.

August - In a battle of giants supermarket chain Tesco got an eight year extension deal with Microsoft that included an unlimited number of licences for the retailer. New CIO Mike McNamara told CIO UK that the deal is an "enterprise subscription agreement", while those close to Microsoft say the deal was painful to negotiate for the vendor.

Industry observers though point to the deal demonstrating vendors entering a new service led relationship with their customers.

August was also marked by riots on the streets of London, Manchester, Birmingham and Croydon with mobile devices vendor BlackBerry being cited as the device of choice amongst the youths destroying shops and livelihoods.

Also in August our columnist Mike Lynch, the founder of UK software firm Autonomy led the deal to sell the listed company to HP for £6.7 billion.

September - The government finally killed off the NHS National Programme for IT, a £12 billion scheme that the last government set up and the current government believes is not fit for its purpose. CIOs found the national standard did not fit local needs, but did gain some useful technology from the nine year programme.

October - That National Audit Office found that just two government CIOs sit on the board of their organizations and concluded that government CIOs are under-valued.

Steve Jobs, the influential leader of vendor and gadget maker Apple, lost his battle with cancer. He inspired many CIOs and technology leaders.

November - Less than a year into his role as Government CIO Joe Harley announced he would be retiring from his roles as DWP and government CIO in the spring of 2012.

While across the road at HMRC claimed its 13 machine programme had created cost savings of 81 per cent. The SAP programme is seeing the department cuts its 900 applications down to 150.

December - Building Society Nationwide announced its £10m internal social network, which is part of its £700m transformation project.

Christmas, a time to party, reflect and say thank you

Thu, 15 Dec 2011 11:02:39 GMT

Christmas is a time for family, festivities and communities coming together. It is also a great time for reflection and thanks to the teams that support us.

Unfairly the office Christmas party has gained a reputation for misuse of the photocopier and dalliances that will later be regretted. We had the IDG Christmas party this week and I'm afraid I have no salacious stories of my team's late night activities with a Ricoh product. The night was though a great opportunity to say thank you to the many people that make CIO happen day in day out.

A Christmas party is a great opportunity to tackle those alignment issues that analysts claim the CIO world suffers. For those shy but brilliant IT people in your team it is a chance to encourage them to get out there and mix, meet colleagues beyond technology and show their human side.

Daily life is so busy for all of us, especially if there is a leadership element to your role, fail at times to stop and say thank you or ask how the year has been. So the Christmas party is a wonderful opportunity to just have a chat.

For me, it's a chance to thank not only my excellent editorial team, but also the online development lads, events coordinators, marketing, designers, project managers and even the support of journalists and editors from other titles in the IDG stable whose support and professionalism keeps our standards high.

I always think a good Christmas party also reflects well on the chemistry and team dynamics of the organisation. At IDG and CIO we always have a damn good celebration and the good will carries over into the varied projects we always have in flight.

There is nothing more enjoyable than being part of, or observing great team dynamics in place. Just yesterday I went to my eldest daughter's school carol concert and was swept away not only by that doting father emotion you get at this time of year, but also the chemistry amongst the teachers and pupils as they all worked together as a team to bang out an amazing product. I enjoyed observing this as much as I did the excellent performances by all involved.

In a previous life I was a motorsports reporter. I have no interest in cars, but motorsports is a truly team sport. The driver may get all the attention, but having reported from the pit lane of the Le Mans 24 Hour and F1 Grand Prix, I can tell you that same team ethos and human endeavour is a pleasure to observe.

I know from the many CIO interviews I carry out that CIOs are team oriented people who never miss an opportunity to praise their teams to us. We also know that CIOs know how to relax despite the pressures of the role and the economy at present, so we hope you have a great party and the team atmosphere lifts everyone's spirits.

Which top Whitehall CIO will replace Joe Harley?

Thu, 24 Nov 2011 12:49:15 GMT

We reported on Tuesday that Joe Harley is leaving his post as CIO for the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) and as Government CIO when he retires in the spring of 2012.

DWP, which is already looking for a deputy CIO having lost Bill McCluggage to EMC, said it would start looking for a CIO immediately and the Cabinet Office will begin looking for a new Government CIO separately and soon.

Harley became the government CIO in February of this year when John Suffolk stepped aside. Harley jointly led the IT roles at DWP and the Cabinet office and it is my prediction that with the government keen to promote an era of cost cuts and keeping within budget that the next government CIO will follow in Harley's footsteps and run the government CIO role alongside their daily work as CIO of a major Whitehall department. Which begs the obvious question - which of the Whitehall CIOs will be given the prestigious role?

John Taylor, director general of information at the Ministry of Defence could be a likely candidate. Taylor is undoubtedly one of the big beasts of the Whitehall CIO corridors. But stretching a defence resource across the entire government could be politically sensitive.

Whitehall, 10 Downing Street and the Conservative Party tend to be protective of the British military and our forces are certainly stretched at present with their duties in Afghanistan and Libya. There is a great deal of change going through the military and the demands placed on our forces are growing while its budget plummets. Therefore the Cabinet Office may feel that Taylor has enough on his plate as it is.

Tim Wright has been with the Department for Education since 2007 and the department has avoided any headlines in that time. He has good commercial experience from Metronet, Haliburton, Amec and BP as well as stints in consulting.

The CIO double act at HMRC cannot be ignored either. In a recent CIO interview and from his presentation at the CIO Summit Deputy CIO Mark Hall is certainly getting things done as the department's 13 Machine rationalisation strategy gathers pace. Anyone who's got HMRC experience also has plenty of knowledge about running a big outsourcing contracts and merger and acquisitions. Both of which could come in handy.

Phil Pavitt, who is both CIO and change director, has committed to getting HMRC to buy in to the 13 Machine and change agendas going and from his time at Transport for London and Centrica gained a reputation for straight dealings with vendors, which resulted in some significant rationalisation and savings for his organisations.

If Pavitt has galvanised the top echelons of HMRC successfully then he could well be the right person to galvanise all of Whitehall's IT leaders to act as one, cut costs, reduce duplication and deliver an efficient experience for the citizens of Great Britain. It's going to be an interesting spring in 2012.

Be bold in the face of difficulty

Tue, 15 Nov 2011 10:44:09 GMT

One of the beauties of my role is that it never ceases to fascinate. There are those in the media and analyst community that assume that cream of the CIO crop are to be found at a household name business or major national institute. But as with technology, the innovation or the great leadership is not in these titanic organisations, it is at the organisations overlooked by the London-centric industry watchers. This is certainly the case with the CIO of Welsh Assembly Government. Not to suggest that the challenges of Gwyn Thomas' role are not large, or that the scale and complexity of the Welsh economy are simplistic when compared to England or a supermarket chain for example.

With the world facing a continuing economic crisis strong leadership and a focus on an outcome are required. As the slew of negativity continues to pour out of the Eurozone it's easy to become focused on a short-term fix or even to retreat back to a chief laptop fixer modus operandi. Rocking the boat or even letting go of control all seem like high risk strategies in these choppy waters, but they are exactly what is needed.

To my mind, what Thomas, who is the CIO November issue cover story is endeavouring to achieve in Wales is exactly what's needed because by relenting on levels of control and empowering existing workforce teams to think boldly and to think of the future they are on the path to deliver local solutions to a global problem.

As governments across Europe sign up to cost cutting agendas to pay off sovereign debts incurred from bailing banks out or allowing the public sector to live beyond its means, there will be new initiatives launched that claim great cost savings but fail to deliver. We have already seen it in the UK, the bonfire of the quangos didn't even spark and CIOs tell me the NHS strategy of moving to GP commissioning will cost more than it saves. Whereas in Cardiff and across Wales cuts are being made, but new opportunities are also being developed. And it is opportunities that the economy now needs.

Re-skilling UK IT won't be an easy take off

Tue, 08 Nov 2011 11:24:47 GMT

With the Eurozone financial crisis and daily reports of just how fragile and weak the west's banking sector is, it's hard for all of us to think of the long term. Especially when one of the challenges of the long term is to ensure we recruit and train the next generation of IT professional and leader. But lift your eyes from the financial sector gloom, hard I know when banks are central to the structure of capitalism, but as recent CIO stories on easyJet show there are new and exciting challenger businesses in the British economy, they've been through a down turn or two and remain core to our economy as we move into better times.

Organisations like easyJet have always put IT at the forefront of their strategies and that has enabled them take on a market that at one time looked incredibly stable. As we see through this issue, that IT strength has developed the skills and careers of individuals who are now baking new IT ideas into totally different vertical markets. Or take the difference between what the real IT team at the George Eliot Hospital are doing when compared to the mess of the Department of Health.

Read about the George Eliot Hospital IT here

Read the CIO Big Story on the NHS NfPIT demise here

So the challenge for everyone in the CIO sphere is to look long and hard at how we develop the next generation of IT worker. It's an important question to ask ourselves. In recent years the sector has lost the lustre it had in my Sinclair and Acorn youth. But the current banking crisis, I believe, is all part of a need for skills to be readdressed. There is a wealth of IT talent working in and coming into the UK economy, as Mike Altendorf's column demonstrates, as well as the news of a major Swiss corporation moving part of its operations into Edinburgh to capitalise on local talent. One major vendor struggles to fill roles, so we clearly need more.

There are wider macro-economic issues facing the UK economy and IT. Wage inflation in the BRIC economies will reduce the competitiveness of outsourcing, the Eurozone crisis may rebalance the flow of EU labour forces against the UK, rising oil and commodity prices are already reshaping the manufacturing and services sectors to be more localised. A radically different economy will put new pressures on companies, healthcare providers and government and it will require a strategic rethink in how IT is delivered in organisations.

As leaders we must deliver a new workforce if we are to avoid debacles like the NHS IT programme and for our community if it is to thrive.

CIOs at the 2011 Summit challenge peers to lead

Fri, 04 Nov 2011 10:48:36 GMT

I opened the 2011 CIO Summit with the prediction that overall theme of the event would be business technology leadership, although the CIOs presenting had an emphasis on either business, technology or leadership - the three strands of the day-long event at the St Pancras Hotel. Post event, I can reflect that for once, one of my predictions was on the money.

Within the over-riding theme of business technology leadership a number of CIO raised the same concerns in their presentations - people management and in particular communications and skills; business opportunities and board level operation; delivering technology that works and the role of cloud computing.

There is widespread confusion amongst the PR industry that CIOs are technologists whose days are spent wanting to know what the latest server rack is or the power of a gadget. But as the second CIO Summit demonstrated, CIOs are leaders and therefore put people skills and the challenges of leadership.

Mark Thompson, CIO at TUI Travel Specialist division began the day's debate on the communications and skill sets of IT workers by saying: "The curse of IT is that we have attracted people with the right skill sets but not the right attitude." Thompson is not to be confused with the Director General of the BBC, who according to Tweets as the TUI CIO took the stage, was also making a presentation in London.

Owen Powell an interim CIO at the Inner North West London PCT continued the debate, adding a psychological aspect to the conversation. Powell's presentation on why IT will never achieve business alignment certainly got people interested and as fellow speaker Andrew Jordan, a CIO with Thomson Reuters said, Powell delivered "a few home truths".

Jane Scott and Andy Haywood, CIOs of oil firm Baker Hughes and retailer Boots respectively described the board level and business opportunities that CIOs have open to them. Scott's presentation, sadly the only female CIO we could get to speak, gained a great deal of interest. The former 3663 CIO provided the audience with examples and guidance on how a CIO can create revenue generation opportunities for the organisation. This isn't just the holy grail for CIOs, Scott has actually done it and provided concrete examples.

Haywood, interviewed on stage by John Lewis CIO Paul Coby shared his views on the pace of being a retail CIO and transforming an organisation. His insight into board level relationships was "you get the board you deserve." As Haywood has made clear in previous CIO magazine interviews, he is passionate about delivery and doesn't shy from admitting that the IT world has not got a good reputation with the board for delivery.

A similar theme arose in the technology strand with a number of CIOs, including Mark Hall from HMRC, TUI's Thompson, Richard Wilson at Cable & Wireless Worldwide, Jack Cutts of the Nottingham Building Society, all saying that making sure that technology works is priority number one.

No event or C-level gathering can pass at present without a discussion on cloud computing, interestingly the CIOs present variously referred to it as an addition to the services they can offer back to the organisation.

Mark Hall, HMRC Deputy CIO called cloud, "part of the toolkit," and Haywood described it as just another option. No one wanted to talk about paradigm shifts or disruptions.

A the Editor in Chief, I want to thank all of the presenters for some amazing discussions. The feedback I have received from attendees was really powerful. Thank you.

Leading CIOs take the stage at the 2011 CIO Summit

Mon, 31 Oct 2011 15:42:59 GMT

The CIO Summit takes place tomorrow at the St Pancras Renaissance Hotel, the famous hotel above the Eurostar international rail station and it looks set to be a bigger and better event than last year's inaugural CIO Summit.

If you are attending, or can't make it, below are a series of CIO magazine features on the CIOs who will be discussing the key issues business, technology and leadership.

The event is sponsored by Vodafone, Star and CA Technologies, who will be bringing their C-level speakers along to share their insights.

Leading the business strand are:

Dave Ubachs, CIO & Shared Services Manager for UK, Ireland & Scandinavia, P&G. Dave is a member of the CIO Executive Council and has championed the development of the CIO role.

Read more about Dave Ubachs CIO & Shared Services Manager for UK, Ireland & Scandinavia, P&G

Richard Wilson, Director IT Operations, Cable & Wireless will discuss strategies at the telco giant around outsourcing and insourcing.

Read more about Richard Wilson Director IT Operations, Cable & Wireless

Jack Cutts, Head of IT, Nottingham Building Society has put IT at the forefront of senior level thinking at the building society and will discuss how the organisation works with IT today.

Read more about Nottingham Building Society Head of IT Jack Cutts

Mark Thompson, IT & Marketing Director, TUI Travel will discuss the challenges technology places on the travel sector and also the opportunities.

Read more about TUI CIO Mark Thompson

In the Technology strand of the day's events there will be presentations by Mark Hall, deputy CIO at HMRC, as well as the CIOs of e-commerce leaders Play.com and Asos.com and Thomson Reuters.

Read more about Mark Hall, HMRC Deputy CIO.

New for the 2011 CIO Summit is our post lunch CIO to CIO onstage discussion between the IT leaders of major retailers Boots and John Lewis as Andy Haywood of Boots and Paul Coby of John Lewis share their thoughts and ideas on the retail sector.

Read more about Andy Haywood

They will be followed by a series of top level CIOs discussing leadership including Jane Scott of Baker Hughes, Owen Powell, formerly CIO at the Arts Council and now within the NHS and Colin Bannister the CTO at CA Technologies.

Read more about Owen Powell

Something old, something new

Fri, 21 Oct 2011 11:38:57 GMT

I have just returned from the Danish capital Copenhagen where I attended the IDG Product Line meeting, an annual event where the editors and commercial teams of the our parent company - IDG - get together to discuss the opportunities and challenges of the modern media.

As a business and technology publishing company that produces CIO, ComputerWorld, TechWorld and CFO World across European markets, Asia Pacific and the US, there is a lot of talk about technology and a great deal of looking forwards for what technology will do for us as editors, writers and publishers.

Copenhagen is a fitting city to discuss technology and the future; it is also a good city to look at the "old" ways that are still very credible for the modern world.

For those of you who have looked at my personal Twitter feed you will know that I have an obsessive interest in the bicycle. Although there are some very technical and advanced bicycles in existence today using carbon fibre for forks and frames, hydraulic disc brakes, sat-nav and don't get me into conversation about advanced tyre compounds. But essentially the bicycle has remained true to its original form as a simple, efficient human powered form of transport. The diamond frame, pioneered by Rover in the UK has warped a bit on modern road and mountain bikes, but it is still a diamond frame.

The western world is awakening to the incredible efficiency of the bicycle as a form of transport as the Boris Bike scheme in London and similar versions in Paris attest. In the UK the level of cycling is increasing every year and that is wonderful news on every level. Copenhagen is a city that demonstrates how efficient the bicycle is as part of a capital cities infrastructure. There is no war with the car there are plenty of cars and footpaths for pedestrians and the usual public transport infrastructures. By providing every form of travel, whether it be on foot, pedal, automotive or mass public transport the city is relaxed and efficient. Cyclists are not in a battle with car drivers and drivers are not inhibited. The winner is the citizen. In the English speaking world "choice" is a political term for a government that will do nothing, but in Denmark, everyone has a choice and locals told me they switch between bicycle and car as it suits them.

Cities, like our organisations are becoming busier and therefore require greater management. Smart city ideas have been developed by the likes of IBM and I can't help thinking that cities will need CIOs in the near future to keep them working, refreshed and efficient. Just as corporate CIOs know when to keep a mainframe operating because being an old way of doing things is not necessarily a bad way of doing things, cities with CIOs will need to ensure the good old bicycle has a strong place in the infrastructure.

A series of presentations by fellow editors at IDG from around the world reminded me that although the world economy remains very precarious, the technology sector keeps moving forward and because it is addicted to innovation, the business world, and consumers, move forwards with it. That forward momentum will inevitably lead to the world economy improving as it is the nature of business to not stand still.

The social platforms of the internet continue to drive innovation and as all CIOs know, the innovation is also in the hands of the users as well as the providers. There is also a wealth of interesting ideas coming out of the usage of mobile devices, in particular the tablet PC.

Overall it has been an inspiring few days of realising that there are so many new technologies and ways coming into our worlds, and also that old technologies can answer modern problems.

Banking CIOs ready to innovate and provide service quality

Tue, 27 Sep 2011 15:42:28 GMT

On Thursday I had breakfast with a group of banking CIOs just across the road from the Bank of England. I'm sure all of us had heard the latest woeful headlines that day as the Greek economy looked set to default on its loans and Italy had its debt rating reduced, placing greater pressure on the Eurozone and in turn the British economy as the zone is our major export recipient.

However the banking CIOs at breakfast were not holding their heads in their hands. All had ambition to make changes in their organisations and drive IT led improvements. Three main themes came out of the discussion, which included a presentation and debate with Mark Popolano of Kurt Salmon: culture, governance and whether cloud computing has a place in financial services.

One of the most interesting things to come out of the discussion for this scribe was the discussion on culture. The IT industry is slowly shifting its model from product and sales oriented to a service orientation. Software as a Service (SaaS) and cloud computing have set about this change and every vendor you talk to at present is looking at a service model. Most CIOs have a service driven mentality and the same was true of those attending on Thursday.

But, I got the impression from one or two CIOs attending that this trend towards services rather than products has not permeated the higher management levels of all financial institutions. More than one expressed that leaders are rarely interested in service and do not want to commit to any programme that will delay a new product coming to market, even if that programme offers major improvements.

This instant gratification, make a quick sale behaviour pattern worries me and one or two of the CIOs there as it suggests nothing has been learnt from the credit crisis and subsequent recession. A major lack of strong processes was inferred to be the cause of the situation banks find themselves in and from views shared by a couple of CIOs, nothing has changed.

A view put forward to combat the above problem and the issue of alignment between IT and the organisation is to address governance as the commonality between IT and the organisation, not a set of rules set down by the CIO.

Cloud computing offers organisations opportunities, but the assessment and realisation of benefits from those opportunities are more complex in financial services, the attendees suggested. A number of CIOs said that the datacentre was the biggest pain point and a cloud solution would be welcomed. But data security is and where data resides was the concern for almost all at the meeting and will hold back the clouds in financial services. More than one CIO expressed that they did not feel they could trust the governments of China and the US and therefore would not want customer data residing on servers in those jurisdictions. As a result, the location of data will remove some of the cost and flexibility benefits of cloud computing.

All CIOs present discussed private cloud computing and had little time for the public cloud, one even went so far as to describe it as an "irrelevance".

My overall impression of the meeting was that CIOs in the banking sector are at the beginning of the possibilities they can offer the sector. The culture and complexity of the structures and products is a challenge to CIOs and many wanted to challenge that. CIOs, like a wider part of the IT community are looking to become service leaders ensuring users and customers have a long term and rewarding relationship with organisations and products. This is not necessarily the case for the wider organisation and is a big challenge to overcome.

New look CIO magazine

Mon, 26 Sep 2011 09:18:07 GMT

CIOs are always keen to extoll the virtues of their teams in our interviews. As people that enjoy being part of a creative atmosphere and collaborating with talented teams that have the ideas, drive and passion to improve things, CIOs always seem to derive great pleasure from team efforts. As the new look CIO magazine arrives at doorsteps tomorrow I join your ranks briefly as the chief of a team that demonstrated amazing drive, talent and creativity to reshape this magazine.

Our previous design split business, technology and leadership into three distinct sections, yet every discussion I have with CIOs reveals that business is only successful when there is technology leadership, therefore the three pillars of this title are inseparable. Like the flying buttresses of a cathedral, if one of the three were to be taken down the entire structure would come caving in. So the new design aims to offer greater fluidity. Our excellent columnists are grouped together, again allowing them the freedom to roam across business, technology and leadership in their insights.

If this were the CIO Summit (coming up on November 1st) I'd ask you now to put your hands together and give the CIO team a deserved round of applause. Particular thanks must go to Bob Cree and Rhys Lewis. Bob Cree joins the CIO editorial team as our new art editor. His fresh new look and simplified design will ensure you get more from the title. Rhys is the unsung hero of CIO, as managing editor he ensures deadlines are met, spelling is accurate and that the Editor in Chief's grammar is double-checked. Rhys managed the redesign with his usual relaxed and professional manner. Thanks must also go to Johann Chan, previous Art Editor of CIO. Johann remains with IDG and will now concentrate on Digital Arts, his efforts are greatly appreciated.

One other thank you must also go out to you the reader. The continued support and input of the CIO community is never under-appreciated. Your thoughts on the new look magazine are more than welcome. We hope to have a new website out for you soon, a new CIO 100 is being developed and I look forward to seeing you all at the CIO Summit.

Should CIOs be at the boardroom table?

Fri, 16 Sep 2011 15:06:16 GMT

The data for the next CIO 100 is almost completed. From an early analysis of the material supplied it is very apparent, as you'd expect, that those CIOs that are currently driving a lot of transformation in their organisation are on some form of board at their organisation, or have a good line of communications into that board.

For this year's CIO 100 we haven't distinguished being on the board of directors or an executive operational board.

The leading CIOs are all working across much wider remits in the organisation than technology. At present the CIO editorial team and I are also working on a new redesigned CIO magazine and the 2011 CIO Summit and in both cases we are seeing that you cannot distinguish or sectionalise the CIO world into business, technology and leadership. From the conversations we have with CIOs it is clear that CIOs are business technology leaders. The data from the CIO 100 reveals that the organisations that understand a need for business technology leadership have a CIO that who is a business technology leader. As a result we have CIOs leading major marketing and customer retention plans, human resources programmes, supply chain, rationalisation, expansion and the drive of the organisation forwards. In every organisation technology is seen as the cornerstone of these ambitions.

When this CIO 100 is released, as Editor in Chief I hope it will ignite debate and feed discussions on the importance of CIOs being on a board and how to contribute to transformation.

As ever, your views as CIOs is always welcome and even before the 100 is released, I hope you will share your thoughts with us.

That was August 2011

Tue, 06 Sep 2011 09:09:57 GMT

The month's news in business technology leadership

August, usually a month to relax a little, tidy the desk, make a few off-site visits and re-assess the odd process before the autumn and winter workloads really kick in. Not a bit of it in 2011, as BBC Radio 4 political journalist Nick Robinson said just this morning, "it was the summer of never ending breaking news". As if rioting selfish yobs, the fall of Tripoli and continued economic difficulties in Europe were not enough, the technology world hardly relaxed with big changes at Apple and Autonomy the most obvious headlines.

So here's what's happened and for more detail follow the links to the CIO news channel.

1st

John Suffolk, government CIO under Labour and the first UK government CIO went vendor side joining rising telecoms provider Huawei. Suffolk was appointed as global security officer at the telecoms firm Huawei. Suffolk, who as a CIO argued the government could radically cut IT costs by slashing datacentres, making more use of cloud computing, and improving procurement. The government's current chief information officer is Joe Harley, former CIO at the Department for Work and Pensions.

At Huawei, Suffolk will develop and manage a global cyber security assurance strategy and related systems, which will be adopted across all departments including research and development, supply chain, marketing and sales, project delivery and technical service. His office will be at Huawei's headquarters in Shenzhen, China.

Huawei provides telecoms and security services to businesses and governments around the world.

Earlier in his career, Suffolk was an adviser to the World Bank High-Level Experts group, advising governments on how IT can help transform the public sector and generate economic growth. He was also director general of the Criminal Justice Transformation Programme.

2nd

Tesco the retail giant and regular star as bad boy of supermarkets in Channel 4 documentaries signed a new eight year agreement with Microsoft. Tesco CIO Mike McNamara told CIO that the deal includes unlimited licences for the British company.

"It is a long contract," said the Tesco CIO of the new eight year deal with Microsoft. "It is about as long as we would sign." McNamara describes the deal as an "enterprise subscription agreement".

"So we have unlimited licensing over the duration of the contract. It is important not to count them [licences] all the time when you are a large distributed organisation like us," he said of the benefits.

David Wilde, the new CIO at Essex County Council is cutting IT jobs as part of a programme to modernise its information services and save £32 million in costs. The cuts are part of a wider job cull at the council, as part of its transformation programme to achieve £300 million over four years, which may result in 429 redundancies. Essex County Council said that it had already saved half, £150 million, of the savings target through "smarter working".

4th

Steven VanRoekel, formerly managing director at the Federal Communications Commission, was announced as the replacement for Vivek Kundra as US chief information officer (CIO).

VanRoekel joined the US government in June as executive director for citizen and organisational engagement at the Agency for International Development (USAID), on detail from his position as managing director of the FCC.Vivek Kundra, the first CIO of the US government, resigned in June after two and a half years on the job. He was appointed CIO a few months after President Barack Obama took office. Kundra is moving to Harvard to serve as a joint fellow at the Kennedy School and at the Berkman Center for Internet & Society.

VanRoekel worked for Microsoft for 15 years, including a stint as an assistant to co-founder Bill Gates, before he joined the FCC. He was a supporter of Obama and attended the inauguration.

5th

Ladbrokes the betting shop firm reported an increase in digital profits following significant investment in its online platform. In its interim financial results for the half year to 30 June, the betting company reported a 6.5 per cent increase in profits for its digital operation from £29.1 million in 2010 to £31 million this year.

Ladbrokes has invested in its e-commerce platform by improving its search function to reduce the time it takes customers to find the bet they want, and enabling them to place bets directly from ranked search results. This is part of the company's plans to refresh its Sportsbook [sports betting functionality] ahead of a full re-launch in early 2012.

9th

In the face of shocking riots as groups looted the streets of London, Birmingham and Liverpool and destroyed the livelihoods of people, mugged Malaysian students and even killed a man technology came under the spotlight for its usage by the looters. Blackberry manufacturer RIM promised to work closely with police after claims that rioters who spread destruction across London, Birmingham and Liverpool last night used their Blackberry devices to co-ordinate action.

London's Metropolitan Police vowed to track down people who posted "inflammatory" messages on the BlackBerry Messenger network, as well as on Twitter and Facebook.

Blackberry devices have, in recent years proved almost as popular among young people as among the business community, because of the low cost of the Blackberry Messaging service (BBM) compared to texts.

11th

IBM CTO Mark Dean of the company's Middle East and Africa division was one of a dozen IBM engineers who designed that first PC, which was unveiled on August 12, 1981, but 30 years later he said PCs are "going the way of the vacuum tube, typewriter, vinyl records, CRT and incandescent light bulbs." In other words, it faces extinction.

IBM, of course, sold its PC division to Lenovo in 2005. Dean said in a blog post: "I, personally, have moved beyond the PC as well. My primary computer now is a tablet. When I helped design the PC, I didn't think I'd live long enough to witness its decline. But, while PCs will continue to be much-used devices, they're no longer at the leading edge of computing."

15th

The London Fire and Emergency Planning Authority (LFEPA), which runs the London Fire Brigade, announced it was looking for a contractor to provide new control and mobilising IT systems. The authority said it may choose to either award a contract for new software solutions, or a managed services contract.

The 10-year contract has a value of between £21 million and £297.6 million, and is open as a framework to three other fire services - Lincolnshire Fire and Rescue Services, Buckinghamshire & Milton Keynes Fire Authority and Royal Berkshire Fire Authority.

16th

Google needs to strengthen its privacy policies, in spite of some improvements in recent month, the Information Commissioner ruled. Google has been under scrutiny by the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) since the company admitted in May 2010 to collecting payload data from unencrypted Wi-Fi networks it was indexing as part of its Street View imaging.

18th

TalkTalk the telco was fined £3 million by telecoms regulator Ofcom, after IT system problems led to it incorrectly billing 65,000 of its own and subsidiary Tiscali's customers.

The telecoms firm acquired Tiscali in 2009, and major billing issues emerged during the switchover. Last March, TalkTalk repaid nearly £2.5 million in total to customers. At one point during the companies' integration, TalkTalk was running nine billing systems.

The company's own 'Trio' (The Right Information Online) platform has now replaced all billing systems in the group. Trio is understood to be based on technology from suppliers Chordiant and Tibco.

19th

CIO columnist and founder of search technology specialists Autonomy sold his company to HP for £6.7 billion on the day HP announced it was exiting the growing tablet device market and spinning off its PC sales division. HP is the world's largest maker of computers, but now intends to focus on software and services.

It is examining options for exiting its PC business, including spinning it off to shareholders, the company said. HP's Personal Systems Group, which sells PCs, tablets and smartphones, has the company's lowest profit margin although it accounted for nearly a third of HP's overall revenues in 2010.

HP is following in the footsteps of IBM, which spun off its PC business to Lenovo in 2005 to focus on the higher-margin software and services business, although arguably from a stronger position in software and services than HP finds itself.

22nd

LateRooms.com said it is hiring for its IT team in the UK and abroad. The online hotel room reservation company currently has just over 130 IT staff, which it wants to increase to around 150 to support the business's growth strategy.

Ex-Avis CIO and now CTO at LateRooms.com Adam Gerrard said: "One of the biggest challenges is attracting the right kind of talent, in Manchester and Singapore.

"We're looking for people who understand Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) and front-end architecture".

25th

You may or may not have heard, but Apple co-founder Steve Jobs stepped down from his position as chief executive of the company. Tim Cook, the company's chief operating officer, will take over, and Jobs will become chairman.

Jobs has wrestled with cancer in recent years and took an indefinite leave of absence in January to focus on his health. Jobs has been elected chairman of Apple's board, effective immediately, and Cook has been made a board member.

30th

Within a year, Amazon will be a major player in the tablet market, second only to Apple's iPad, Forrester research said. The analyst house says that Amazon is readying an Android tablet that may cost "hundreds less" than the iPad, and may launch the product this year.

31st

Australian Rupert Murdoch's News International, which owns The Times and The Sun newspapers, has appointed law firm Linklaters to trawl through thousands of emails under a fresh internal investigation into phone hacking as the summer's big story about Murdoch continues.

The email search is expected to form a major part of the internal review, which will also see journalists interviewed and financial records examined.

What a month, what a summer, we didn't really need the weather to be great, there was so much going on!