tano-consultants.comtano-consultants.com/.../2020/02/ITV-Lags-Behind-final.docx · Web viewVarious research carried were carried out to find out a company with current IT related

ITV Lags Behinds Its Competitors

Introduction: Identifying a Company with a current IT Related Problem

The purpose of this project is to explore or to investigate the current unresolved Information

Technology (IT) problems in an organisation and the student should develop an IT solution for an

identified company.

After the development of a solution, one is required to investigate two vendors or outsource

companies to help the identified company with their information technology issues.

Various research carried were carried out to find out a company with current IT related problem/s,

Google search engine was used to carry out my search and one found an online magazine called

CIO, (www.CIO.CO.UK) with loads of information on various organisations worldwide.

The one article that really got my attention was an article on ITV plc. A UK based broadcasting

organisation funded through advertisement. The article explains that the newly appointed Chief

Technology Officer (CTO) wants to change the way business is carried out in all areas of ITV Plc. as

they were lagging behind their competitors in terms of technology.

All the articles researched on the technological issues of ITV plc did not really explain in-depth about

these problems, but one gathered the idea that they needed to make some changes to their entire IT

infrastructure.

To find out their actual problem/s, one had to browse the organisation’s website and went on its

contact page (http://www.itv.com/contactus/), where I retrieved email addresses and phone

numbers, and emailed and phoned various ITV personnel to get information concerning their IT

related problems (See Appendix 1).

One got negative and positive response from ITV officials via phone conversation and email. On one

of conversation, I was told that ITV has old has old Information Technology infrastructure that

needs changing (See Appendix 2).

Based on the information gathered via phone conversation, emails, and the use of internet, one

would agree that ITV is really lagging behind its competitors, in terms of technology. Moore et al

(2009) explained that a technical glitch left viewers furious during a Liverpool FA Cup derby, ITV


switched to a late ad break during a nil-nil deadlock, only for Everton to score while viewers enjoyed

an advert for Tic-Tacs. ITV apologized saying:

"The goal came at the worst possible time for us as we were having some

technical problems."

One would agree that, ITV needs to restructure its IT infrastructure to remain competitive

Corporate Information

ITV Plc. is the UK’s leading advertiser-funded, free-to-air broadcaster and employs 4,000

staff worldwide within its Broadcasting, ITV Studios, and Online businesses. ITV’s

broadcasting business is made up of ITV1, the UK’s largest commercial TV channel in terms

of audience share, and the UK is leading portfolio of digital channels - ITV2, ITV3, and ITV4.

(ITV, 2011)

Annually ITV invests around £1billion in content for its broadcast channels and its website

itv.com.

Itv.com is focused on delivering short- and long-form video content from ITV programming

for viewing in real time or catch-up – the ITV Player allows users to access catch-up and

watch clips from the best ITV programmes, all supported by advertising.


ITV Plc.’s content business, ITV Studios creates and produces original programming for

content buyers worldwide. With production centres in the UK, USA, Germany, France, Spain,

Australia and Scandinavia, recent hit shows and formats include primetime successes :

Come Dine with Me and I’m a Celebrity… Get Me Out of Here! (ITV, 2011)

The business also generates revenues by distributing ITV and third party programming

internationally, and through the sale of associated DVDs and merchandise (ITV, 2011).

One has identified that, ITV Plc. is plagued with current IT problem/s, and to remain

competitive in the broadcasting business, Teng et al (1998) explains that, ITV needs to

fundamentally rethink and radically redesign its existing business processes to achieve

dramatic improvements in critical contemporary measures of performance, such as cost,

quality, service, and speed. Hammer & Champy (2004) further explains that, rethinking;

radically redesigning ITV’s business process will involve tossing aside old systems within its

IT infrastructure, and starting over from the very basic issues:

This is known as Business process re-engineering (PBR), reformation of the reengineering

process will dramatically improve ITV in terms of its cost, quality, service and speed The

purpose of BPR is to organize ITV so it can best create value for its customers. The

emphasis is on the customer and results rather than tasks and procedures.

It would appropriate at this stage to give an overview of the steps to conduct BPR

methodology:

(1) ITV strategic team should develop the Business Vision and Process objectives such as

Cost Reduction, Time Reduction, and output quality improvement.

(2) To identify the business processes to be redesigned, especially those that conflict most

with the business vision.


(3) BPR involves understanding and measure the existing processes to avoid repeating

same mistakes and for providing a baseline for future improvements.

(4) Identify IT Levers by the awareness of IT capabilities what it can do to influence process

design.

(5) Design and build a prototype of the new process, the actual design should not be

viewed as the end of the BPR process. Rather, it should be viewed as a prototype, with

successive iterations.

The problems of ITV in term of its technology, is identified and a business process defined by

Radhakrishnan(2010) as a set of logically related tasks performed to achieve a defined

business outcome is established as Business Process Re-engineering.

Awareness and Description of IT Development Solutions:

The next stage of this project is to explore/outsource two possible vendors who can assess,

redesign and manage ITV’s application enterprise so it can remain competitive. These

vendors should be able to provide the following IT infrastructure ecosystems components

❖ Computer Hardware Platform

❖ Operating Systems Platform

❖ Enterprise Software Applications

❖ Network and Telecommunications


❖ Consultants and Systems Integrators

❖ Data Management and Storage

❖ Internet Platform

The two vendors outsourced to carry out this project on behalf of ITV are the following:

❖ Accenture

❖ Q Associates

The above companies are very good in System Infrastructure and Data Management; I will outline the profiles of both companies.

Accenture is a global management consulting, technology services and outsourcing company, with approximately 236,000 people serving clients in more than 120 countries.

Accenture Combines unparallel experience, comprehensive capabilities across all industries and business functions, and extensive research on the world’s most successful companies.

Accenture collaborates with clients to help them become high-performance businesses and governments.

Accenture generated net revenues of US$25.5 billion for the fiscal year ended Aug. 31, 2011.

Accenture high performance business strategy builds on expertise in consulting, technology and outsourcing to help clients perform at the highest levels so they can create sustainable value for their customers and shareholders.

Accenture uses its industry knowledge, service-offering expertise and technology capabilities,

Q Associates provides integrated IT

infrastructure and data

management solutions. They specialize in

the design, deployment and management

of enterprise computing environments and

have extensive experience working within

the

commercial, public and academic sectors.

They work partnership with

customers, and aim to deliver maximum

value through IT excellence.

Q Associates works to provide clients

with the information they require to

support their strategic IT decision making.

Detailed technical advice and knowledge

is provided through a team of highly

qualified specialists.

Long tradition serving customers, a

dedication to service and a deep

commitment to providing the most

Q Associates: Company Overview Accenture: Company Overview


The outlined profiles explain what both companies help organisations in redesigning, integrating and the management of an application enterprise.

As part of the company’s goal to upgrade its technology infrastructure and improve communication, collaboration and creativity of staff, ITV is deploying Google Apps to 7,000 employees and adopting Google Chrome as its standard Internet browser

Both companies were contacted and asked to present an IT development solution for ITV’s aging IT infrastructure, as the project requires one to choose a vendor to upgrade its technology infrastructure and improve communication, collaboration and creativity of 7,000 staff.

To choose a vendor, one has to compare and contrast the IT development solution presented by both outsource companies using Alternative Matrix, which is a chart that allows a team to systematically identify, analyse, and rate the strength of relationships between sets of information and selecting the best matching solution (Giachetti,2010).

Giachetti (2010) explains further that, when using Alternative Matrix to support important decisions for a vendor, the stakeholders needs to review and agree on an appropriate ways to assign weights ( e.g. 1,2,3) where 1 =Low, 2= Medium and 3=High.

Before rating the alternatives, the team must agree on a scoring system by: Determine the scoring range (e.g., 1 to 5 or 1, 3, 5) and ensure that all involved in making decision to choose a vendor to redesign the IT infrastructure of ITV, have a common understanding of what high, medium, and low scores represent.

Accenture is a global management consulting, technology services and outsourcing company, with approximately 236,000 people serving clients in more than 120 countries.

Accenture Combines unparallel experience, comprehensive capabilities across all industries and business functions, and extensive research on the world’s most successful companies.

Accenture collaborates with clients to help them become high-performance businesses and governments.

Accenture generated net revenues of US$25.5 billion for the fiscal year ended Aug. 31, 2011.

Accenture high performance business strategy builds on expertise in consulting, technology and outsourcing to help clients perform at the highest levels so they can create sustainable value for their customers and shareholders.

Accenture uses its industry knowledge, service-offering expertise and technology capabilities,

Q Associates provides integrated IT

infrastructure and data

management solutions. They specialize in

the design, deployment and management

of enterprise computing environments and

have extensive experience working within

the

commercial, public and academic sectors.

They work partnership with

customers, and aim to deliver maximum

value through IT excellence.

Q Associates works to provide clients

with the information they require to

support their strategic IT decision making.

Detailed technical advice and knowledge

is provided through a team of highly

qualified specialists.

Long tradition serving customers, a

dedication to service and a deep

commitment to providing the most


For each alternative, assign a consensus rating for each decision criterion. The team may average the scores from individual team members or may develop scores through a consensus-building activity.

In addition, Giachetti (2010) explains that, the team should multiply the score for each decision criterion by its weighting factor. Then total the scores for each alternative being considered and analyse the results.

weight Accenture Q Associates

Criteria Rating score Rating Score

Past Projects / Case Studies 3 5 15 2 6

Process Design 3 4 12 2 6

Hardware Platform 3 3 9 2 6

Enterprise Software Application 3 4 12 3 9

Interfaces 3 3 9 2 6

Data Management & storage 3 4 12 2 6

Technical and operational Risks 3 3 9 1 3

Internet platforms 3 5 15 3 9

Integration/compatibility 3 5 15 3 9

Strategy Alignment 3 4 12 1 3

Network and Telecommunications

3 3 9 2 6

Project Duration 3 4 12 2 6

Schedule Risk 3 5 15 2 6

Table illustrating Alternative Matrix used by ITV to compare Vendors presentations bid


Cost 3 4 12 5 15

Ranking 168 96

From the above table, one must agree that Accenture would be a suitable candidate to outsource the Re-engineering of ITVs’ aging IT infrastructure;

❖ Accenture’s good record of accomplishment on projects undertaken by them.

❖ Accenture has deep experience in the broadcast industry.

❖ The ability to deliver the IT infrastructure and applications management services

needed.

❖ And the choice hardware and software components, data management, the duration

and cost of the project, seems to be more realistic as opposed to Q Associates

The ecosystems used to redesign ITV’s IT Infrastructure:

Computer Hardware Platform According to Harris (1994), there are a number of areas to consider when selecting hardware, such as what computer platform, storage, and memory consideration, what type of network to be and portability issues.

Accenture assessed the following factors before they agreed on the Hardware platform to implement.

❖ The current Hardware used;

❖ Familiarity of staff with certain platforms;

❖ Software availability on particular platforms;

❖ Overall technology plan for ITV;

❖ Contact all the vendors of suitable hardware to gain demonstration of products;

The outsourced company (Accenture) during their presentation based on ITV Plc. aging infrastructure, advised ITV to adapt to Apple Mac Computers, iPhones and iPads as most staff were/are familiar with the chose Hardware Platform.


The Table below shows the hardware platform components (Client Machines) chosen for to redesign ITV infrastructure.

Desk top Computers

iMacs

Laptops

MacBook Pro

Smartphones

iPhone 4s

Tablets

iPads

Specifications

● 2.7GHz Quad-Core Intel Core i5

● 4GB 1333MHz DDR3 SDRAM - 2x2GB

●

● 1TB Serial ATA Drive

● AMD Radeon HD 6770M 512MB GDDR5

●

● Apple Magic Mouse

● Apple Wireless Keyboard (British) & User's Guide (English)

●

● 2.8GHz Dual-core Intel Core i7

● 4GB 1333MHz DDR3 SDRAM — 2x2GB

●

● 750GB Serial ATA Drive @ 5400 rpm

●

● SuperDrive 8x (DVD±R DL/DVD±RW/CD-RW)

●

● Backlit Keyboard (British) & User's Guide (English)

All new thinner, lighter design

Apple A5 chip with two powerful cores and faster graphics

Cameras for Face Time video calling

HD video recording and Photo Booth

Up to 10 hours of battery life(4)

9.7-inch LED-backlit Multi-Touch display

Over 65,000 apps made for iPad.

Price £1,249 £1,299 £479


The next set of hardware platforms to be changed is the old storage and application servers. Accenture have decided to change the old Novell platform to Ciscos Unified Computing system(UCS) which is implemented when a business process involves rapid changes, ITV infrastructure requires fast response to remain competitive(Cisco,2011).The Cisco UCS delivers smart, programmable infrastructure that simplifies and speeds enterprise-class application and service deployment in bare-metal, virtualized and cloud-computing environment

The benefits of Cisco Unified computing System

❖ Integrates Cisco servers, and network and I/O resources into one system

❖ Improves enterprise application availability and performance

❖ Scales service delivery to increase business agility

❖ Streamlines data center resources to reduce total cost of ownership

❖ Radically reduces the number of devices requiring setup, management, power, cooling, and cabling

The following components would be implemented;

Cisco UCS B440 M2 High-Performance Blade Server

£1500.00 - £4,000.00 Per a server

Technical Specification The Cisco UCS B440 M2 High-Performance Blade Server extends the Cisco Unified Computing System by offering new levels of performance, scalability, and reliability.

With the Intel® Xeon® processor E7-4800 product family, the 4-socket Cisco UCS B440 M2 Blade Server platform.

Powerful Features for the Enterprise Get high performance and scalability from these features:


Intel® Xeon® processor E7-4800 product family

32 dual in-line memory module (DIMM) slots

Up to 512 GB memory at 1066 MHz, based on Samsung's 40 nanometer class (DDR3) technology

Four optional front-accessible, hot-swappable Small Form-Factor Pluggable (SFP) drives and an LSI SAS2108 RAID Controller

Two dual-port mezzanine cards for up to 40 Gbps I/O per blade

Embedded integration into Cisco UCS Manager radically simplifies deployment and systems management.

Each Cisco UCS 5108 Blade Server Chassis can house up to four B440 M2 servers, for a maximum of 160 per Cisco Unified Computing System).


One had to chart with a cisco staff to get certain information and price of the server

See Appendix 4.

Operating System Platform

Operating system platform are software, consisting of programs and data that runs on computers, manages the computer hardware, and provides common services for efficient execution of various application software (Lee, 2008). Operating systems are found on any computing device from mobile smartphones, video game to super computers and web servers. As discussed above, that Accenture wants ITV to adopt the use of Apple Mac products as opposed to Microsoft... Operating systems creates the abilities to;

❖ serve a variety of purposes

❖ interact with users in more complicated ways

❖ keep up with needs that change over time


The functions of operating systems are;

❖ Operating Systems manages the hardware and software resources of the system.

❖ In an Apple Mac computer, these resources include such things as the processor, memory, disk space and more

❖ On a smart phone, they include the keypad, the screen, the address book, the phone dialler, the battery and the network connection

❖ Operating systems provides a stable, consistent way for applications to deal with the hardware without having to know all the details of the hardware

The purchased hardware platform is from Apple Mac, which is built using UNIX platform software, and the operating system to be implemented on ITVs’ redesigned infrastructure is an open source platform developed using UNIX. Employees can view/edit the Microsoft office documents on the new operating system platform, known as Google Applications for business (Google, 2011) and Apple Mac operating system using OS X Lion.

Apple Mac Operating Platform Components.

Internet Browser Emailing /instant messaging Documents Operating System

Safari

&

Google Chrome

Apple mail

Address book/iCal

Google chat

Microsoft office for MAC 2011

&

Google Docs.

OS X Lion

Data Management and Storage:


During the research of ITV’s limitation, the project team found out that, the IT infrastructure data management was old and needed a change, Accenture explained to the ITV team that, the best possible Data storage management application should be purchased from Oracle, as the application is compatible with Cisco UCS B440 M2 High-Performance Blade Servers. Moreover, when ITV decides to adapt to cloud computing, it will not need to but new equipment as they are compatible with cloud computing. The product purchased from Oracle to manage ITV data storage known as Oracle Database Enterprise Edition 11g. The application delivers industry-leading performance while providing efficient, reliable, secure data management for mission-critical on-line transaction processing applications, query-intensive data warehouses, and content management and Web2.0 applications. (Watson, 2005)

Oracle Database Enterprise Edition 11g

Features Benefits

●

❖ Protects from server failure, site failure, human error, and reduces planned downtime

❖ Secures data and enables compliance with unique row-level security, fine-grained auditing, transparent data encryption, and total recall of data

❖ High-performance data warehousing, online analytic processing, and data mining

❖ Easily manages entire lifecycle of information for the largest of databases

Source: http://www.oracle.com/pls/db112/portal.all_books

Internet Platform


The Internet has introduced enormous opportunities for companies to customize and streamline their internal business processes. These opportunities also bring new challenges: Applications must be made available on the Internet in rapid time and must scale to serve very high numbers of users. The use of middle tier application servers promises to shrink development time and expense by providing scalable infrastructure, transactional management, portal services, business intelligence functionality, and integration.

Types of Internet Platform

Level 1 Platform - "Access API" Frame Relay Internet Access

Level 2 Platform

This is typically a platform provided in the form of a web services API – which will typically be accessed using an access protocol such as REST or SOAP.

Architecturally, the key thing to understand about this kind of platform is that the developer's application code lives outside the platform -- the code executes somewhere else, on a server elsewhere on the Internet that is provided by the developer.

Frame Relay Internet technology is ideal for connecting LANs, and for connecting LANs to WANs.

It features data transfer rates of between 56Kbps and 45Mbps, giving ITV flexibility and options in terms of tailoring its technology package to match its Internet needs.

Frame Relay Internet technology will enable ITV to maximize connectivity at peak times by "bursting" up to a higher bandwidth speed as and when required.

Burst-driven data consumption is still a lot more cost-effective than using the total bandwidth of a heavyweight Internet infrastructure on a 24/7 basis.

From the above table one would agree that the internet platform suitable for ITV Plc. is the frame Relay internet access.

Business internet service provider for ITV


The next step of this project is connect the entire network to the internet via a business

internet service provider, after much research in this area, the project team contacted

British Telecommunication to install business broadband for ITV

The reasons why one opted for British telecommunications, is that they have a rapid and

dependable internet connection. Furthermore, they have the best offer amongst all Internet

service provider contacted.

They offered the management a very good deal for the first six months of a 24-month

contract. The deals include 6months free broadband services, which would save the

organisation £90.00 for the first six months, as the monthly broad bill is £30 per month.

The second offer was - BT offered half price on the telephone line rental for the first six

months; the normal price is £20.00 per month and unlimited data internet usage, with

20MB download and 1MB upload speed.

The offer also includes online support, free wireless router online billing and account

management and free business calls minutes.

The total cost for connecting to the internet per annum for the next 24 months, would

originally be:-

● Broadband per month = £30:00

● Phone line rental = £20:00

● Total per month = £50.00 ex VAT.

● Total per annum = £450:00 Inc. VAT

Consultants and Systems Integrators


An IT strategy explains how information technology will be utilized as part of an organization’s overall business strategy and plan. The strategy should be founded on the reality of the current state and a vision of a future state that is aligned with that of the larger institution. At its core, the strategy should provide a foundation that can be leveraged and exploited to enable future efforts. The IT strategy should present a roadmap to facilitate movement from current to future state in pursuit of the vision.

Implementing new infrastructure requires significant changes in business processes and procedures, training and education, and software integration. This is a task that ITV will struggle to achieve on its own, which drives the need for these services. Hence the outsourced the re-engineering of their IT infrastructure to Accenture.

Outsourcing can help redefine ITV back-office operations, reducing cost and increasing strategic flexibility while simplifying multiple back-office functions

❖ Reduce operating risk: Bundling with a single provider greatly reduces potential points of failure.

❖ Simplify the governance process: Clients have only one relationship to manage, reducing administrative, and contract activity.

❖ Reduce redundancies and costs: A single platform reduces hardware redundancy, development, maintenance, and licensing costs.

❖ Improve performance: Automating manual processes and activities such as error handling can result in increased productivity and reduced time to complete.

Impact of Business Process Re-engineering.

ITV, competitive position in the broadcasting industry would be regained, best on the fact that, they hired a new CTO, Who was not impressed with ITV’s present Information Technology infrastructures, most of its employees had Dell laptops 5yrs old, enterprise application management platform needed upgrading and most of its sites did not have standardised WIFI connectivity.

Re-engineering of ITV’s IT infrastructure will have positive impact as it will help the organisation in the following areas;


❖ Improve Efficiency e.g. reduce time to market, provide quicker response to customers

❖ Increase Effectiveness e.g. deliver higher quality

❖ Achieve Cost Saving in the longer run

❖ Provide more Meaningful work for employees

❖ Increase Flexibility and Adaptability to change

❖ Enable new business Growth

A famous success story of BPR is IBM; the organisation was at the verge of failure about 10 years ago. A major BPR project helped to turn the company around.

In Conclusion

Change is painful and difficult to implement, even making the case for change is close to impossible ''However, change is a fundamental aspect of BPR. Organizations should therefore openly deal with change. Top management needs to communicate to its people why the change is necessary and how it will affect everyone's current job and future with the company. Top management needs to convey to its people that BPR is not being used to replace workers, but to improve quality, reduce cycle time, and create value for customers. Patience is also needed as change takes time. The re-engineering of ITV business infrastructure is estimated to last close to five years.

References

Cisco (2011) unified computing and servers.(online)http://www.cisco.com/en/US/products/ps10265/products.html

Giachetti, R.E. (2010) Design of Enterprise Systems. 1st Edn CRC Press

Google(2011) Google business application (online) last accessed 8/12/2011 at http://www.google.com/apps/intl/en-GB/business/index.html#utm_campaign=en&utm_source=en-ha-emea-uk-bk&utm_medium=ha&utm_term=%2Bgoogle%20%2Bapp


Hammer, M. Champy J (2004) Reengineering the Corporation: A Manifesto for Business Revolution (Collins Business Essentials) Rev Upd edition. Harper Paperbacks

Harris, V. (1994) Litigation Support Management: the Winning Edge. Illustrated edition Federation Press;

ITV (2011) about us (online) last accessed on the 8/12/2011 athttp://www.itv.com/corporate

Lee, R. (2008) Software Engineering, Artificial Intelligence, Networking, and Parallel/Distributed Computing (Studies in Computational Intelligence) Springer..

Oracle(2011)Oracle database. Oracle Database 11g Enterprise Edition.(online) accessed on

the 8/12/2011 at

http://www.oracle.com/us/products/database/enterprise-edition/index.html

Watson, R.T. (2005) Data Management: Databases and Organizations.5th Edn. John Wiley & Sons

Yogesh,M.(2005), "Business Process Redesign: An Overview", IEEE Engineering Management

Review, Vol. 26, No. 3, P. 10.

TURN IT REPORT


Appendices

All attached.