Let’s TalkMagazine edition 07 - Special EditionGaThErinG ThE MoST briLLianT MindS in iCT

EditorialIn this edition we are entirely focusing on the first CIOLeadership Summit gathering the most brilliant minds in iCT. i hope you will enjoy reading the interviews with some belgian top Cio’s who are sharing their views on many compelling issues in the magazine.

Since we launched the ‘Let’s Talk’ initiative more than 540 iCT decision makers have joined us in our closed linkedin group and they are now benefitting from the information that we weekly post on our blog.

if you are not a member yet and you wish to network with your peers and our experts and benefit from the free content, i invite you to join me on Linkedin www.bt.com/be/linkedin or visit our blog where we post fresh content several times a week www.blog.bt.com/LetsTalk/.

I do hope you will find this special edition of the magazine informative and i am looking forward to talking to you at one of our events or on linkedin.

Edwin hageman,CEo bT benelux

ContentsISSUE N°7 dECEMbEr, 2011

BT Edwin hageman, CEo benelux

Eurocontrol Willem Janssens,

head of Communication networks & Systems

Komatsu Chris borremans,

General Manager European iT

GSK daniel Lebeau, VP,

Management and information Systems

Daimler Christel Plessers, Cio

Puratos roger bouvrie, Chief Technical advisor

FOD economie Frank de Saer, Cio

UCB herman de Prins, Cio

BT Luis alvarez,

President bT GS EMEa & Latin america

Click on the squares in the content to navigate to the desired page within this pdf. Click on the bT logo to return to this page. Underlined text or weblinks are dynamic.

From the desk of Edw

in hagem

an

Edwin, one of the topics covered at the Cio leadership summit is iT leadership and new board expectations from the iT department.

First of all, do you think there have been considerable changes in the CIO role over the past few years?

i believe that indeed the Cio position has changed significantly looking back at the IT Director’s role in the first years of my career. But change has never been more impactful than the last five years.

The way we receive information and how we learn has become so different and so important that the Cio’s role has become much more complex. a rising number of collaboration tools, a changing working culture, the “bring your own device” phenomenon, cloud computing etc... This clearly creates a growing complexity within iT. how should Cio’s embrace this? Should they go for total outsourcing or a do it yourself solution?

The amount of data in our world has been exploding and analyzing large data sets – the so-called “big data” – will become a key basis of competition, productivity growth and innovation. This creates serious implications for the Cio as this requires new predictive analytical skills. McKinsey forecasts that by 2018, the United States alone could face a shortage of 140,000 to 190,000 people with deep analytical skills as well as 1.5 million managers and analysts with the know-how to use the analysis of big data to make effective decisions.

The CIO needs to act as a business influencer who can advise the CEo and is trusted to help the company come to the right conclusions in achieving their business goals. in my opinion the Cio’s scope has shifted from an internally focused functional head of iT to a real business strategist.

The new Cio role is clearly one that balances the traditional iT operations responsibilities with the emerging strategic demands. PwC talks about “The situational Cio” and i believe this is a very pertinent description as Cio’s need to be iT problem solvers, cost cutters and strategists all at the same time. They no longer look at internal customers only but must understand the business needs of their company’s customers.

The Cio must wear many hats. no other senior role has the breadth and depth of operational responsibility than the role of the Cio in today’s modern enterprise. if an iT system fails, there is almost certainly some area of the business that comes to a dead end. and almost all areas of the business are now supported by one iT system or another. but “keeping the trains running” is considered as being commodity nowadays and much more is now expected beyond the operational level.

Cio’s are expected to focus less on technology as such but also on applying technology to enhance the business and create new business opportunities.

interview with Edwin hageman, CEo bT benelux

3

What skills are essentials for ‘the new CIO’?

First of all Cios are pressured to devote their analytical and process skills outside the iT organization to help the business explore new approaches and markets.

Leadership and management are different but complementary. Management is about execution. Leadership is about change, specifically influencing others to change. This is why a high-level of emotional intelligence, i.e. self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, and relationship management, is critical for the senior technology leader to be invited into the boardroom. Fellow business leaders are looking for a business conversation, not a technology conversation.

Cios who can only take orders, who can’t speak the language of the business, who can’t step out of the “back-office” and jump into the front lines of customer service, social media or supply chain management will be left aside in the future.

Do you think a CIO could become a good CEO?

The trend of increasing globalization works in the favour of Cios. in a worldwide economy driven by information, corporate boards are far more likely to grant wider organizational responsibilities to Cios than they were in the past. Successful Cios can become successful CEos. but extra effort is required to grow beyond the traditional Cio mindset and to embrace the behavioural styles of traditional CEos. For Cio’s to become CEo’s they need to be an agent of change with excellent intuitive skills

Most important is the willingness of Cios to look beyond the borders of iT.

CEos “think big”. “When making the move to CEo, the hardest thing for a Cio to learn is to think in terms of profit and loss, rather than costs.”

Eurocontrol

Willem Janssens, head of Communication networks & Systems at EUroConTroL, explains how EUroConTroL is managing the transition toward a cost-conscious and service-orientated model.

What is the top short-term IT challenge at EUROCONTROL today?

one of the primary objectives of public organizations such as EUroConTroL is cost reduction. This issue has been on the agenda for a while now and is here to stay.

in the old days, proposals for new projects of a pure technical nature (such as a technical upgrade) were perfectly acceptable. Today, however, we need to show that a new project is aligned with our business plan. We need to defend our case in engineering terms as well as business terms and in a way that makes sense to an interdisciplinary budget committee and to the stakeholders who approve our budget.

Given this business focus, how do you address technical or platform related issues? How do you make the case for such expenditure?

The need to cut costs doesn’t mean we can’t have a strategic view on things. our main objective is to ensure the availability of our systems on which the whole of the European aviation relies – and cutting corners is no option!

So a critical look at infrastructure needs is crucial but any new iT project must be embedded in a global vision and aligned with a clear business strategy. and the more we can show that new projects can reduce costs, the better.

Take virtualization of the iT infrastructure, a key priority today. This is moving fast because it’s expected to reduce costs significantly and to improve the way the infrastructure is managed.

We currently have a number of data centres that operate reasonably independently but these will be moved towards a ‘private cloud’. This process means changing the way iT is organised. Platforms which were previously separate from each other and communication teams are now coming together. The iT organisation is evolving from being based on technology centres, to an iTiL like organisation – service design / service

The importance of service provision is nicely illustrated in the recent developments with the creation by the European Commission of a new role – the ‘network Manager’ – for which EUroConTroL has been nominated.

States in Europe all have their own flight control operations with their own iT infrastructure. What’s new is that each state now has to comply with a European performance scheme and EUroConTroL has to enable this.

Managing the transition to a new IT model in a highly sensitive environment

interview with Willem Janssens, Cio Eurocontrol

4

We need to ensure that aviation data can be exchanged in an efficient and secure way. Over the past 10 years the data exchange between flight control operators has continuously increased. The challenge here is less about infrastructure and more about data standardisation.

What are some of the other key challenges?

Mobility is another one and will impact iT infrastructure. The data that EUroConTroL collects and centralises was previously only accessible via desktop PCs. Today our objective is to make data accessible via mobile devices, laptops, smartphones, tablet PCs. internally, we would also need to have a ‘bring-your-own-device’ policy by 2014 – with the main challenge of ensuring security.

How do you approach that problem?

We make a distinction between user groups. The flight control rooms are highly secure zones so from an iT perspective these are islands which are completely controlled. other areas are moving towards a more open and collaborative environment.

We maintain a sufficient degree of control over all the IT resources because security and safety are central to our mission. So we have an in-house iT team to take care of infrastructure, customer support, service management and development. however, software coding and the day-to-day management of Linux, the Lan and Windows has been outsourced.

Is the role of IT changing?

Yes, the idea that iT has the monopoly on technological knowledge is over. iT and business talk the same language now.

i also think that the ‘cloud’ is taking the mystery out of techno-logy – to some extent. Cloud-based services are indeed some-times used by some areas of the business with good results.

When we receive a request from the ‘business’ to make use of a cloud based service, our proposal is often more expensive than what can be bought directly from the ‘public cloud’. in principle we don’t prevent them from using that cheaper ‘cloud service’ but we do have strict security requirements – and this is when they come back to us for help.

For example, Salesforce.com is a good CrM tool but once you start building bridges to our other systems, it loses a lot of its potential and becomes less flexible.

We are seeing a fundamental shift in what the role of iT is supposed to be. our role is becoming a role of consultancy. We cannot just develop something and impose it on users: we need to take account of what the acceptable user experience is today, and how fast it changed.

interview with Willem Janssens, Cio Eurocontrol

5

About Willem JanssensWillem Janssens is head of Communi cation networks & Systems at the network Management directorate of EUroConTroL

Komatsu

Chris borremans, Cio of Komatsu Europe, explains why he has somewhat contrarian views on iT management

What is your major priority at present?

Consolidation, simplification, cost reduction. Our IT infrastructure used to be highly fragmented and organized along geographic lines. That is because the company has grown through acquisitions, without a real drive for standardization. if it worked, it was left alone (don’t try to fix it if it isn’t broken). Since the economic crisis, however, that situation is changing rapidly. our strategy today is to consolidate and standardize our iT, simplifying and scrapping everything that isn’t absolutely necessary. We have tremendous potential to reduce costs and that is our primary goal at present.

Did the company consider outsourcing to reduce costs?i’m convinced that you don’t need to outsource to reduce costs. if you tally up all the costs and look at it from a total cost of ownership perspective over a five year period, then i think it makes more sense to manage your iT yourself – at least as long as you have an effective and efficient IT division. Several due diligence efforts have proven this to be true.

Some would argue that outsourcing is unavoidable given the increasing complexity of IT.i’m not convinced. is it really that complex? do you really need that much infrastructure? There is tremendous potential to simplify your iT setup. it is pretty straight-forward to create your own private cloud. Yes, iT is changing rapidly but that is nothing new, we’ve always had to deal with that. i agree that you can’t do everything yourself. For example, a lot of development work we do outsource, but in the infrastructure area it really is possible to do most of it yourself.

our helpdesk is internal and we consider this to be of strategic importance. it is imperative that our helpdesk people understand our internal clients, not only in language but also technically. our helpdesk people understand our business and are familiar with the way our iT is organized. In this way they’re able to address issues very efficiently. if you call an outsourced helpdesk then you often get a standardized service from people who don’t understand your business. The quality criteria that matter to me are good questioning techniques and problem solving, not the time it takes to pick up the phone.

Keep focused on the business value, keep sane

application development is largely outsourced, except the day-to-day work on our ErP and reporting systems. We’re always working on those applications; hence we automatically stay up to speed in these areas. The once-off development projects we outsource—there is no point in doing that yourself. infrastructure we do almost entirely ourselves, including the whole consolidation effort.

basically i believe several outsourcing deals are not “successful” but no one dares to face reality considering the implications on all concerned.

You say that cost cutting is a key priority. Isn’t a major consolidation program an expensive exercise in itself?

it depends how you approach this. We’re consolidating our infrastructure in a step-by-step, rather opportunistic manner. As specific bits of infrastructure become due for an upgrade or replacement, or as new needs emerge, we take the opportunity to simplify, standardize, and often simply to cut. being a Japanese company, there is a strong tradition of continuous improvement. it’s in the organizational culture, a process of constant questioning and assessment. Many small steps over time bring significant results. We’re certainly not using a big bang approach where one would, for example, close/move a complete datacenter over a weekend. That’s quite expensive and risky.

What are your other priorities?among other things to resist the hypes that keep emerging in various fields. That’s difficult because it means fighting the marketing machines of the big technology players. obviously we can’t ignore major trends but we do take a critical approach to much of the new technology emerging in the market. Take the tablet PC for example, where is the “real” business benefit over a smart phone and a notebook? We’ve got about five tablets in the entire company and currently they’re gathering dust in a cabinet after an initial period of curiosity and enthusiasm.

interview with Chris borremans, Cio Komatsu

interview with Chris borremans, Cio Komatsu

6 7

Komatsu

Surely you can’t resist the trend toward more mobility, home working, bring-your-own-device, etc?of course we are and will be ready for all of that. in fact we’re probably early adopters in some of these areas. People can bring their own laptop to work and they can connect to the network at home via a virtual desktop infrastructure. Obviously we’re investing in a more flexible iT environment. What i have a problem with is the way the benefits of specific devices or technologies get blown up out of proportion.

Is cloud computing hyped in your opinion?absolutely. i still have not seen a real case where a large enterprise has successfully transitioned to a complete cloud environment. obviously there are areas where it makes sense to use cloud services. CrM, for example; we’re happy users of Salesforce.com. in fact, if i was starting my own company, a new company from scratch, i would buy most, if not everything from the cloud. but as a large enterprise with legacy infrastructure, it can get really complicated if you start bringing in public cloud services, especially with regard to integration and authentication/security. nevertheless, the shift to the cloud is pretty unstoppable, if only because there is so much capital and drive behind it. From our perspective we just have to take a very pragmatic view on these trends. The history of iT is littered with phenomenal trends. The underlying trends are important to understand; one just needs to be conscious of the way expectations can get inflated. Social media is another example. Yes, there is a pretty fundamental change happening in the way people communicate, but be wary about the way specific social media benefits get hyped. Keep focused on the business value; keep sane.

About Chris BorremansChris borremans is General Manager European iT of Komatsu.

interview with Chris borremans, Cio Komatsu

interview with Chris borremans, Cio Komatsu

8 9

GSK

daniel Lebeau, Cio at GSK, explains why a bring-your-own-device policy can make sense, even within a simplification and cost-reduction strategy

Can you tell us a little about your short-term priorities?

Cost reduction is a major challenge. it always has been a priority but it is becoming increasingly difficult to extract the expected productivity gains of seven percent per year. The primary way we address cost reduction is via radical simplification. I think we have a tendency to overestimate the value of interfaces. in reality, interfaces don’t synchronize well; they create islands of information and lead to unnecessary complexity. a typical case is SaP. SAP only makes financial sense if you use its full footprint; otherwise it is too expensive given the integration work required. We try to stick to the principle of one software package for multiple functionalities as opposed to multiple systems for single functionalities.

in iT management you cannot limit your perspective to business efficiency; you also have to look at IT efficiency. in that regard we also focus on asset optimization. Much of the software we have is underused; our goal is to eradicate some of those tools and fill the gap by optimizing the footprint of others. Today, when an upgrade is due we first assess whether the application in question is utilized optimally; if not we get rid of it.

benchmarking is a useful tool in our cost reduction effort. it is very difficult to know with any confidence whether your iT environment is expensive or not. Even though you may be reducing costs in absolute terms, it also is important to know whether you are reducing costs as much as your competitors. You need to know whether you’re making progress in a competitive sense.

After cost reduction, what else is on the radar screen?The impact of technology consumerization is pretty signi-ficant. Our approach is to be highly proactive in dealing with these changes and to look for the opportunities. in a sense the trend toward bring-your-own-device policies flies in the face of our cost reduction strategy. At one end we aim to simplify our iT environment but at the other we’re being asked to embrace complexity. nevertheless, we think there is a trade off to be made here. Yes, we’ll allow for more devices but simultaneously we’re reducing our services somewhat. To be specific, today anyone can bring his or her own phone or tablet pc to work. however, they won’t have access to the full range of company applications – we only offer a limited set of functionalities to external devices, such as mail, contacts and a few virtualized applications.

Opportunities to simplify everywhere

Secondly, there is no service desk available to them for those devices, and thirdly, there is very limited reimbursement except the connection costs in some instances. in this way we’re transforming the problem into an opportunity. Those who are ready to bring their own device to work also require less support. Looking at the total picture i don’t think that we’ll actually reduce costs here but we should avoid an increase in costs as a result of these new policies.

How does the cloud fit in that picture?our mail and contacts application is fully in the cloud, which made it really easy to offer secure access to external devices. over time we’ll make more applications available in this way but as it stands, most of our needs are covered; managers spend 80% of their time on mail, not on SaP. referring back to your first question, however, I don’t want to talk about the cloud as a short-term priority. The cloud is a long-term trend. over the next 10 years we’ll gradually see companies embrace the cloud but at present the cloud is more an issue for suppliers, not customers.

Timing is everything. Consumerization is a priority because the timing is ideal to take action. There is a lot of competition in the market with good offerings. in fact, consumerization is reducing the cost of software dramatically. Software for a phone is much cheaper than PC software; we can only embrace that. in cloud computing, however, we don’t see a lot of competition yet and most vendors only have a limited offering. Some areas are obviously developing more rapidly; CrM probably leads the pack in that regard, with Salesforce and Microsoft driving the competition. but there are only three or so areas at present where there is real competition. That’s why we’re not in a particular hurry to move everything to the cloud. We acknowledge the underlying trend but we’ll wait until the market dynamics are right. and anyway, it isn’t because you move your services to the cloud that you can do away with the fundamental iT challenges such as keeping control of your master data. in fact, there is a real danger that the cloud will increase complexity in that regard. Ultimately the same principles will apply; the basics of iT will remain.

About Daniel Lebeaudaniel Lebeau is VP, Management and information Systems, at GlaxoSmithKline

interview with daniel Lebeau, Cio GSK

interview with daniel Lebeau, Cio GSK

10 11

daim

ler

Christel Plessers, Cio of daimler/Mercedes-benz belgium & Luxemburg, offers her perspective on Cio priorities in an outsourced environment

Can you tell us a little about your current priorities as CIO of Daimler Belux?

at daimler we work in a fully outsourced iT environment, which has its own specific set of challenges. Our three main priorities at present are to keep on reducing costs, to ensure that we maintain a degree of in-house iT knowledge, and finally, to make sure that we deliver business value, or, in other words, that we receive value for money from our outsourcing suppliers.

Why the emphasis on IT knowledge?Maintaining one’s in-house iT knowledge is a major challenge in an outsourced environment. To develop iT strategy and to manage our outsourcing partners properly it is imperative that we have strong iT competencies within our iT team and also more broadly in the business lines. as long as we keep our people involved in iT projects, that knowledge will develop automatically but in an outsourced environment that doesn’t happen. So how far do you go in investing in knowledge, for example via training or active involvement in projects? That’s a tough question because the point of outsourcing can’t be to set up parallel knowledge building tracts. nevertheless, some internal iT knowledge is essential otherwise we wouldn’t be able to steer and evaluate the work of our outsourcing partners properly.

So what is your approach?There are no easy answers. We obviously focus on training but we’re conscious of the fact that we also need practical experience; theory alone won’t suffice. Also important are the types of competencies you focus on. For example, we place a lot more emphasis on our service capabilities toward internal clients, helping them to address their business problems, making sure things happen according to daimler standards and managing our suppliers in that regard. Those are different skills compared to the highly technical iT competencies we used to have in-house.

Cost reduction is a perennial issue, it seems.Yes, reducing costs is nothing new. We’ve always been focused on cost reduction and it was the primary reason why daimler decided to make the move from in-house iT to an outsourced model. The economic crisis, however, has

CIO priorities in an outsourced environment

interview with Christel Plessers, Cio daimler

interview with Christel Plessers, Cio daimler

12 13

increased the pressure to keep on reducing costs. Especially in the running costs of iT we constantly want our suppliers to do more for the same money, or the same for less money. That’s a tough situation for suppliers to be in obviously, because that process can’t be pushed through indefinitely.

The counterpoint is value. How do you define business value?For me it comes down to quantifiable and perceived business benefit. At Daimler, IT is a cost center so we need to keep costs as low as possible and make sure that each cost is justified by a strong business case. That isn’t easy to accomplish, knowing perceived business value also counts. For example, we’re currently looking into the use of new media to support the sales processes. The real challenge here is not the cost of the device (e.g. iPad) but linking our internal systems—e.g. the applications for processing orders—to the internet in a secure way. That will entail a platform change, which is harder to build a business case for, even though it will also translate into benefits elsewhere in the business. For example, it would enable a bring-your-own-device policy which we haven’t been able to implement as of yet. in areas that are more clearly demarcated it is easier to build a business case, even for sizable projects. For example, for our ‘nearly new car’ network of dealers, we will develop a new platform, replacing the existing less recent one, that allows dealers to interact online with all business partners, to locate any used car currently available in the network and to see whether the car is still undergoing any work. This project must show clear additional business value.

So what is your view on cloud computing in that regard? Cloud computing strikes me as a platform change that could enable all sorts of business cases, as you illustrate in your example. Is it possible to build a business case for such a platform change?at the daimler group we have virtualized our iT environment but we haven’t moved to an external cloud model. obviously there could be value in a cloud model. our operation is very complex as we work with numerous partners at every level of the value chain. in an ideal world, this means that our platforms need to be able to communicate with suppliers in a highly transparent manner. in reality, however, most of our partners aren’t at that level yet and still tend to rely on tools like Excel and access to collate and share data. With a number of key suppliers we have set up several projects to test methods for linking our systems but at this point the implementation of such methods is not realistic.

at daimler we tend to change our underlying infrastructure only when we have to do a major upgrade anyway; we’re opportunistic in that regard. We won’t go ahead with a major platform change unless the business case is ironclad.

How do you ensure that you deliver value in an outsourced environment?obtaining value for money in an outsourced model ultimately comes down to trust. it is essential that both parties proactively work to maintain trust in the relationship, because distrust always has a tendency to creep in. is this really the most cost-effective solution? are that many man-days really necessary? It is so difficult to get an objective answer to these types of questions. our approach is to be as transparent and honest as possible. if we have a concern about something then we immediately communicate this. our suppliers appreciate this because it means that we can address potential issues quickly, before they turn into real problems. on occasion we do use a third party to assess whether a solution or service is appropriately priced. We obviously work with KPis; we measure what we can. and we sometimes ask the supplier to place their people here onsite so that we can collaborate very closely to speed up the process and build a relationship.

So is outsourcing good value for money?if you tally it all up and look at the total cost of ownership then i think that outsourcing is probably more expensive than in-house iT. outsourcing eats up a lot of management time and the work often takes a lot longer too because there are so many different people and processes involved before a task actually gets done.

daim

ler

But is an in-house IT model still feasible today?no, probably not. iT has become too complex and reliant on extensive expert knowledge. but that doesn’t mean that your outsourcing partner will have all the answers. They too need to bring in an army of (external) experts. So the question presents itself: why not work with freelance experts directly as opposed to through a single outsourcing partner? i’m not saying we’re about to follow this route but i do sometimes wonder whether the outsourcing model, so much in vogue today, is really that efficient. The overall trend is a current reality, no doubt, but i suspect that the business and service models will continue to evolve in the coming years making use of newly available collaboration features and facilities.

About Christel Plessers Christel Plessers is Cio of daimler/Mercedes-benz belgium & Luxemburg. Christel is responsible for a team of internal and external employees, managing the full range of iT operations and projects, much of

which is running on an outsourced mode. Previously, she held senior iT positions at interbrew/inbev.

interview with Christel Plessers, Cio daimler

interview with Christel Plessers, Cio daimler

14 15

Puratos

interview with roger bouvrie, Cio Puratos

interview with roger bouvrie, Cio Puratos

16 17

roger bouvrie, Chief Technical advisor at Puratos, argues that IT is like production; it must deliver IT projects efficiently but cannot be held responsible for their roi

What is your view on the changing role of IT?

Consultants and iT gurus often describe the Cio as the linchpin, the uniquely placed individual in the company who should be driving innovation in the business. i have a problem with that perspective. Most companies aren’t like amazon or apple where iT is core to the business. at manufacturing companies like ours, iT plays a supportive role.

While there are important opportunities that iT can identify for the business, i’ve learned over the years that cooperation from the business is difficult to achieve if the initiative comes solely from iT. in my opinion, most iT initiatives—and the responsibility that comes with it—should come from the business. Even if the idea does come from iT, the trick is to plant a seed somewhere in the business so that they develop the idea and come up with a proposal. This implies that that the Cio must be able to live with a lower profile in the business; you need to let others win.

obviously there are still certain types of purely technical projects that iT must take responsibility for. For example, we took responsibility for VoiP implementation and managed to reduce costs significantly in this way. Virtualization is another area that we take responsibility for. Most other projects, however, even if they were originally suggested by iT, are the responsibility of the respective business lines or functional domain. our job is to support the business in their decision making and to subsequently implement their decisions as efficiently as possible. Our focus is on cost control. We will evaluate the various options, from outsourcing to building it ourselves. We will collect supplier references. We will look at the technical viability and the technical implications to other areas of our iT environment, but ultimately it is business that makes the decision. and even if we build the solution ourselves, the business is responsible for defining the processes that will be managed by the application. once a decision is made we will commit to delivering the project within certain cost and quality parameters. We will make sure that the application works well within our technical environment, that it is well integrated and that it respects our master data. The return on investment or net Present Value of the project, however, is the business’ responsibility. That’s because the business lines understand their own processes best. Furthermore, they’re best placed to evaluate iT proposals against other non-iT proposals. There’s nothing special about iT; we shouldn’t be creating a special category for iT and thereby absolve it of the usual financial scrutiny.

The business is responsible for ROI on IT projects

in that sense iT is no different than the production department. Production commits to manufacturing the product as efficiently and rapidly as possible, but it cannot be held responsible for whether the product sells or not, or whether it creates customer value.

My point is not to absolve iT of responsibility or to shy away from a strategic role in the business. i’m simply trying to provide a more nuanced view on who is responsible for what in the company and how you account for those responsibilities. Value creation in a company is a joint effort. iT projects succeed when everyone involved is fully committed to the project.

So how do you account for the different responsi-bilities?We do so via internal re-invoicing to the different business units, countries or departments. For every iT project, we conduct a thorough budgeting exercise and based on that work we subsequently price the project on a per user basis, a user being a bU, a country or a department. We only invoice on an oPEX basis to the business (CaPEX is turned into depreciations and as such it also becomes oPEX). it is our responsibility to commit to that budget and it is the business’ responsibility to see if they can achieve a decent profit on that expenditure. Sometimes we lose out in terms of price or speed compared to external or outsourcing services and in those cases we do indeed opt for external development or outsourcing. For example, our ErP, telecom, iP/Telephony management and helpdesk is outsourced.

What are your thoughts on some of today’s talking points, for example, cloud computing?i don’t see us making a total switch to the cloud in the short future. For example, we’re moving to SaP global but that is a program with a 10-year timeline (120 locations in 60+ countries). The contract for our outsourcing negotiations alone took six months. i will never have the permission to place our operational applications in the cloud, from a legal and risk perspective. Ultimately, however, i think that outsourcing and the cloud will simply merge. We outsource practically everything that makes sense and we’re already buying some iT as a service, we’re buying SLas. That’s also a cloud model if your supplier commits to response times,

because he will have to add power in case it is needed.

What are your thoughts on a bring-your-own-device policy?as i understand it, the bring-your-own-device issue is based purely on the assumption that the youth, the so called generation Y, will rebel or disregard our company as a conve-nient place to work, if we don’t give them what they want. The iPad is an amazing device but in our company there isn’t yet the business case for suppor ting it. in fact, our whole actual strategy is based on standardi-zation and cost reduction; we’re a low margin business. but, we offer our people very high profile PCs, so that in most cases, their home device isn’t as good as the company’s.

About Roger Bouvrieroger bouvrie is Chief Technical advisor at Puratos nV.

Fod

economie

interview with Frank de Saer, Fod economie

interview with Frank de Saer, Fod economie

18 19

Frank de Saer, Cio at the Federal Public Service for Economy, SMEs and Energy, talks us through his challenges and priorities

What are your main priorities today?

My first priority is to make sure that our basic IT service keeps running reliably at a high performance level. i’m referring here to everything that is so-called commodity iT, such as our servers, mail, websites and the CbE. That’s our core responsibility and we need to do this well if we wish to retain our credibility in the organization. it doesn’t earn us any points at a strategic level – that’s why i call it commodity – but should we fail in this task it will certainly destroy our credibility. in other words, we cannot underestimate the importance of this aspect of our responsibility.

our second priority is creating value for the business. To be able to do that you obviously first have to have your commodity iT under control. as a Federal Public Service we deliver a range of services to citizens and companies. at iT we play an important role in helping the business lines deliver better and new services. in that regard we have a number of projects in our portfolio geared to, for example, improving the CbE (Kbo/bCE) services, the patent system, the calculation of economic statistics, complaints handling and so on.

How is the collaboration with the business lines organized?We have nine major business lines in the FSP. Each line has an information manager placed reasonably high in the hierarchy, typically reporting to the business line director. The information managers are our first point of contact for defining new opportunities and projects. They work pretty intensely with our service management team. Via this collaboration we try to identify the needs and challenges in the business lines and set up new projects. also from within iT new initiatives emerge as we discover additional technologies that could be useful to the business lines. occasionally new initiatives will be launched by the political entities.

our third major category of challenges is human resource management. at present we have a top-heavy inverted age pyramid. More than half of our people are over the age of 45 and 30% is over the age of 55. As a result the outflow of people and knowledge will be pretty dramatic in the coming years. at the other side of the coin we have a real challenge recruiting and retaining young people because there is shortage of suitable iT candidates in the market.

The war for talent: IT priorities in the public sector

Furthermore, as a government agency we struggle to compete for talent against the private sector because they’re able to offer better compensation packages. retention too is an issue, since young people who have gained a few years experience and training here are very attractive candidates for the private sector. To conclude, the inflow is small but the outflow is huge – that’s the crux of our problem.

How are you addressing this problem?obviously we can’t prevent people from going on pension. Fortunately we have many highly motivated employees who have every intention of staying on board until the age of 65. What’s so impressive is that they retain their dynamism too. our people are often following up systems after hours and during the weekends, even though we have no compensation framework to cover that type of work.

We’re obviously investing in knowledge transfer, via coaching and training, but that doesn’t solve the problem that we have too few young people to train and coach. To fill the gap we’re working with external people. The Fedict Select program is certainly useful in that regard. Set up by the federal government’s IT service, Fedict Select is a non-profit entity that is able to hire iT professionals under private sector conditions and subsequently outplace them in government agencies. We also encourage a great deal of internal mobility. For example, we’re actively looking for people in the business lines who have an interest in iT and will train them so that we can deploy them in iT projects. on the whole we invest significantly in training and always try to offer our people meaningful, cutting edge work in a technical challenging and modern environment. it is in those dimensions that we’re able to compete effectively against the private sector.

People talk a lot about the changing role of IT. Do you agree? What is your opinion on this?i’ve been almost 30 years in the iCT-business now so yes, i do think it is changing. Take the first issue we talked about, the commodity part of iT. For us that remains a very important part of our work and responsibility but i have noticed that it is increasingly irrelevant to the business. it’s a ‘given’ that is supposed to run perfectly in the background. We can’t approach the business anymore with complex technical proposals; it doesn’t interest them. What matters is that we create value for them, that we support them in their business strategy. The technical aspects don’t interest them. if we want to raise our profile in the business, our influence at a strategic and innovational level, then we need to talk business, not technology.

The commoditization of IT is pushing many com panies to outsource. What is your opinion on that?outsourcing is one way to manage your production but it needs to be evaluated against the alternatives such as cloud-sourcing and co-sourcing. outsourcing is not a straightforward option for large public sector organizations like ours. We work with statuary personnel so it is nearly impossible to make sudden, radical changes in our organization. our approach is to outsource only where it makes sense to do so and where we can still deploy our team most effectively. in that regard our approach is best described as co-sourcing. We bring internal and external people together to work on projects. in this way we make sure that our people are doing meaningful work and continue to build knowledge and capabilities. For example, our Wan-Lan is outsourced but we retain a small team, not only to manage the contract but also to keep playing an active operational role in the network’s management.

About Frank De SaerFrank de Saer is Cio at the Federal Public Service for Economy, SMEs, Self-Employed and Energy and

Managing director for the Crossroad bank of Enterprises (Kbo / bCE)

UCb

interview with herman de Prins, Cio UCb

21

herman de Prins, Cio at pharmaceutical company UCb, explains why he’s taking a proactive approach to the consumerisation of iT

What are your top three issues today?

The first theme I’d like to address is the consumerization of IT. This issue isn’t solely about devices ; it also encompasses the self-provisioning of applications, the impact on integration, risk management, security, governance, vendor management and so on. People today have instant access to a myriad of easy-to-use apps and communication tools; they expect the same capabilities in an enterprise environment. in business we can’t ignore the fact that these services are so easily available and it is up to us to find other and better ways of delivering services. That’s challenging, because it means relinquishing a degree of control. how do you respond to a situation where one group in your organization makes use of an online document sharing tool like dropbox, while another group decides to use something else? how do you retain control over your data? in the past we had control over our infrastructure, it was our own infrastructure, but when people start making use of tools in the public cloud then we lost a degree of control. The only answer, in our view, is to get the balance right between good policies and good infrastructure.

The fact that people want to bring their own devices to work is, in one sense, a technical detail. Technically we’re convinced that it is possible to enable a bring-your-own device policy that is compliant with our security criteria. however, should people expect that level of service? We take the view that it is an unstoppable trend and therefore are proactively preparing for it. it isn’t only generation Y that is keen on new devices, our senior executives are also asking for support in that regard and they have influence. Technically we can do it, but good policies and governance between iT and the business will be crucial to achieving success. We took the first steps to cater for smart phones and tablet PCs. For example, within a year we’ll be supporting 3000 tablets. it encompasses mobile device management, training policies and so on. it’s hard work and will probably cost a little more but we think it best to take the lead in this area.

a key question to ask yourself with regard to consumerization is whether to enable the use of external devices and applications, or whether to compete against them by offering your own services. in the area of collaboration, for example, we decided to compete against public services such as Yammer by opting for Microsoft Sharepoint. Yammer may still be easier to use than Sharepoint but that’s mainly because Sharepoint is a more secure and therefore somewhat more cumbersome solution. another example: for the iPad we’re creating a dedicated document

Consumerization, the cloud and big data

application that integrates seamlessly with our Sharepoint system. in this way we’re competing with public apps by giving reach to our corporate platforms. as you can see, there are no straightforward answers here – it’s a balancing act.

Cloud computing is the second theme you wanted to address. Cloud computing basically comes to down to the sourcing of iT as a service. Looking at the three levels of cloud computing, i’d say that SaaS is the easiest level of cloud computing to engage with. Gradually we’ll move towards infrastructure (infrastructure as a Service – iaaS) and in the longer term PaaS (Platform as a Service). at the level of SaaS, tools like Salesforce and mail services are driving adoption; the barriers are low. infrastructure is a much bigger step. With every step taken in our infrastructure, we weigh all our options but ultimately it comes down to whether you believe that the world is moving toward a cloud model or not. if you do, then it makes little sense to continue investing in your legacy infrastructure. The switch isn’t easy though because it is often cheaper or easier to stick with the status quo. The integration issues – the switch from a CaPEX to an oPEX model – all of this can be daunting. Looking at the bigger picture, however, from a total cost of ownership perspective, then i think the cloud will often win. also, the market for cloud services is becoming more mature and competitive. You also need to consider that SaaS providers like Salesforce aren’t even selling to iT; they’re going straight to the business. it is a challenging situation. iT cannot afford to ignore those wider trends but at the same time we have to continue running our shop, taking care of our legacy datacenters and ensuring business continuity.

To conclude, can you tell us a little about your third theme?big data will be a key issue for us in the years ahead. We are generating so much more data, both structured and unstructured. in the interaction with our various stakeholders, for example, we’re relying on an increasing number of digital and interactive channels that are generating video, images, social media data and so on. The traditional sales channel from sales rep to medical practitioner is increasingly obsolete. We now pursue a multichannel approach with many more (digital) interactions. on the product side, we’re gradually moving from a mass market model to personalized medicine that will be reliant on ever more granular information derived from electronic health records, automated diagnostic tools, unstructured data such as images and so on. healthcare is changing and we need to be prepared. From an iT pers-pective this all comes down to data, huge amounts of data that we need to manage and exploit as the best we can.

About Herman De Prinsherman de Prins is Cio at UCb.

interview with herman de Prins, Cio UCb

20

bT GS EMEa and LaTaM

interview with Luis alvarez, President bT GS EMEa and LaTaM

22 interview with Luis alvarez, President bT GS EMEa and LaTaM

23

Luis, how will the region prepare for a Latin American decade?

Personally, i think the Latin american decade already started a few years ago. The resilience of the region to the global economic crisis has been remarkable. When travelling around the region, i do feel the positive spirit in most of the countries, and it reenergises me.

This resilience was made possible thanks to the strong focus on reducing poverty, an increased effort in building infrastructure and significant developments in health and education. a larger middle class is fostering economic growth and Latin america is now high on the agenda of most global companies. at the same time “multilatinas”, multinational companies based in Latin american, have emerged as leaders with big ambitions and globally recognised skills.

however, there are many challenges to deal with in order to deliver against those high ambitions: rising interest rates, democratic consolidation, increased commodity prices which impact on inflation and, for governments, balancing growth and continuous investments to reduce social divide. Fortunately, Latin america’s low debt levels (public debt below 45% of GdP) and high reserves (foreign exchanges reserves around $600bn) provide a solid support for the region’s development.

How critical are their infrastructure needs – from transportation to communication?back in april when i was at the world economic forum on Latin america, this topic was high on the agenda. in the panel where we addressed the issue, it was highlighted that Latin america invests 50% less on infrastructure than it should to guarantee economic growth. it now invests 2% of GdP, when it should be investing at least 4%, if not 5% to 6%, on infrastructure. To guarantee the long-term predicta-bility needed for infrastructure investments requires macro-economic sustainability and stability in the government-set rules of the game, in everything from a fixed regulatory framework to taxes and licensing.

a lack of proper infrastructures – some of them linked to critical events such as the 2016 olympic Games in brazil – social breaches, and economical and political stability, remain they key challenges that are high on the agenda of leaders across Latin america

Challenges in emerging markets: the LATAM case

How important is the Latin American region for BT?It is very significant for BT, for our existing customers in Latin america and for new and potential customers in the region and globally. We have announced that we are putting additional focus and investment into the whole of Latin america, enabling us to offer the same solutions and quality of service there as we offer elsewhere, responding to feedback from our customers.

by accelerating our ambitions for growth in Latin america we are helping our customers to expand their operations. So what does this mean? Well it means we’ll be investing in building up our infrastructure in the area – for example, by increasing our MPLS PoPs by more than 20 per cent. We’re also going to launch ethernet services in 21 cities across the continent.

We’ll be adding 250 personnel to enhance our Professional Services offering in the region, extending our product and service portfolio and launching centres of excellence in rio de Janeiro (satellites), bogota, (data centres and security) and Mexico City (iP telephony and contact centres).

bT already serves around 1,300 organisations in the region, including a number of global multinational companies, such as Unilever, rhodia, baSF and Fiat. bT has this year signed a number of high profile contracts with Latin-american companies such as the £133 million contract with ECT – Empresa brasileira de Correios e Telégrafos (the state-owned Brazilian Post Office and Telegraph Company), with Caixa Economica Federal to connect its data centres with its banking correspondents and lottery outlets in brazil, with Pão de açúcar, the largest retail conglomerate in brazil, with Ecopetrol, Colombia’s largest company, and with Colombia’s Ministry of information and Communication Technologies, where bT supports the Compartel programme to deliver internet connectivity to hundreds of schools, hospitals, council buildings, courthouses and other govern-ment institutions and contracts.

About Luis AlvarezLuis alvarez, President bT GS EMEa & Latin america

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