CIONET Magazine 13

The next CIO CIONET Magazine, Winter 2012-2013

Sharing and Caring Contents Innovation 4

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Social media driven business innovation Strengthening the learning and information culture, social media are key differentiators for business innovation.

Can IT innovation improve the European economy?

The IT sector generates 25% of European investment in innovation and development. Could it re-launch the economy?

8 New business model turns code into money Technology push can drive business building and transformation at incumbent operators.

Next CIO 10 Changing IT is defining the CIO’s new role As a consequence of the BYOD phenomenon the business no longer needs to choose internal IT as its service provider.

12 The future CIO, innovation leader at the top Innovation is strategic for the future of companies and CIOs who lead innovation will be part of their top management.

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In a world where IT has become the nervous system of business and society, we believe that ClOs and their teams are the new heroes that drive change and innovation in their organisations.

That’s why we have built CIONET, the leading European community of IT leaders.

It is our mission to provide CIONET members and partners with the best

14 The next CIO will be a strategic solution partner The future CIO will have his seat at the board table, participating in business strategies and the definition of goals.

18 New CIOs, stakeholders in customer relationships The expansion of mobile technologies strengthens the CIO’s impact on the end clients in the financial sector.

20 Digital university builds on CIO leadership TUM was the first German university to introduce a CIO function similar to the one in corporations.

22 The X-factor of the next CIO The CIO is expected to talk more about his successes in order to keep IT attractive for future generations.

Communication 24 Don’t fear the CIO but talk with him In their communication with the CIO, the CEO and the Board should abandon their prejudices and fears of losing control.

26 The next CIO is an excellent communicator Good communication is essential for building trust between CIO, CEO and Board.

possible platform to help them to succeed and make the world a better place. We do this by understanding the ClOs’ needs and by fostering their development and growth.

We believe that community and collaboration are the heart of the organisations and society of the future. We are driven by the passion and ambition of our members.

Next organisation 28 The CIO as change agent: hard to ‘soft’ control It is crucial that CIOs are aware of the importance of steering on ‘soft controls’ for a network organisation and spend more time on it.

30 Change through intelligent collaboration Real transformation comes from giving employees a platform to collaborate openly and exchange knowledge, creating a social enterprise.

32 Value-added sourcing implies governance and reciprocity A mature IT sourcing partnership requires the development of human relationships between operational teams on both sides.

News 36 CIONET Italia Award In the latest edition of the CIONET Italia Award, three prominent CIOs were rewarded for their innovative achievements.

38 Lift-off for a new, vibrant community At its start-up meeting CIONET Portugal put business-IT alignment, IT-driven business innovation and lean IT on top of its agenda.

The next CIO Current technology trends, such as cloud computing, social media, mobile computing and big data, have become key weapons for business innovation and digital growth. They are also transforming our IT organisations and drastically changing the CIO’s role.

Innovation with IT is no longer just about implementing the latest technology.

Nowadays it’s about understanding how new technologies and trends can be applied in the business to drive growth in a sustainable manner. That’s why, in his new role, the CIO is a strategic partner who advises his CEO and Board on how IT can create value for the company.

To win a seat at the Board table, the next CIO will need excellent communication skills and will need to use straightforward business language. Clear communication is essential for building trust between the CIO, the CEO and the Board. It will help the CIO to tackle the Board’s and CEO’s prejudices and fears of losing control over investment programs.

It is also important to keep an eye on the perception that the Board and management have of IT. Although it’s not necessarily in their nature, CIOs should talk more about their accomplishments and achievements, Success is all about being noticed. You get noticed by showing the goods.

What other skills are required for the next CIO? He needs to have leadership capacities and be strong in global overview and planning. As a people manager, he will focus on people development, design career paths and constantly work on team building.

Hendrik Deckers Founder and managing partner CIONET International

Finally, the next CIO is a change leader driving the company’s transformation projects to develop new service and revenue models and to succeed in new markets. According to Charles Darwin’s evolutionary theory, the species that will survive are those that are the most adaptable to change.

May the Force be with you.

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Strengthening the learning and information culture, social media are key differentiators for innovation.

Social media driven business innovation At the CIONET Belgium event ‘IT-driven Business Innovation’, the keynote speakers emphasised the power of social media.

Connecting people across borders and functional silos, they stimulate learning and innovation.

Jef Staes, author and authority on learning & innovation: “Only people who combine the available information with passion and talent can become ‘3D smart’.”

Jef Staes, author and authority on learning & innovation, stressed that social media play a key role in the transformation process of organisations to become innovative. “We are facing an exponentially increasing amount of immediately available information. This ‘global information wave’ is strongly powered by all kinds of online and mobile media. Everybody has access to them and anyone can add information.

Moreover the nature of information is evolving as we see, for instance, increasingly more video and social networking on the Internet. All these kinds of ‘tacit’ information exchange can’t be found in school books that only give ‘explicit’ information.”

From ‘2D smart’ to ‘3D smart’ Sabine Everaet, Europe Group CIO at The Coca-Cola Company: “The richness of the behaviour information from the ‘citizen interaction center’ enabled us to embark in precision marketing.”

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Event report CIONET Belgium

“In the old days society suffered from a huge information shortage. You went to school knowing the teacher had more information than you. When you later went to work, your manager also knew more than you. If your job performance was moderate, your

boss sent you to a training course where they taught you how to better carry out those things you didn’t like.

You were ‘2D smart’ without passion hoping to retire at 50.”

But things have changed. “Following the ‘global information wave’, information is directly accessible to everyone. So, the teacher and the manager aren’t necessarily the smartest anymore. Only people who combine the available information with passion and talent can become ‘3D smarts’. They will learn a lot faster and be able to innovate much more rapidly.”

The skills a manager needs in the 3D information age are no longer validated by diplomas, function descriptions and training programs. “Most of all, he has to be a leader and talented in casting. He should be authorised to autonomously choose the right people for his team instead of having to work with people chosen by the organisation. Otherwise he can’t be a competent 3D manager.”

For innovation we absolutely need CIOs who are ‘3D heroes’.

“We have to build an information system that’s relevant to the next generation. Children and teenagers have constant and multiple access to the social media. This is why they have developed a much stronger learning and information culture than most organisations. So how can we possibly become the world’s most innovative nation if we don’t give our collaborators access to this 3D information?”

“For innovation we absolutely need CIOs who are ‘3D heroes’. They profoundly understand the value of 3D information combined with passion and talent. They should be given the authority to implement the new skills and tools in their organisations”, Staes concluded.

Social media as key differentiator Sabine Everaet, Europe Group CIO at The Coca-Cola Company, explained that innovation in IT is not just about implementing the latest technology.

“It’s about understanding how new technologies and trends can be applied in your business to drive growth in a sustainable manner.”

Social media and mobile apps have become a key differentiator for improving Coca-Cola’s competitive position. “In the past, we typically supported the marketing and communications teams by centrally hosting consumer websites. We collected consumer data at a fairly high level, but we never actively used it.”

To make the difference, IT started hiring people from marketing agencies. They soon indicated that the company needed to invest in twoway, interactive connection with the consumers. “Look for instance at our Facebook fan page with over 50 million fans. If we wanted to exploit that position, we needed to include digital advertising across all channels.

Therefore, we were mandated to build a Social Engagement Platform supervised by a hybrid steering committee in which IT, Marketing and Communications operate at the same level.”

The richness of the behaviour information that we obtained revealed opportunities for corporate communication with the consumers.

“More importantly, it also enabled us to embark in precision marketing, the second component of our Social Engagement Platform.”

The concepts of social media and online networking have also entered Coca-Cola’s internal communications. “Chatter, our internal Facebook-alike, has played a vital role in sharing best practices across country borders. Another example is the use of Spigit, a tool that supports interacting around innovative ideas.”

“All these technologies stimulate innovation as they smoothly connect people across borders, ignoring hierarchical and functional silos.

They take advantage of a broad and culturally diverse base and diversity is proven to result in more disruptive innovations.”

‘Social media lead to diversity which is proven to result in disruptive innovations.’

The first component of the platform relates to the consumer call center.

“Our pilot ‘citizen interaction center’ in Spain went live in 2012, using modern communication channels like social media. As community managers, our agents engage actively with consumers on topics of their interest.

We were able to bring down the cost per interaction from 9 Euro to 0.004 Euros. This was driven by the number of interactions that increased from 7,500 contacts to 35 million social impressions on a quar­terly basis.”

CIONET Belgium Event report

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The IT sector generates 25% of European investment in innovation and development. Could it re-launch the economy?

Can IT innovation improve the European economy?

“Do you believe IT is really the salvation for our economy? What can CIOs do to help their country’s economy grow? What will be their future role in this?” These were the main topics of the CIONET annual event in Spain last October.

Some 170 IT experts came together to analyse these topics and to enjoy a great networking day in Madrid. Many topics surrounding the economy and the CIO’s role were discussed: “What do we have to focus on in the present economic situation? Are we doing a good job? What do we have to change? More Innovation? Sourcing?

Cloud? Or maybe ‘not even move’? Are we afraid?”

These and many other questions were answered during this annual meeting.

Pilar del Castillo: “Developing knowledge and innovation in the digital area will have a substantial impact on economic growth and employment.”

Mona Biegstraaten, Managing Director of CIONET Spain explains: “First of all we heard what the European Parliament had to say about this.” Miss Pilar del Castillo, MEP and member of the Research and Energy Committee of the European Parliament, explained their plans and future actions. “The IT sector generates 25% of European investment in innovation and development. As a consequence of the dynamism of the sector, its ability to innovate and its added value, it helps in the development of other sectors”, she explained.

Pilar del Castillo also talked about the need to develop a Digital Society based on three factors: • mobilisation of individuals, providing digital skills and access to appropriate speed networks and pushing forward in privacy and security; • developing the market with a digital scope, basically harmonising local laws: • developing knowledge and innovation in the digital area.

“These three factors together will have a substantial impact on economic

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Event report CIONET Spain

growth and employment. They will be the driver to help us get out of this crisis”, she said. Some initiatives of the European Parliament to achieve this are the European Digital Agenda, the liberalisation of the 800 mHz band, 3G and 4G coverage and the European Cloud Computing strategy.

CIO’s changing role Mona Biegstraaten: “We went on with our discussions to see how we can be the driver for the economy. We know that the CIO cannot start new projects, invest in innovation, grow the business, etc. on his own. That’s why we set up some debates between CIOs & CEOs, CIOs & CFOs, and CIOs & HR directors. The most important outcome of these debates was the fact that the CIO has to change his role and his way of focusing on IT.” The next speaker was a very well known Spanish professional: Honorato López Isla, ex-CIO and CEO of Unión Fenosa. He really agreed on this necessary change of the CIO’s role and also gave some concrete ideas to focus on. “What does the CEO need from his CIO?

First of all, release him from technological decisions. You, the CIO, are the expert in technology. The CIO should also help the CEO with strategic decisions. Moreover the CIO is a business partner of the organisation, not a provider. The problem and the project are common to all parties.” López Isla continued: “The CEO doesn’t want to pay too much for his technological whims. Furthermore the CIO has to lead the transformation projects and explain their value, e.g., can they be used for international growth? The CIO also has to talk to the CEO about ROI and Business.

What is the profit? How does it affect our P&L? Finally he has to bring innovation to the company.”

‘The CIO is a business partner of the organisation, not a provider.’

Profile of the future CIO “Based on this and on other considerations put forward during the event, the profile of the CIO of the future has to include some crucial skills”, says Mona Biegstraaten. “The CIO is a leading manager with the capacities and the skills to be in the steering committee. He has leadership skills and is strong in planning, communication, global overview, etc. This CIO is trained in management skills and not only in technical ones.”

“Moreover he has a worldwide vision and supports international growth integrating ICT platforms, especially in acquisition processes. He looks for opportunities in the emerging mar­kets on other continents. The CIO of the future is also able to listen and understand the business and to provide it with solutions.

He facilitates the contact between business and IT management levels.”

Pilar del Castillo, MEP and member of the Research and Energy Committee of the European Parliament: “The IT sector helps the development of other sectors with its dynamism and ability to innovate.”

Honorato López Isla, ex-CIO and CEO of Unión Fenosa: “The CIO has to lead the transformation projects and explain their value to the CEO.”

But that’s not all. “As a people manager he improves people development, makes the team grow, manages expectations and designs career paths.” What else is expected from the future CIO? “He does not only provide IT services to the business but also tries to package technology to help diversify the business. He has a product manager mentality to go to the market. Finally, as a leader in digital transformation, he is an evangeliser and catalyst for innovation.

He gets his company closer to Cloud Computing, Big Data, BYOD, etc.”

The event closed with the participation of José Manuel Inchausti. He is the CIO of Mapfre and European CIO of the year 2012. He said that the new role of the CIO should be very strong, positive and convincing.

“You have to believe in the fact that you are the CEO of your area” concludes Mona Biegstraaten. “You have the same responsibilities and the same role as any other CEO. You need the right skills but more importantly, the right attitude.”

The CIO is a leading manager with the capacities and the skills to be in the steering committee.

CIONET Spain Event report

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Technology push can drive business building and transformation at incumbent operators.

New business model turns code into money When managing the transformation from a former state-owned telecommunications company to the customers’ first choice service provider for connected life and work, implementing new business models is a key challenge. Deutsche Telekom is driving this growth with innovations from own developments, partnering, and venture activities.

The Developer Garden initiative of Deutsche Telekom is distinct from most other innovations, as building this business has its roots in - and has been driven by - the technology and IT department rather than the business unit’s product management. How did this come about?

Technology Management within DT’s former CTIO organisation realised that Internet technology allows exposing features of DT’s network and IT infrastructure to third parties using APIs (application programming interfaces).

This exposure allows third parties to easily leverage DT’s services in own solutions and business processes, generating new revenues in domains that DT itself is not active in.

DT’s IT infrastructure handles billions of transactions each month, creates bills for millions of customers, and complies with a challenging set of regulations and laws. Hence, imple-

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Special feature CIONET Germany

menting additional features for new business models has been a complex, high-effort task in the past and made it difficult to match the speed of pure Internet players and start-ups. Today, the same APIs that are exposed to third parties can be leveraged internally to implement new business models faster and at a fraction of previous costs. Often, time consuming changes to legacy IT systems can be avoided.

In 2009, the CIO and CTO of DT’s former T-Home and T-Online units set up a team of experts to work on two front lines. The first one consisted of building an exposure gateway and a developer portal, which provide external as well as internal developers with APIs to access services such as voice call or SMS. The second frontline was about managing the culture shift from encapsulating own assets from the outside world to opening them up for

any developer worldwide. This open development approach quickly proved that it can be of high value for a telco, as it already is for pure Internet players such as Google or Twitter.

Soon, corporate strategy and the board of management of DT drew their attention to this new ‘enabling’ business model and made it one central element of DT’s future business model. It was only recently that all Developer Garden activities were transferred from the technology and platform department to the core telco products business unit within DT’s Digital Business Unit, which reports directly to the CEO of DT, René Obermann.

Developer Garden Developer Garden (www.developergarden.com) is the developer platform of Deutsche Telekom (DT).

It enables third parties such as software developers and IT solution providers to use a broad range of DT and partner services to efficiently build or enhance applications for their business clients and to turn code into money.

Strong developer ecosystem To fully leverage the power of working with external developers, DT’s Developer Garden is building a strong developer ecosystem together with partners such as Microsoft, Intel or Voxeo Labs, which reaches out to more than 17 million developers worldwide. The API portfolio now includes services such as Telekom Tropo (a cloud-based voice application platform providing speech-driven IVR (Interactive Voice Respond) services), access to DT’s machine-to-machine (M2M) and Entertain (IPTV) services, as well as cross-operator in-app billing and ID management services. Since July 2012, it has been complemented by the Developer Garden marketplace for software components. Both enable developers to turn code into money: selling code components or earning a revenue share when using APIs in own applications provides them with new sources of revenue. Furthermore, using pre-build code components can considerably reduce effort and time-tomarket in app development projects.

‘Recently, the Developer Garden activities were transferred to the core telco products business unit.’

With the marketplace for software components as well as the cooperation with leading players in the software market, Developer Garden has become an important offering for software developers. It is going beyond traditional telco services, while at the same time allowing developers to leverage DT’s network and IT assets, the strong customer and billing relationships and partner network, as well as the high quality of service delivery.

More and more business customers and enterprises count on Developer Garden, for example, to enhance their business processes with voice dialogues for customers or to set up voice mash-ups for new business offerings. With good customer service and tailored offerings, Developer Garden is serving the needs of professional enterprise developers. With a wide range of activities such as free talks, conferences and web tutorials, run by the Developer Garden evangelists, DT is in close contact with the developer community and can address their needs fast.

Peter Bruhn, Senior Manager at the Digital Business Unit of Deutsche Telekom AG and author of this article: “Learning to communicate is now child’s play thanks to Telekom Tropo API. Enhancing applications with voice communication has become an easy, low effort task.”

Deutsche Telekom Deutsche Telekom is one of the world’s leading integrated telecommunications companies with almost 130 million mobile customers, 33 million fixed-network lines and more than 17 million broadband lines. The Group provides products and services for the fixed network, mobile communications, the Internet and IPTV for consumers, and ICT solutions for business customers and corporate customers.

Deutsche Telekom is active in around 50 countries, the Group generated revenue of EUR 58.7 billion in the 2011 financial year over half of it outside Germany.

CIONET Germany Special feature

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As a consequence of the BYOD phenomenon the business no longer needs to choose internal IT as its service provider.

Changing IT is defining the CIO’s new role Ian Sherratt, Corporate CTO at SCC provides an insight into how ‘Architecting Choice’ can assist CIOs to flex into future technology challenges, providing IT that truly defines their business.

Tablets and ever more powerful laptops are readily available on every high street. People talk about consumerisation and the BYOD phenomenon.

What do all these developments mean for the IT industry?

I. Sheratt: “We need think differently about security, data and applications and about how we deliver those to the workforce. The fact that these devices are not corporate devices any longer changes our responsibility. This raft of new devices is changing the way the CIO has to deliver the infrastructure.

He has to think about architecting choice, not just about delivering what he has done before.”

What challenges do these changes present to CIO’s?

“What would the business accept? Is the business ok with smartphones? Do they think facebook is acceptable in the work place? For a CIO it’s becoming the IT that defines him. What is he doing to make sure that the internal staff are productive, are intuitively able to interact with all information they need to do a fantastic job? That really is the challenge and the opportunity for the CIO today.”

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CIO view CIONET UK

How is the CIO’s role changing exactly?

“Previously, he was the default provider of services, data and IT technology.

Now the business no longer needs to choose internal IT as their service provider. They may look outside IT and could choose to adopt a cloud service offering.”

‘Lots of CIOs are starting to talk the language of the business and not the one of technology.’

Does that mean that the CIO is becoming an endangered species?

“Lots of CIOs are working hard to avoid that by changing the way they talk to the business and by changing what they offer the users in terms of options to access data and applications. They’re looking at everything the market can offer and trying to apply that to the businesses. They’re also starting to talk the language of the business and not the one of technology.”

Ian Sherratt, Corporate CTO at SCC: “The CIO has to think about architecting choice, not just about delivering what he has done before.”

The role of the CIO you’ve described sounds almost like an impossible job.

Could outsourcing be the answer?

“The problem with outsourcing is that every time you change, there’s an incremental cost for managing that change. As we look at the infrastructure that the CIO could have created with wholesale outsourcing, he is now stuck with that outsourcing model.

So, a clever CIO will look at selective insourcing, not outsourcing. He’ll keep the things that are important to him and the business close to him and he’ll look at selectively out-tasking some of those other elements like e-mail, storage, etc. So he’ll become the service aggregator rather than the service provider.”

This article is based on an interview by Robin Powell.

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Innovation is strategic for the future of companies and CIOs who lead innovation will be part of their top management.

The future CIO, innovation leader at the top The explosion of internet technology and user tools involve the CIO in new roles because he/she must explore the new possibilities. This phenomenon leads to great opportunities for the CIO to provide solutions that add more value and to become more deeply involved in the business.

Federico Flórez, CIIO and Member of the Executive Committee at Ferrovial: “The CIO’s role has been critical in sectors such as banking and manufacturing where IT has led to growth.“

The CIO’s role has not always been acknowledged, but it has been fundamental for managing companies and essential for their survival. On the other hand, its content has been rich and the knowhow gained has enabled those of us who have been fortunate enough to work as a CIO to grow and develop professionally.

In recent years the CIO has supported business processes with technology and by automating functions. This role has not been a strategic one for the organisation and that is why the CIO’s position has largely not been considered as part of the top management of the company. Although, it is true that the role of the CIO has been a critical one for company operations in sectors such as banking and manufacturing.

The skills the CIO needs are based on a strong technological component, supported by a mature IT sector providing solutions and services, focused

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CIO view CIONET Spain

on a limited number of technology companies. Business in general in the past was not embedded in a complex macroeconomic environment, so the IT budget increase was usually justified by a defendable business case.

This role has been existing for many years and has been a difficult one due to the complexity of the projects and the growing needs of companies, which made the cycles shorter and more demanding. However, talent was never lacking, as the sector has always had sufficient capacity to absorb growth.

Nowadays, in addition to maintaining past functions, the CIO finds himself in an adverse macroeconomic environment and at a time of great technological change. Moreover, companies tend to diversify and try to sell more externally. The panorama has changed dramatically. Now there are solutions that are more mature and enable processes to be outsourced to

Innovation and social networking are both phenomena which require a completely new way of working, which is totally open.

Federico Flórez: “Innovation is strategic for the future. This means that the CIO who leads it will be part of the company’s top management.”

companies that are experts in reducing costs and making costs variable.

Outsourcing practices are not free from risk and failure, but are seen as a good solution given the greater pressure on costs. They also provide the flexibility the company needs for change. This requires other knowledge and different talents in companies. Furthermore, suppliers should see themselves more as partners in this long journey and not as mere contractors.

Increasing IT value In addition, business changes and the CIO needs to understand the new processes that have to be supported and give him a more core value role because technology is integrated even more into business. The value IT generates increases and the CIO is requested to provide solutions that add more value to the business. This is a great opportunity if you know how to adapt yourself to this new environment.

The explosion of internet technology and user tools has led to more opportunities, which involve the CIO in new roles because he/she must explore solutions, which are not be supported in the same way (no own infrastructure or own development).

He also has to do it within a shorter implementation period and with less

costs. The CIO must deal with this new complex environment because it is not mature and requires reengineering know-how from his own company. Users are always requesting enhancements and better tools, which are more user friendly.

This phenomenon has occurred in almost every sector and has led to great opportunities for the CIO to become more deeply involved in the business. The language used is increasingly more straightforward and has improved communication.

‘The CIO is requested to provide solutions that add more value to the business.’

In my opinion, the CIO has evolved and now leads innovation in this environment. This function has arisen in an exponential way in all companies as they want to stand out from their competitors. This is an across the board process, which normally has technological support and therefore requires management skills the CIO has. Furthermore, innovation is strategic for the future of the company and this means that the CIO who leads it will be part of the company’s top management.

Another initiative that must be taken advantage of is the use of social networks in the company. Some shortsighted people have seen this as only being part of the younger generation’s future, but it plays an important role in the future of the company as it will be a vehicle for attracting and retaining talented professionals and sharing knowhow and knowledge throughout the company.

Innovation and social networking are both phenomena which require a completely new way of working, which is totally open. In this environment the CIO will face difficulties that he/she will have to manage regarding data security and confidentiality. The CEO’s vision and the viewpoint of the company in which you are working are essential in this new journey and this transition tends to be slower among top management that is less visionary and less open to change.

But let us make the most of this opportunity we have at this time of great change and let us live up to the saying that where there is a recession, there are opportunities.

This article was written by Federico Flórez, Chief Information and Innovation Officer (CIIO) and Member of the Executive Committee at Ferrovial.

CIONET Spain CIO view

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CIOs of the CIONET Italy Advisory Board say the future CIO will have his seat at the board table.

The next CIO will be a strategic solution partner Trends like cloud, apps and mobility are transforming technology into services. This evolution moves the CIO from being a technology expert to a solution expert. The future CIO will be a strategic partner advising the CEO on how the new IT can bring value to the company.

The role of the CIO is changing and is becoming more and more challenging. The seventeen CIOs in the Advisory Board of CIONET Italy give their opinion. How are they experiencing the CIO’s changing role and what do they think about the next CIO?

probably the key for organisations of the future. IT will be involved in marketing, product development, logistics, finance, human relations, collaboration, etc. So the future CIO must be able to evaluate the opportunities of new technologies for the business.”

ing e-mails on paper. But he/she will also be requested to have long-term experience to perfectly know business processes and differentiate between what is just trendy technology and what can improve revenues and efficiency.”

“Having finally left their technical role, many of today’s CIOs meet with company management to contribute to the improvement of business processes”, says Maurizio Brianza, CIO at BTicino. “The IT trends of this decade, like mobile, social, cloud, big data, internet of things, consumerism, etc. are transforming the business world in terms of customer relations, operational processes and the business model. Technological progress is

“Learn continuously, communicate effectively, act and decide rapidly”, says Dario Castello, CIO at Maserati and ICT Business Development Leader at Fiat. “The CIO’s job will become even more challenging. The innovation pace of IT is unmatched in human history. The CIO will always need to know and use the latest technologies like a geek, having a young mindset like the millennials who will enter companies where CxO’s are still print-

Stefano Catellani, CIO at Caprari, believes that the next CIO is already working in the IT departments today.

“Our companies will only have a ‘next CIO’ if we, the CIOs of today, will be able to imagine and shape him or her.

What is right today will still be right tomorrow: the future CIO needs to have client commitment enabling him to understand the needs of the users.

Moreover he or she has to be ‘business proactive’. It is no longer enough

Maurizio Brianza

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CIO view CIONET Italy

Dario Castello

Stefano Catellani

Donatella Paschina

Paolo Daperno

Marco Tagliavini

to be aligned with the business, the CIO must anticipate future needs.

Finally he or she has to be technology driven, helping the company to get the best out of IT.”

Multiple roles “CIOs are increasingly being asked to play incremental roles like chief of information, chief of innovation and chief of integration”, argues Donatella Paschina, Group CIO at Ermenegildo Zegna. “All these roles can be played at the same time in the same company depending on the needs of the business lines and on the expectations of the top management. The ability to play different roles is the real challenge to be faced, as is the capacity to speak the different languages the various roles require without forgetting the technological aspects of the job. The next CIO will advise the CEO on how the new IT can bring value to the company.”

“The next CIO is a facilitator and enabler of the business who’s able to communicate, analyse, understand and develop a helicopter view on the business”, says Paolo Daperno, CIO & Business Process Director at illycaffè. “He should promote collaboration with the business, contribute to strategic planning, enable technology and drive innovation. The CIO should create innovative ways to better know and serve the customers and to con-

Marcello Cordioli

nect with them. Another major challenge is to select the right sourcing in a world of shrinking resources.”

Marco Tagliavini, Corporate IT Manager at Georg Fischer: “Everybody agrees that the future CIO will no longer focus on technical issues, but rather on improving the business processes and on providing added value through IT. In addition to the necessary technical background, the future CIO must have strong communication skills. As a result of the increasing financial impact of IT on business, he also needs solid financial skills.

Moreover, people management skills and strong skills in business process management are required.”

‘Proactive CIOs will anticipate future business needs.’

Marcello Cordioli, Group CIO at Permasteelisa, says that the pace of changes in the economy and the business is calling for a profound change in all the roles of organisations, including the CIO’s role. “The new rapid changes require that a CIO is able to implement drastic simplifications of the infrastructure and the organisation. Only when the environment is flexible and agile he has the time and the capabilities to deal with the new roles the company asks him to ful-

Enzo Bertolini

fill. They expect him to be a change manager, a knowledge manager and a digital expert who is aware of what the clients are telling through the internet channels.”

According to Enzo Bertolini, Group CIO at Ferrero and Chairman of the CIONET Italy Advisory Board, in the coming years the CIO will be required to play his role on three different axes. “First of all, he should provide the company with a robust back office implementation, leveraging on a shared services platform in order to increase efficiency and agility. He should also be an innovator identifying the more interesting emerging technologies and inspire the management on how these may transform the way of doing business and improve the ability to reach the evolving consumers. Finally, he should become a ‘change engine’ driving the company’s transformation projects to develop new business sectors or succeed in new markets.”

Strategic role The CIO is becoming a strategic partner inside the company. “But not everywhere, only in companies that will use innovation for business advantage”, says Marco Gaeta, CIO at Sirti. “Business is changing and current trends like cloud, apps and mobility are transforming technology into services that are available everywhere

CIONET Italy CIO view

15

and anytime. In other words, the CIO is moving from being a technology expert to a solution expert, from a standard expert to a business expert and from a reactive model to a proactive model.”

“It is clear that the CIO will play a new role in the organisation of the future”, confirms Adriano Riboni, CIO at Sanofi Aventis Italia. “Of course it is necessary to have implemented a solid platform responding to all basic necessities. But now it is time for the CIOs to become involved in the business strategy definition. The business is looking for a new way of working and requires our help. It needs to adapt its strategy quickly and to adopt new solutions to connect with customers. This is an excellent opportunity for us to demonstrate that with our experience, deep knowledge of company processes and technical skills we can help them, adopting new technologies and tools with agility and flexibility.”

Davide Gindro, CIO at Avio Group, argues that “the CIO’s role has to evolve to help companies transform their

Marco Gaeta

business through innovation and collaboration in the inside as well as the outside. With his/her knowledge of the processes he/she should identify where it is important to transform the company through tight integration between technology and business. To drive the change, the CIO must fully understand the business strategy as well as internal and external customers.”

‘The future CIO will focus less on technical issues.’

Paolo Magnani, VP IT Life Sciences & Healthcare Sector, Mainland Europe at DHL Supply Chain, adds: “I am sure a CIO of the 2020’s will manage core business processes and will drive company innovation. He will also be accountable for the integration of different business models. Cloud, SaaS, IaaS and apps have already set the path.

Now we need to be able to transform ourselves and our resources to cope with the new challenges. Within our companies, we are among the few who have a valuable expertise to do this.”

Adriano Riboni

Davide Gindro

Luigi Pignatelli, CIO at Carl Zeiss Italy: “Over the years, the CIO has moved from a technologist role, based on a solid technical environment and governance rules, to an integrated business actor, requested to adapt to the ever faster technology evolution and to the organisation’s business needs and goals. In this way the CIO has won his seat at the board table, participating in business strategies and definition of goals, bringing the technological point of view to a more global and integrated 360° approach of the business model. The next challenge will be to secure and manage the tangible and the intangible within a flexible and heterogeneous technical ecosystem, capitalising the huge volumes of data as a strategic asset.”

Crisis accelerates change “In the current situation of worldwide economic crisis, CIOs should increase the speed of change”, says Giovanni Hoz, CIO at Policlinico Gemelli, emphasising the ‘genetic mutation’ that made them become less technical experts and increasingly closer to business. “Everyday, enterprises

Paolo Magnani

CIOs of the 2020’s will manage core business processes.

Luigi Pignatelli

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Giovanni Hoz

CIO view CIONET Italy

Augusto Fedriani

are going bankrupt or dramatically reducing their budgets. Within this scenario, CIOs should be the ones who find the most innovative technological solutions, but always aimed at corporate business objectives and not simply responding to a sort of ‘technological libido’.”

Augusto Fedriani, Disaster Recovery Manager at Costa Crociere, confirms: “Technological growth combined with the economic situation in recent years has led companies to offer more services while saving resources.

This is pushing the CIO to become a helmsman, holding the technical, financial and operational rudder. He needs to have the vision to suggest new scenarios, remaining on the crest of a wave of innovation.”

“Consumerism of IT and cloud computing threaten the CIO’s leadership in technology skills”, argues Matteo Veneziani, IT Director at Expo 2015.

“Access to services is no longer the prerogative of the IT function. To defend his leadership the CIO must

play the role of advisor in the selection process of service outsourcing, assuring the integration between external and internal solutions. Within this scenario, the CIO must always be updated on new technology trends, be an advisor on demand and have deep knowledge of business processes and financial skills to demonstrate the ROI of IT.” The evolution theory can be summarised by this quote from Charles Darwin: “It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent. It is the one that is the most adaptable to change.” Ferdinando Peretto, CIO at DiaSorin explains that “this has to be taken into consideration to find the picture of the ‘next CIO’. It has never been so difficult to forecast how business and society will develop in the coming years.

The CIO’s knowledge of the entire business at a process level and his methodical approach to systems and process design create a unique ability to help move innovation forward.”

Tackle the economic crisis by increasing the speed of change.

Matteo Veneziani

Ferdinando Peretto

CIONET Italy CIO view

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The expansion of mobile technologies strengthens the CIO’s impact on the end clients in the financial sector.

New CIOs, stakeholders in customer relationships Within just a few years, the CIO has become a real player when it comes to dealing with the clients of the company or administration he works for.

Now he is much closer to his client’s clients. The expansion of mobile technologies strengthens this closeness even further.

Currently, most investments in financial institutions directly affect the end client’s tools. Whether it is a web portal, a transactional website or a mobile application, the CIO is entering a universe driven by something he had not been familiar with so far: the power enacted by the crowd.

“End clients’ habits have changed drastically over the past few years and the CIO feels this change first-hand”, says Pascal Lanser, Country Manager of IBM Luxembourg. “It’s now a question of being best aligned to the company’s strategy and acting in a time span that is totally different from

before. The CIO has gone from having to strive for a long-term vision to something he needs to achieve in the medium or even the short term.”

“What it means to be an insurer is radically changing”, confirms Olivier Vansteelandt, Member of the ExCo and Manager IT & Organisation at AXA Luxembourg. “We were not used to making our systems available 24/7 and our current processes still largely rely on paper. But our clients and agent networks are increasingly requiring that our systems are made available at all times.”

Besides the obvious challenges, other, more strategic ones, appear, such as the role played by IT operations. “Is the infrastructure really a part of our core business?”, Axa recently asked itself. The insurance company then proceeded to outsource commodity functions. But outsourcing remains a business matter before anything else.

“The CIO has left behind the traditional cycle of development consisting of creating, assembling and producing technological releases”, says Pascal Denis, Managing Director of Accenture Luxembourg. “In the current context where time to market and

Olivier Vansteelandt, Manager IT & Organisation of AXA Luxembourg: “Our clients and agent networks are increasingly requiring that our systems are made available at all times.”

Bernard Lhermitte, CIO of ING Luxembourg: “The CIO has become a true stakeholder. If he makes bad choices, he can actually imperil the bank’s customer relationships.”

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CIO view CIONET Luxembourg

Sylvain Momin, Head of Country Technology Organisation at ABN Amro Luxembourg: “For the CIO it’s a key issue to be involved in achieving the company’s main objectives“.

Pascal Lanser, Country Manager of IBM Luxembourg. “It is now a question of being best aligned to the company’s strategy and acting in a time span that’s totally different from before.”

Pascal Denis, Managing Director of Accenture Luxembourg: “The CIO has left behind the traditional cycle of development consisting of creating, assembling and producing technological releases.”

time to value have become essential for companies, the CIO must be able to choose the right building blocks for his company, distinguishing the strategic ones from the ones that can be left aside. He has an incredible array of solutions within his reach, including ready-for-use solutions. He can subscribe to out-of-the-box software and services or even have them executed elsewhere.”

‘direct if possible, advise when needed’.

Using the same logic, we are now approaching our product distribution and construction channels differently.”

pany’s main objectives“, confirms Sylvain Momin, Head of Country Technology Organisation at ABN Amro Luxembourg. “This is a sound approach because this way he can really focus on what matters to the bank. It also forces his sponsors to think better about what is truly at stake. Moreover we set up really precise business cases before carrying out strategic investments. Doing so, we of course demonstrate how we can reduce costs and achieve ROI, but more and more often it’s also about what revenues can be generated.” Finally, Momin points out: “By using precise business cases our project portfolio is certainly smaller, but it gains in precision.”

‘Today, what the CIO does, directly affects the end clients.’

CIO’s increasing impact The increased intimacy in organisations between Chief Information Officers, the Marketing department, Finance, etc. makes it easier to identify what can create and favour synergies.

“In keeping up with the global strategy of improving ‘total customer experience’, the CIO is faced with multiple and diverse strategic challenges”, explains Bernard Lhermitte, CIO of ING Luxembourg. “We constantly keep the client at the centre of what we do, which corresponds to the bank’s motto

What is the CIO’s role in this context?

“While keeping a very low IT costincome ratio, the CIO must not only show a strong capacity to control costs but also be aware of the latest state-of-the-art technology. Today, what the CIO does directly affects the end clients. If he makes bad choices, he can actually imperil the bank’s customer relationships. IT no longer only facilitates these relationships but has become a real stakeholder. That’s why we always have to challenge ourselves and remain ambitious.”

To achieve these goals, ING Luxembourg recently added a new building block to its infrastructure, enabling the bank to address new challenges more rapidly and to embrace new potential. “It is not only about making a technological choice, but also about opening up to future challenges for the bank as well as for the clients”, concludes Lhermitte.

“For the CIO it is a key issue to be involved in achieving the com-

The CIO has gone from having to strive for a longterm vision to something he needs to achieve in the medium or even the short term.

CIONET Luxembourg CIO view

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TUM was the first German university to introduce a CIO function similar to the one in corporations.

Digital university builds on CIO leadership Higher education is being challenged to adapt its operational model. Universities used to be research and teaching centres for a specific geographical area, but today leading universities operate globally hosting students from different social backgrounds from all over the world.

Without a doubt, Information Technology has also become a key success factor for universities. IT leaders from higher educational institutions are confronted with the same challenges as their peers in the corporate world: Cloud, Big Data, Consumerisation of IT - all these buzz words, which aim to describe the impact of new emerging technologies and trends, are also top on the list of issues for CIOs of universities.

IT@TUM Information Technology is omnipresent at TUM (Technische Universität München). It is among the leading universities in Europe and the world. The 2012 Academic Ranking of World Universities (ShanghaiRanking) recently ranked TUM again as Germany’s best university. More than 32,000 students and 9,300 employees work and study in one of the three major TUM campus sites in and near Munich.

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CIO view CIONET Germany

In 2001, TUM was the first German university to introduce a CIO function similar to the role implemented in corporations, including direct reporting to the president. Together with the CIO role, a new IT governance structure was established and a new IT strategy was defined under the leitmotif ‘building the digital university’.

The main task of the CIO position is to optimise existing processes in a mainly decentralised ICT environment and improve the effectiveness of IT in research and teaching at TUM, while optimising costs at the same time. To achieve this, three major focus areas where defined: • Infrastructure: networking, e-mail, storage, internet portal, identity management and system administration; • Campus Management: management of all administrative systems (personnel, finance, student administration and student organisation); • Research & Teaching: e-learning, web services and library services.

Lessons learned • Communication and collaboration with stakeholders is crucial.

• Gain new personnel with the help of business units, e.g. through shared employment.

• Stick to decisions made: don’t re-discuss everything.

• Keep it simple: complexity is great for wine, not for IT. • The CIO needs strong backing from the CEO and the Board.

• New structures are about real people, not only about what is on paper.

• Be your own critical customer.

For all centrally managed IT activities, a service catalogue has been defined, which offers standardised IT services to all TUM students and staff. Major achievements of this approach have been the creation of 24/7 IT services, a significant reduction of redundant IT infrastructure, new IT services by usage of external service providers and a very strong focus on communicating about IT deliverables.

The CIO’s changing role at TUM In 2011, Hans Pongratz was elected as TUM’s youngest ever Senior Vice President and CIO. Having been a student at TUM, he is a Master of Computer Science and has worked in TUM’s IT Department as a research fellow since 2005, in which period he has supported the implementation of the new IT infrastructure program called IntegraTUM, the e-learning platform elecTUM as well as the new campus management system CM@ TUM. Since the introduction of the new IT governance structure and the related IT strategy at TUM, the approach of IT leadership has evolved from a rather restrictive top-down model to a system of collaboration between the CIO and the Information Officers of the operational units, as well as with other TUM stakeholders (students and non-teaching staff).

Hans Pongratz defines his CIO role as being a moderator, facilitator and catalyst who connects his vision on IT with the needs and requirements of his clients from all parts of TUM. “It is about how we can effectively and efficiently work together in order to achieve our common goal of making everything at TUM better”, says Pongratz. “The IT function has to become more flexible and customer centric and IT staff need to constantly communicate and interact with the users.”

In this context it is quite interesting to learn how Mr Pongratz implemented an unusual approach ensuring that the message IT wants to communicate is understood by its clients.

He hired a non-IT person for the IT communication role: actually the lady has a PhD in archaeology. Doing so, Prongratz followed this simple rule: “If she doesn’t understand what IT tries to communicate, it will not be communicated.”

‘IT leadership at TUM has evolved from a rather restrictive topdown model to a collaboration system.‘ He is a strong believer of leading by example. Therefore he decided to not only focus on his strategic CIO role by maintaining his personal responsibility for the campus management system. “It takes a lot of extra time to fulfill this dual task, but it is time well spent as this approach keeps me grounded with the daily challenges of operational IT management”, argues Pongratz, adding that this is very positively received and gives additional credibility to his role as CIO. In a mainly decentralised environment, which exists in most universities, collaboration is essential. At TUM the main vehicle for IT related collaboration is the CIO/IO Board, in which all 13 faculties are represented under Hans Pongratz’ leadership. The board’s task is to define and drive major IT projects in order to execute the overall IT strategy.

velop processes and find solutions to support the further decentralisation of research and teaching activities.

Besides, increasingly more research projects are driven by cross-functional teams to drive and stimulate innovation at TUM. IT needs to provide these research teams with tools and processes that enable them to optimise their research activities by sharing information on a 24/7 basis.

Looking at the current situation, Hans Pongratz concludes: “The vision of where we want to go with IT at TUM is clear. However, we have to realise that things tend to move slowly.” In his role as TUM’s CIO he will make sure to move forward to success together with his IT Board, enabling TUM to continue on its way of building a digital university.

Hans Pongratz, Senior Vice President and CIO at the Technische Universität München: “The CIO’s role is being a moderator, facilitator and catalyst who connects his vision on IT with the needs and requirements of his clients.”

A view into the future Major challenges lie ahead for the IT role. As TUM continues to operate more and more globally and partnerships around the globe are initiated, the IT function has to de-

CIONET Germany CIO view

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The CIO is expected to talk more about his successes in order to keep IT attractive for future generations.

The X-factor of the next CIO One of the greatest challenges the future CIO faces is the predicted lack of IT experts. It is therefore important to keep an eye on what perception the outside world has of IT. Although it is not in their nature, CIOs should try to talk more about their successes, because those who exude success will also be regarded as successful by others.

Paul Piebinga, CIO of Enexis: “The increasingly complex data set leads to the expectation that CIOs will increasingly influence the business strategy”.

Nils Fonstad, Associate Director of eLab, part of INSEAD: “Which type of CIO are you actually and what drives you: technology, business processes or customers?”

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“Each generation gets the CIO it deserves” was the theme of CIOneXt, the last annual event organised by CIONET Netherlands in Amsterdam.

During the meeting various speakers from different backgrounds tackled the question: “What is the role of the CIO of the future?” This discussion is still topical and is about a wide range of subjects and questions: “How to deal with the influence of new technologies like cloud and mobile? What about the governance of an increasingly complex infrastructure and data set leading to the expectation that CIOs are increasingly influencing the business strategy to pursue? How do we deal with innovation within the organisation?”

On top of this, the CIO is a line manager of the ICT department. How is this role changing? Which skills does a CIO need? Will his department still exist in the future? If so, how can we keep it attractive for future employees

Event report CIONET Netherlands

for whom we have to focus on more diversity due to the predicted lack of IT experts?

More women Led by the day’s chairman Paul Piebinga, CIO of Enexis, the participants listened to the speakers, but also contributed in the form of lively discussions. Because women are often sidelined, especially in more senior and executive positions, two successful women were present in this discussion: Wouke Lam, former IT manager HR systems at Shell and now responsible for the diversity policy of the national government at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and Dr Julie Beardsell, Board Member of the Academic Council, Dean of Academic Standards and Professor of Digital Strategy at UGSMvMonarch Business School Switzerland.

Julie Beardsell cooperates with CIONET to draw attention to the appeal of European Commissioner Neelie Kroes to aim for more women in IT.

European CIO of the Year Pieter Schoehuijs of Akzo Nobel told those present about the radical transformation his company has undergone, and how IT supports the business strategy.

IT is the driving force behind business process management at Akzo Nobel. To achieve this position a lot of work has to be done, including the reduction of no less than 4,000 server-based applications that are used throughout the organisation. As an example he took the sub-project where a hundred ERP applications are being reduced to no more than six.

For over three years two systems have been shut down every month. In total this project will last for seven years.

‘Each generation gets the CIO it deserves.’

Healthy curiosity He shared four lessons with the CIOs present. The first one is successfully organising by using the right structure and the right people. One of the greatest challenges he faced was actively making use of talent for the whole organisation. The second lesson is to assume responsibility as an IT department. IT is perfectly positioned to be involved in everything. “Make use of this, and show healthy curiosity”, he said.

The third lesson is being proactive. If someone else comes up with an idea, the CIO is too late. If you don’t do it yourself, others will and you can only join in. This marginalises IT. The fourth and final lesson is about celebrating the success. “Keep it lively, as IT is always people-oriented.”

with the personal development of the CIO, especially the image he or she has. For instance, he demonstrated that authenticity is particularly important for image, referring to examples from the music industry.

Nils Fonstad, Associate Director of eLab, part of INSEAD in Paris, started a discussion with the CIOs present about the question of which type of CIO they actually are, and what drives them: technology, business processes or customers? Tineke Netelenbos then spoke of her work as a Digital Champion for the Dutch government.

She mainly appealed for the incorporation of IT in education, expressing harsh criticism about the solo effort of the Ministry of Education, which has not joined coordinating IT initiatives.

She also shared the letter she sent to the people who were at that moment charged with forming a new Dutch government with recommendations for IT policy in the Netherlands, including a Minister of ICT.

Image and perception Finally, Henkjan Smits, known as a member of the jury in talent shows on television, held a mirror up to the faces of the CIOs in his presentation ‘The X-factor of the CIO’. He dealt

‘Keep it lively, as IT is always peopleoriented.’

“It is also important to keep an eye on what you stand for and what perception the outside world has of you”, he explained. Following on from the lessons of Pieter Schoehuijs, Smits incited all CIOs present to exude success, as it is by definition not in the nature of CIOs to talk about their successes. “After all, those who exude success will also be regarded as successful by others”, he concluded.

This article was written by Marco van der Hoeven. The photos were taken by Paul Teixeira.

Tineke Netelenbos, Digital Champion, appeals for the incorporation of IT in education.

She has given recommendations for IT policy in the Netherlands, including a Minister of ICT. Henkjan Smits, tv presenter, producer, talent scout and coach: ““It is important to keep an eye on what you stand for and what perception the outside world has of you.”

Due to the predicted lack of IT experts the CIOs will have to focus on more diversity.

CIONET Netherlands Event report

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In their communication with the CIO, the CEO and the Board should abandon their prejudices and fears of losing control.

Don’t fear the CIO but talk with him

CIONET Belgium hosted the IT Governance seminar ‘Communicating with the CEO & Board’ in Brussels. The speakers agreed that the CIO’s communication should be as transparent as possible in order to improve trust.

Yves Danneels, CIO of Landbouw­ krediet/Crédit Agricole (LBK/CAB) talked about ‘Communicating with the CEO & Board on high impact programs’. He explained his communication approach by means of the Centea acquisition case. Centea, a medium sized Belgian bank, had its ICT fully managed by its former mother company KBC. Its products were similar to those of LBK/CAB but the number of products and transactions was twice as high. The goal was to merge both banks into a new one, to be called Crelan, by 30 June 2013.

supplier. But in this case a lot of trust was involved, so it was important to be transparent and show all options as objectively as possible.”

Prior to the acquisition decision, ICT identified 4 options for the future IT platform, amongst which are adapting the existing IT landscape, and even full outsourcing of all Crelan’s IT to KBC. “The latter was not an option, mainly because our main competitor would become our sole IT

After further analysis and having challenged its internal vision by external consultants, ICT proposed to adapt the existing platform and leave Centea on the current KBC platform until migration in June 2013.

This plan was finally adopted by the Board.

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Event report CIONET Belgium

ICT also wanted to make sure that all possibilities were clearly understood by the board. This was achieved by carrying out a SWOT analysis for each option, including the thoughts of the CEO, the Board and the shareholders. “To do this you have to know the strong and the weaker points of your ICT and understand the perception factors such as fears and prejudices.”

Define a communication framework Following this, Lázaro Campos, the former CEO of S.W.I.F.T., presented on ‘CIO’s communication with CEO and Board’. First he explained that the CIO’s role has strongly evolved.

“He was used to missions such as delivering IT-centric change and aligning IT with business strategies. But nowadays expectations are much higher. The CIO has to keep the entire business running without interruptions, drive business transformation and enable business innovation, avoiding disturbing normal operations.“ Drivers for this evolution are cloud computing and virtualisation leading to more complex organisations with, for instance, development and call centers outsourced to various foreign countries. It is a challenge to integrate all these geographically

Yves Danneels, CIO of Landbouwkrediet/Crédit Agricole: “In the Centea merger case a lot of trust was involved, so it was important to show all options as objectively as possible.”

Lázaro Campos, the former CEO of S.W.I.F.T.: “The CIO should define a framework for control and completeness. This will reassure the Board that an investment is not infinite.”

André Vanden Camp, CIO at AXA: “The CEO should empower IT within its scope by delivering a clear CIO mission statement including key metrics and cost targets.”

spread processes. “The evolution is also pushed by the increasing cyber warfare which will militarise IT discipline, and by BYOD, leading to a loss of control over IT assets.”

best practices on CEO and CIO relationships.

ment and keeping IT high on the agenda.” And finally, the CEO should empower IT within its scope “by delivering a clear CIO mission statement including key metrics and cost targets, and by enabling IT to decide on IT-related matters such as sourcing, architecture and security.”

Within this context the CIO’s communication with the Board and CEO becomes increasingly important. But how much information detail should the CIO give them? “The truth, nothing but the truth”, stresses Campos.

“You could start with a high level heads up in advance and discuss the details later.”

In his communication the CIO should also define a framework for control and completeness indicating the outlines of a project. “This will reassure the Board that an investment is not infinite. It will take away the fears of losing control and create more trust.

External references and benchmarks will further increase this trust. Finally, in the CIO’s communication there should always be a clear link to the business.”

Being on the same wavelength André Vanden Camp, CIO at AXA, continued with his presentation ‘What the CEO & Board expect from the CIO’, pointing out some of the

First of all the CIO should create value for the business. “He should understand current and future business needs, enhance critical business processes and ensure transparency.”

Secondly, he should deliver high quality. “This means focusing on quality criteria. IT solutions should be agile, flexible, reusable, scalable and reliable.” Finally the CIO has to keep costs under control. “This is essentially a matter of focussing on critical business processes and delivering bold cost reductions on less critical IT capabilities.”

“Being on the same wavelength is not always an easy matter”, concluded Vanden Camp.

The IT Governance series of seminars have been taking place since 2005 in partnership with ISACA.

‘The truth, noth­ing but the truth’ In return the CIO may also look at what he can expect from the CEO. “The CEO should deliver a long term business strategy to translate into the IT landscape. On a short to mid term he should provide strategic axes to prioritise IT delivery. He should also provide IT with the means to deliver.

These are the budgets for running, evolving and transforming IT. Other means are: ensuring that all IT requests pass through the IT depart-

Being on the same wavelength is not always an easy matter.

CIONET Belgium Event report

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Good communication is essential for building trust between CIO, CEO and Board

The next CIO, an excellent communicator ‘Shared understanding’ will enhance the alignment between business and IT dramatically. The next CIO should therefore have excellent communication skills using business language that is less technical than before.

At CIONET Belgium’s IT Governance Summit ‘Communicating with CEO and Board’, Erik Guldentops, Lecturer at University of Antwerp Management School, presented the first results of his research on this theme. The research was based on a CIONET online survey, a number of face-to-face interviews and a literature study.

During the face-to-face interviews a number of CIOs of mainly large organisations across various sectors revealed that what really matters is the CIO’s access to the Board and executive management. They pointed at the importance of informal communication establishing mutual trust between the management and the CIO. “Obviously the CIO’s communication skills are therefore becoming more important”, added Guldentops The interviews also identified a few emerging practices, such as: • the ‘kitchen table’ concept where executive management including the CIO share one large office as if sitting at home chatting together around the kitchen table; • a monthly informal luncheon meeting between CIO and top management where IT and other matters are discussed in an informal manner.

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Research CIONET International

Open agenda The results of the online survey revealed the importance of an open agenda during meetings with Board and executives. If the meeting with the CEO is an open discussion forum, CIOs experience it as more useful and even more pleasant. If the meeting strictly sticks to the agenda, it is still useful but the CIO will have to deal with the stress. “But if it is difficult to bring up subjects in those discussions, the stress remains but usefulness goes down”, said Guldentops.

Erik Guldentops, Lecturer at the Antwerp Management School, Advisor to the Board of the IT Governance Institute and past Inspector-General at SWIFT: “If the meeting with the CEO is an open discussion forum, CIOs experience it as more useful and more pleasant.”

Another outcome of the online survey concerned the difference between reporting on risk versus communicating about risk. CIOs and CEOs don’t consider the topic ‘management of IT related risks’ as a top priority when asked for their top 3 discussion topics. However when probing with more closed questions, it turns out to be the most frequently and most deeply discussed subject. They don’t seem to like this topic but they have to deal with it due to regulations. But then what do they prefer to talk about? The survey results indicate that typical CEO priorities are business status, followed by cost/budget and innovation. Typical CIO priorities are solution delivery, service delivery and cost/budget concerns.

The survey also pointed to the need for a balance between discussing strategic objectives and daily performance. In companies with low IT maturity in terms of board attention to IT, everyday performance is more on the agenda. The talks in companies with a higher IT maturity are more about strategic objectives. But in organisations where IT maturity is very high, there is a perfect balance in the communication about objectives and performance.

What really matters is not the reporting line but the CIO’s access to the Board and executive management.

Another finding of the survey was the CIO’s apparent budgetary freedom in companies with high IT maturity.

The more the IT strategy is integrated with the business strategy, the more budgetary freedom the IT department seems to have. ‘Seems’, because the numbers were so high that there is doubt about the survey respondents’ understanding of the term ‘budgetary freedom’.

Key communication difficulties A literature study with the assistance of Solvay Business School students analysed academic articles and professional references. It was immediately striking that a lot is written about the CIO’s reporting line and not much about CIO communication.

Nevertheless the study showed that CIOs face difficulties in their communication and summarised them in 6 key issues: • insufficient clarity about the CIO’s role leading to inappropriate or insufficient communication; • lack of CIOs’ business knowledge, which prevents them from getting completely involved in the discussions; • lack of board members’ and executives’ IT knowledge; • the use of an inadequate language i.e. computer scientist language instead of business language;

• lack of assertiveness: CIOs have to fully seize the opportunity to participate in developing the business strategy; • reporting structure: the CIO should be close enough to the CEO to be able to promote his or her vision for IT.

‘Top managers should understand the real capacity of IT to avoid underestimation as well as overestimation.’

Good communication principles One of the most important findings from the literature study is that access to Board and executive is more important than the CIO’s reporting line.

Another is that many articles advise to create committees at different levels that will be charged to translate the needs of all stakeholders and will improve the coordination between the IT department and the other departments of the company.

The study also revealed that many point out the need to create a ‘shared understanding’ by the CIO and the top management team. This will have

a dramatic impact on the strategic alignment between business and IT. To make this work, some of the issues addressed above need to be tackled: CIOs need to improve their business knowledge, CIOs need to talk a less technical language, and board members and executives need to have a better understanding of IT. Another advice from the academic research is about ‘managed expectations’. CIOs need to proactively create opportunities for the top management to learn about the real IT capabilities and capacity to support to business strategy. This is necessary to avoid underestimation as well as overestimation, but also to enable convergence of IT and business goals.

Communication framework Finally the literature study listed a number of good practices promoted by experts and by COBIT 4.1 that relate to the communications issue.

Nevertheless the authors explained that it is difficult to develop a unique framework for the CIOs’ communication, due to the huge variation of company structures. ”However, it seems clear that a well set-up framework for the CIO’s communication has a positive impact on the company and hence has to be developed seriously”, concluded the authors.

CIONET International Research

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It is crucial that CIOs are aware of the importance of steering on ‘soft controls’ for a network organisation and spend more time on it.

The CIO as Change Agent: hard to ‘soft’ control Because of the rise of SaaS, cloud computing, big data, BYOD and cybercrime, competences such as networking, collaboration and orchestration are becoming crucial for the IT department.

As a preparation for my guest lectureship at the Vrije Univeristeit of Amsterdam, in spring 2012 I interviewed more than 45 CIOs in The Netherlands about how they are coping with these challenges. Is their main focus on steering on the ‘hard controls’ (objectively measurable KPI’s) or are they more steering on the so called ‘soft controls’ with instruments to influence the behaviour of people such as management ‘tone at the top’, performance evaluations, training programs and maintaining established policies and procedures?

‘The role of the CIO is being the change agent for the IT department of the future.’

The research reveals that the large majority of the CIOs interviewed (93%) is convinced of the importance and necessity of soft controls. Almost all CIOs stated that the qualities of their IT staff are decisive for the success of their IT organization. By contrast, however, only a relatively small per-

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Research CIONET Netherlands

Gerko Baarslag, the author of this article, studied sociology and is currently CIO at ONVZ Health Insurance and also guest lecturer at the Vrije Universiteit of Amsterdam on the topic ‘soft controls’.

centage of CIOs (36%) stated that they are effectively applying soft controls.

The reason is that the IT world is mainly ‘inhabited’ by people with a ‘Beta’ background; dominated by the idea of y = ax + b. In the current complex environment of organisations this linear way of thinking is less effective. Despite how well your IT strategy and IT annual plan is defined, it does not automatically mean that your IT

employees and other stakeholders embrace the plan and act in accordance with your ideas in practice. This also requires other more soft skills and qualities like marketing of your ideas, motivating employees, steering on desired behaviour, etc.

So, it is crucial that CIOs are aware of the importance of steering on soft controls and spend more time on it.

These controls are required for monitoring that the IT department is effectively developing the right core competencies for a network organisation.

The role of the CIO in this is being the change agent for the IT department of the future.

A psychology or sociology study is not a pre-condition for this role.

There are enough practical change management courses and books (e.g Kotter) available and a good HR department should also be able to support the CIOs in this change process.

Dialogue and an exchange of views with your peers or with colleagues from other disciplines could also help you to get more insight in this subject. But, at the end it is the CIO who should be in front of the troops. The question that CIOs should ask themselves: how much of your time are you able and willing to spend on your role as change agent and steering on soft controls?

Divert your focus from ICT management to ICT business enablement But how do you balance control versus flexibility?

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KPN acts as a single vendor for the complete Grip application platform. This enables us to create one management dashboard, one contract, one invoice and act as one support desk for all applications. All applications are pay-per-use. There is a shift from Capex to Opex as you do not have to invest in complex ICT infrastructures. Grip of KPN helps you free yourself from daily ICT management while keeping balance between control and costs. Giving your ICT department the opportunity to divert the focus from ICT management to business enablement.

For more information visit: kpn.com/grip

Real transformation comes from giving employees a platform to collaborate and exchange knowledge in a social enterprise.

Change through intelligent collaboration The smart, digital organisation is much more than just a company that uses business intelligence tools. Over coffee near his office in the City of London, Jardine Lloyd Thompson (JLT) group CIO Ian Cohen outlines how he has tweaked corporate systems and worker behaviour to create a social enterprise.

Cohen describes the transformative work he is undertaking at the global insurance specialist as “interesting stuff’ and not normally the kind of thing you expect to see from a tradition broking firm”. Cohen is creating a platform for interaction and conversation that brings together existing technologies in order to give employees a new way to collaborate.

We set about helping our colleagues visualise what a socially enabled JLT might look like

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CIO view CIONET UK

Communication must be a key priority for all CIOs. CIO Connect’s Annual Conference at the beginning of last October demonstrated how IT leaders must take advantage of digital change and lead the business, through innovation, to a brighter future. Cohen is one such leader.

He has already spent a year-or-so working on the programme, including between six to nine months selling the concept to the board. “Now we’re out there making it real”, he says. As well as the UK, Cohen has recently been spreading the message of transforma-

tion in-person to JLT’s operations in Latin America and Southeast Asia.

Spin the question around Work on the programme dates back to early conversations with JLT group chief executive Dominic Burke. Keen to understand the potential impact of digital technology, Burke charged Cohen with setting out a potential route forwards for the business. “I started working on a board paper, as one often does, but soon started to think we were asking the wrong question”, says Cohen.

“The change wasn’t about a technological agenda”, he says. “We already had all the technology. This was not a question about what JLT was going to do, it was about what JLT wanted to be.” Cohen says his decision to spin the question around, and to consider the wider business strategy rather than just technology implementation, was certainly unusual. “Few IT leaders get that opportunity”, he says.

“If you can be clear about what you are and what you want your company to be, then you do can do things including through the use of technology - to make that reality happen. Too many companies run around doing things, such as kicking off projects and programmes, in the hope of becoming something else. If you want to be something interesting, you have to decide to do things differently.”

“We set about helping our colleagues visualise what a socially enabled JLT might look like”, he says. JLT worked with a specialist digital agency, which analysed the traditional broking process and distilled the working day into a series of scenarios and personas from which systems could be designed. This is a program that touches every part of the business in all countries and all regions.

JLT wanted to be a global, collaborative and knowledge-led organisation.

“The core or our strategy is all about putting our clients first and bringing the very best of JLT to every single relationship we have”, says Cohen, who says the transformation was a challenge as knowledge tended to be siloed and disconnected.

“We’re thinking Santiago to Sydney; wherever you touch JLT, you should be getting the same experience from people who understand your business needs”, says Cohen. “That means a global conversation where information and insight just flows naturally.”

Interestingly, the project involves very little development work or genuinely new technology.

‘The transformation was a challenge as knowledge tended to be siloed and disconnected.’

In his attempts to make the organisation more collaborative, Cohen says he had already implemented steps towards creating a social enterprise.

“Most organisations that want to be collaborative are already thinking how to exploit social technologies inside and outside their organisations, but not many are from our sector”, he says.

Building the social enterprise For JLT, the social enterprise approach, says Cohen, is about harnessing and focussing the knowledge and expertise from across a geographically diverse organisation. But the term itself means little to insurance brokers.

So, Cohen started talking about the project internally to prove the potential benefits of a social enterprise.

“Success in driving the creation of the social enterprise is all about managing expectations. Be clear about what will take weeks rather than months, as well as what will inevitably still take months and always make the conversation commercial and outcomedriven. CIOs must be able to have commercial conversations with the board about the art of the possible.

Get those conversations right and the c-suite team will support your ideas.”

“Most companies already have all the technology they need in order to create a social enterprise”, says Cohen.

JLT drew on already-in-use Salesforce technology, existing publishing and collaboration tools from Microsoft, and one genuinely new data visualisation system form QlikView.

“The most important activities in change programmes involve defining a vision and helping people prepare for the journey”, says Cohen, who says the firm turned Salesforce Chatter, without any great fanfare, and used the platform as a social pilot.

Ian Cohen, CIO at JLT group: “I’ve seen global, regional and local conversations about opportunities and innovation that would have been impossible without Chatter.”

“We turned Chatter on and listened.

Some early conversations were banal; others were more structured, but over time it has developed into a powerful business platform for sharing information and generating ideas. I’ve seen global, regional and local conversations about opportunities and innovation that would have been impossible without Chatter”, says Cohen.

CIONET UK CIO view

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A mature IT sourcing partnership requires the development of human relationships between operational teams on both sides.

Value-added sourcing implies governance and reciprocity In their outsourcing strategy many CIOs evolved from simple externalised service management towards ‘collaborative innovation’ relationhips with their IT suppliers.

Governance and reciprocal performance evaluation support the client in his search for mature and value-added outsourcing.

In partnership with Deloitte and INSEAD, CIONET France recently organised a round table conference concerning the theme of IT supplier relationships, focusing on the relationship between management and contract renegotiation.

Nils Fonstad, Associate Director at INSEAD eLab: “The implementation of a strategic partnership with IT service providers became an important value creation lever for many companies and an optimisation opportunity for the service provided to users.”

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Event report CIONET France

The first keynote speaker was Nils Fonstad, Associate Director at INSEAD eLab. He pointed out that “the partial externalisation of some IT services is a phenomenon that commenced several decades ago. But the decision taken by Eastman Kodak in 1989, which consisted of externalising its whole IT function, was regarded by a majority of people as a revolution.

The implementation of a strategic partnership with IT service providers became an important value creation lever for many companies and an optimisation opportunity for the service provided to users.”

Relationship maturity levels Not surprisingly, this theme has been the focus of numerous recent studies.

Thus, a maturity analysis of the relationship between CIOs and IT providers has been carried out by Leslie P. Willcocks and Mary C. Lacity. Their 2012 study called ‘The new IT Outsourcing Landscape’ presents the four main phases of a relationship between an organisation and its partners.

The initial phase consists of simple ‘contract administration’. The next step is a cost-driven ‘contract management’ relationship. In the more mature phase of ‘relationship management’, contract renegotiation and switching suppliers are possible. The focus is based on costs as well as on quality. The highest maturity level is called ‘collaborative innovation’ and is aimed at innovation and value creation. Along with the increase of their internal maturity, CIOs tend to raise the value level outsourced to their providers.

HR requirements The success of provider relationship management lies in the capacity of teams from both sides to act rapidly and in a coordinated way thanks to: • Human relationships development between operational teams throughout the contract execution which represent a predominant factor in the capacity to solve issues and dysfunctions • Positive behaviour from both sides’ teams, including ‘virtuous way-out possibilities’ in case of unexpected events • High involvement from top management enabling arbitration beyond operational constraints.

The round table participants confirmed that their objectives evolved from simple externalised service management towards the search for generating an added value relationship. The discussions also led them to tackling different issues linked to these degrees of maturity: “How to develop a mature relationship (phase 3 - relationship management)? What are the conditions for implementing a collaborative relationship (phase 4 - collaborative innovation)? Which contractual mechanisms have to be integrated in the contract renegotiation?”

‘Governance guarantees the sharing of common objectives between the IT department and the supplier.’

Governance and performance management How can IT departments strengthen their relationships with the partners?

Numerous round table participants confirmed that they reached a high maturity level in their outsourcing relationships. A number of them evolved their supplier relationship from phase 2 (contract management) to phase 3 (relationship management).

They pointed to the importance of of a proper definition and implementation of governance instances, bringing together stakeholders at different levels: operational governance, strategic governance and sponsoring.

The implementation of governance guarantees the right interactions between the various stakeholders and the sharing of common objectives.

Both parties have to secure their critical resources.

Remaining on good terms with the teams represents a key factor in the client-supplier management relationship. The round table conference participants also underlined the necessary change management which has to be implemented within the IT department to ensure that internal teams join in and evolve.

Key success factors Beside governance, the implementation of performance management and contract management indicators was also considered as crucial for a mature relationship. But these indicators, though necessary, are not always sufficient. In a case of drift simple weekly dashboard monitoring is not enough.

The success of provider relationship management lies in the capacity of teams from both sides to act rapidly and in a coordinated way.

The development of human relationships between operational teams throughout the contract execution represents a predominant factor in the capacity to solve issues and dysfunctions. In case of unexpected events, positive behaviour from both sides, including ‘virtuous way-out possibilities’, is another important factor, as well as top management involvement permitting arbitration beyond operational constraints.

The step to a value-generating collaborative innovation relationship represented an objective targeted by most of the round table conference participants. But this was considered as the toughest stage to implement. Several prerequisites for the implementation of a collaborative and long-lasting relationship were identified.

First of all, a relatively high maturity level regarding their internal organisation and functioning is required from both sides. Thus, the client as well as the supplier needs to have their IT and business processes under control in order to implement a mature client-supplier relationship.

Controlling the financial environment in which both parties operate and respecting common objectives (OPEX for the CIO and margin for the supplier) is another requirement.

CIONET France Event report

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The emphasis on collaboration should not negatively impact each stakeholder’s responsibilities.

Both parties also have to protect their key resources. Contractual ‘key role’ clauses can be defined to secure critical resources. Beside contractual mechanisms, participants confirmed the importance of allocated resources and notably the critical role of the global service management.

Reciprocity in performance evaluation • Sharing of common performance objectives between parties. Examples: cost reduction objectives, global daily rate, number of incidents, etc.

• Evaluation of IT department team’s performance by the supplier in order to identify possible dysfunction and to help the client in his quest for maturity • Performance evaluation tools implemented in parallel with penalty clauses applied in case of underachievement and a bonus system for high performance.

evaluating the supplier unilaterally.

But suppliers can also evaluate the IT department team’s performance to identify any possible dysfunction and to help the client in his quest for maturity. Common performance objectives can be shared between parties in an optimisation and innovation approach. The evaluation tools of partner performance should be implemented in parallel with penalty clauses to be applied in case of underachievement and a bonus system in case of high performance.

Another success factor is the implementation within the IT department of a vendor management unit in charge of the strategic supplier management. This unit should collaborate closely with the purchasing and the legal department. Such teams facilitate service management, problem analysis and the identification of resolution plans. They are also in charge of the implementation of an agile contractual structure.

‘A vendor management unit facilitates service management.’

Beyond these prerequisites, the round table participants brought up another important key factor for success. They believe that there should be reciprocity in the performance evaluation. Usually, only IT is

The round table conference participants also pointed out several sources of value creation in the ‘collaborative innovation’ phase: • the implementation of project management ‘academies’ and the

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Event report CIONET France

access to expertise centres and labs to develop competencies; • the organisation of innovation seminars increasing new initiative identification and deployment.

An important message of the round table was that, in order to protect the relationship, the emphasis on collaboration should not negatively impact each stakeholder’s responsibilities.

Adaptation clauses Participants acknowledged that the contract is a mandatory tool for sourcing management. Contractual mechanisms are the basic foundation of the client-supplier relationship, which relies on clear commitments regarding services, objectives and results. More specifically, the contractual mechanisms can facilitate the renegotiation process and anticipate to potential problems, e.g. differences in service quality, changes in the project scope or price evolutions.

The global sourcing learning curve 1989-2011 Client outsourcing maturity

Phase 4: Collaborative innovation Phase 3: Relationship management

Phase 2: Contract management Phase 1: Contract administration

Focus on value-added

Relationships mature May renegotiate, switch suppliers Focus on costs, quality

First relationships Focus on costs

Hype and fear Time/Value

Source: INSEAD eLab 2012, based on research by Leslie P. Willcocks, Mary C. Lacity and Edgar A. Whitley.

The round table also listed a number of adaptation clauses: ‘alignment clause’, ‘benchmarking clause’, ‘first refusal clause’, ‘most favoured customer clause’, etc. When they are defined in the initial contract, they are a strong tool to analyse and evaluate the value and performance of the delivered services.

Special attention was paid to the ‘hardship clause’ which allows the stakeholders to renegotiate the contract if unforeseen circumstances occur, for example due to economic or technological events. In the case of an unforeseen unbalance in the contract, both parties agree to renegotiate to protect the contractual relationship.

These clauses allow for protection of the equilibrium of the contract, taking the interests of both parties into account. The drawback is that tomorrow’s equilibrium may be different from today’s. The hardship clause

may allow one of the stakeholders to request a change to a contract which may not be very beneficial for the other party.

There is therefore a danger of failure when the stakeholders try to reach a new agreement to balance an existing contract. To avoid this, an option may be to anticipate a ‘recourse to third parties’. This third party can be designated by both parties or by a judge in case of disagreement.

‘Contractual mechanisms are mandatory tools for sourcing management’

‘prorogation clause’ and the ‘renewal clause’. In case of ‘prorogation’ the contract is renewed in its present state. In case of ‘renewal’ there will be a new contract with new commitments.

In both cases, things have to be clearly defined. The clauses have to be very explicit and describe what event may trigger the mechanism, which are the circumstances and terms of the renegotiation, and what are the consequences of a failure in the renegotiation process.

This report was written by Deloitte, in collaboration with INSEAD and CIONET France.

Clauses for the future Clauses for the future were also discussed at the round table conference. They are defined to organise and structure the renegotiation stage.

There are two possible clauses: the

CIONET France Event report

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In the latest edition of the CIONET Italia Award, three prominent CIOs were awarded for their innovative achievements.

CIONET Italia Award The CIONET Italia Award 2012 rewarded Chief Information Officers, protagonists of IT changes and transformations within their companies, through an exclusive event.

Teresa Alvaro, Responsible of Information Systems and Director of the Technology Direction for Innovation at Agenzia delle Dogane, received the award ‘CIO Technology Driven’ for setting up the logistics management system by means of innovative technology. She commented on this result stating that Agenzia delle Dogane is the first department in the EU to implement pilot projects using innovative technology with a relevant reusability coefficient.

The award ‘CIO Client Driven’ went to Gianluca Moretto, Director of Organisation and Information Systems at Fondazione Enasarco, for leading a project for the dematerialisation and management of the providential contributions accounting process, and to have improved customer service in terms of time reduction to close a file.

“The aim of the digitalisation program is to improve the quality of the service and, most importantly, to revolutionise customer communication”, he commented.

Matteo Veneziani, Director of Information Systems at Expo 2015, won in the ‘CIO Strategy Driven’ category , for leading a business process manage-

ment project that verifies the formal and legal correctness of competitive tenders, coupled with a totally paperless work paper management. He said that the goal reached by his project was the dual nature of improving the efficiency and reducing bureaucracy.

“The next step will be to let other companies use the same system as a ready-to-use solution.”

Teresa Alvaro

To join the competition, CIOs submitted their projects to be assessed by the CIONET Italia Award Jury. To ensure the impartiality of the initiative the submissions were presented to the jury anonymously. The panel was composed by five leading professionals: Enzo Bertolini, CIO of Ferrero Group, Alfredo Gatti, Managing Director of CIONET Italy and Managing Partner of NEXTVALUE, Paolo Lombardi, Blogger and Collaborator of cwi.it, Marco Mezzalama vice-provost of Informative Systems at the Politecnico of Turin, Paolo Pasini, Professor at SDA Bocconi.

Gianluca Moretto

CIONET Italia Award arrived at its second edition thanks to the great success of the previous one. Next year’s edition will be launched in January and the Award ceremony will take place in April.

Matteo Veneziani

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Event report CIONET Italy

ADVERTORIAL

Sourcing, an opportunity to tackle the eSkills paradox Europe is being confronted with the paradox of mass unemployment and an estimated 700,000 potential vacancies in the ICT market. European Commissioner Ms Neelie Kroes called for a Grand Coalition that should develop plans to resolve this. CIONET Netherlands is one of the stakeholders.

CIONET Netherlands wishes to understand the main accelerators and barriers for sourcing within the European Area. It also wants to know what is the effect of the eSkills paradox on European based sourcing strategies and what should be done to overcome this paradox.

It will therefore post an online survey to identify sourcing issues at a local level.

This survey is being developed together with its business partner Quint Wellington Redwood, the independent experts in sourcing strategies. CIONET Netherlands wants to understand the CIO’s issues in terms of sourcing and hear about their solutions and recommendations. The results will be made available to all CIONET members and will be presented to the European Commission.

In September and October CIONET surveyed the ideas of the Grand Coalition in Spain and the Netherlands as a pilot. Both surveys strikingly underlined the eSkills paradox. A large majority of the CIOs

Frits Bussemaker

Albert Sprokholt

are experiencing a substantial shortage in eSkills. As one of the solutions for dealing with this, sourcing was mentioned as being of equal importance to recruitment and training. Interestingly, a majority of companies indicated that they would have a preference for sourcing in the European area to solve their skills shortage.

Long and short term approach Currently, the EC focuses on education and standards such as the eCompetence Framework. The DG Employment, for instance, organised the ‘Jobs for Europe’ conference in September. In the parallel session on ICT Jobs, chaired by Ms Neelie Kroes, leading experts presented their views and experience in educating future generations and bringing IT to schools.

While this focus on education is imperative for the long term, CIONET Netherlands strongly believes we need to look simultaneously at additional strategies to address the paradox in the shorter term. The approach should be local because the

Jurian Hermeler

specific issues differ per country. It should be bottom-up because any proposition or idea should address the needs of decision makers and companies.

Sourcing can be considered as a complementary approach to resolve the eSkills paradox. It covers a wide spectrum of business models including co-sourcing, out-tasking, outsourcing and even the creation of joint ventures. Sourcing decisions are made at a company level.

Companies look at what is in their best interest. If their sourcing decisions became more European based, this would have a direct positive effect on the European ICT services market and on employment in Europe.

This article was written by Frits Bussemaker, Liaison European Relations CIONET Netherlands, in close cooperation with Jurian Hermeler, Principal Consultant at Quint Wellington Redwood and Albert Sprokholt, Research Director at Quint Wellington Redwood.

CIONET Portugal puts business-IT alignment, IT-driven business innovation and lean IT on top of its agenda.

Lift-off for a new, vibrant community At their first Advisory Board meeting, the CIONET Portugal members have already put down strong roots for steady future growth.

CIONET Portugal’s Advisory Board members

During this launch meeting that was held at the end of October in Lisbon, Erwin Van den Brande from CIONET International opened proceedings with an Advisory Board launch statement. Rui Serapicos representing CIONET Portugal and Maria José Gonçalves, representing Rui Paiva from WEDO Technologies, the first Portuguese Premium Business Partner, welcomed the fresh Advisory Board members from different industry sectors.

Augusto Fragoso, the CIO of ANACOM (National Communications Authority), also is a frequent guest professor.

The meeting agenda covered CIONET developments in Portugal and internationally, as well as the coming role of the Advisory Board in 2013. Alongside this the top topics on the agenda for the Portuguese CIOs were voted upon. This resulted in the following themes for 2013 CIONET Portugal’s offline events: business-IT alignment, IT-driven business innovation and lean IT/ IT simplification.

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Event report CIONET Portugal

Francisco Barbeira is currently Head of IT at BPI Bank, having had several other leading functions wthin this organisation.

Jorge Coelho is President of IPBPM, Vice-President of ABPMP Portugal and university professor at several universities.

Rogério Henriques, CIO of Caixa Seguros, has wide professional management experience in major Portugese companies.

Jorge Jordão, CEO at CA Serviços, ACE and CIO at Crédito Agrícola Group, has wide management experience in multinationals.

Paulo Ornelas is IT Director of SATA Group (SATA SGPS, SATA Air Açores, SATA Internacional and SATA Gestão de Aeródromos).

Rui Paiva, board member of Sonaecom SSI companies Bizdirect, Mainroad and Saphety, and founder and CEO of WeDo Technologies.

Luis Pinto, IT Management Expert, has an academic background in architecture, systems engineering, operations research and finance.

Francisco Jaime Quesado coordinates the New Public Cluster Strategic Agenda. He focuses on innovation, knowledge and competitiveness.

Carlos Vaz is the CIO of Chamartin Imobiliaria as well as the CIO of KidZania Portugal S.A. The proactive participation from all CIONET Portugal Advisory Board members set the tone for a new vibrant community of Portuguese CIOs.

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