CIONET Magazine 2

Magazine. Vol. 02, 18 April, 2008.

Wouter Haasloop Werner “EA key to becoming a winner” 3

Marc Van der Schueren “No distinction between business and IT” 22

Rik De Nolf “Good people management big challenge for a CIO” 16

Monique Snoeck “EA is like city planning” 8

Jos Van Pee “EA is at the core of any IT strategy” 4

Editorial: Enterprise Architecture Enterprise Architecture: Perfect Alignment Putting an EA into place: Agility and flexibility 2008 EA Survey: A good strategic alignment tool Basell learns lessons: Outsourcing IT Roularta boss on IT: A Permanent Challenge Time for an Information Diet: Unplug completely Column: CIO going into business

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What’s COOKING?

ABOUT CIONET MAGAZINE

CIOnet Magazine is a CIOnet initiative, published quarterly (April, June, October, December) and sent directly to CIOnet members and as a supplement to Data News.

Produced by: Roularta Custom Media Publishing Director: Hendrik Deckers (hendrik@cionet.com) Editorial coordinator: Kurt Focquaert (kurt.focquaert@roularta.be) Photographs by: Anja Daleman, Jan Locus Printed by: Roularta Printing Advertising agency: Exphose (Erwin Van den Brande – erwin@exphose.be)

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2

What are your storage plans for 2008?

The CIOnet Council forum recently discussed the 60% yearly storage explosion (IDC). A majority of the respondents clearly recognized this phenomenon. The measures they are taking to contain and handle this data storage growth include extra capacity, applying strict quotas, deduplication, archiving and back-up solutions. More data will be moved to SAN Solutions, along with the introduction of ILM functionality in the databases.

Read all reactions from our members on www.cionet.com.

SIGs are driving CIOnet activity The CIOnet special interest groups (SIGs) are a driving force within the community. The Benchmarking group meets at least 6 times a year and is very active in collecting and comparing detailed cost structures. This year the Academia Belgica SIG studies the issue of making IT as a sector and as a career more attractive to young professionals and students. The SIG Sourcing is busy organizing a series of events & round-table discussions. And finally the very active SIG Architecture has both researched the state of Enterprise Architecture in the Benelux and organized a successful seminar on this theme.

Tell me again, what is CIOnet?

CIOnet is the first international online and offline network for CIOs and IT managers. Currently active in Belgium and the Netherlands, we count more than 450 members. Our mission is to be the best possible community where CIOs and IT managers build relationships, share knowledge, exchange ideas, enhance their know-how and make friends.

Join the club Are you a CIO with at least 20 people in your IT department or an IT manager reporting to a CIO in an IT department with at least 200 people?

Join CIOnet and send an email to an@cionet.com with your request and contact information!

Welcome In this second issue of CIOnet Magazine you will discover a series of to-the-point articles with a focus on Enterprise Architecture (EA). You will learn that EA programs are gaining considerable interest in large organizations and can play a very positive role in the ongoing business/IT alignment challenge. Enjoy.

HENDRIK DECKERS Managing Director - CIOnet hendrik@cionet.com

www.cionet.com

Editorial

Enterprise ARCHITECTURE

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very business is continuously challenged to operate cost effectively. Besides that every business faces the challenge of growth and development because no competitive advantage is sustainable in the long term. In this playing field enters enterprise architecture. In globalizing markets, where benchmark information is ever more available, the urgency for continuous adaptation to market conditions rises. Hence, the urgency to have a profound insight into the structures and components of our businesses and the relationships between them rises.

Enterprise architecture is mostly defined in layers, at least a business and an information technology layer. The underlying assumption is that business processes evolve on their own and technology does as well.

Architecture in this model is useful in aligning the two. In ever increasing speed the classical division between business and information technology is no longer useful, since they have become inseparable. Not every business is confronted with these radical changes, but every business faces the two challenges of cost effectiveness and business development.

In this discussion IT comes in through at least two entries. In many cases IT created the possibilities of new business models, new entrants and substitute propositions. Besides that the IT department needs to be able to react, to be agile and deliver high-quality work at an acceptable cost. It is a very difficult challenge for a CIO to match expectations from colleagues in their businesses concerning quality, business case and time to market, when living only in a reactive mode. In both situations, the proactive and the reactive one, the IT department will need knowledge of the business it is an integral part of. The kind of knowledge needed has evolved from systems development and infrastructure knowledge, to much more business and architectural knowledge.

Because the IT department is such a strong stakeholder in architecture, I believe that many CIOs will outperform the peers in their businesses on enterprise architecture. And they should, because in a world of rapid deployment of new technologies, copying IT solutions by competitors, IT-based business models and rising costs for IT development and risks, we need to be active in the arena of strategy. Enterprise architecture may well turn out to be a major key to becoming a winner in this arena. At least for the coming few years, since no advantage is sustainable.

WOUTER HAASLOOP WERNER

CIO Vitens NV Chairman Advisory Board CIOnet The Netherlands

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Special feature

Enterprise architecture

Perfect ALIGNMENT Business and IT alignment are among the top priorities of the CIO. The concept of enterprise architecture can play an important part in bringing about this alignment in practice, since it offers business and IT a common language.

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nterprise architecture comprises the various systems and functional applications that operate throughout the entire business. Putting this enterprise architecture into practice requires a sound plan: a description of the architecture of the company and the information systems present in the organization. Enterprise architecture offers a great advantage by providing the business with a clear blueprint of what the working goals are for all parties concerned: employees, products, services, information, applications, technology and infrastructure. This helps create a common language that will facilitate collaboration between business and IT. Enterprise architecture provides the business with a longterm vision based on robust, generic and reusable systems.

PICTURE

Jos Van Pee, retired vice president Global Business Services at Procter & Gamble: “It is important for IT to take a leadership role upon itself. IT needs to demonstrate to business what is possible.”

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Greater commitment from business How an organization can handle enterprise architecture in concrete terms is revealed by the Air France KLM Cargo case. Following the merger between Air France and KLM in 2004, the new company started to look for maximum synergy.

One of the places this was found was in combining the Air France and KLM cargo departments.

“In 1999 we had already started on a program focusing on enterprise architecture”, says Hans Zwitzer, business architecture manager at Air France KLM Cargo. “In doing so we started out from a descriptive model. It very soon became evident, however, that there was a great gap between theory and practice.” The technical

component of this approach was found to be inadequate and as a result a drastic change in approach was required. This consisted of the development of a new IT strategy from which a theoretical business architecture framework followed.

Next, Air France KLM Cargo wanted to achieve as much synergy as possible in terms of IT. “By combining the two cargo departments, Air France KLM Cargo suddenly found itself with two totally different legacy systems. Rejecting one system in favour of continued operation with the other was soon found not to be an option.” The IT department decided to create a compromise solution that provides consolidated information about the two systems. In the future the two systems will evolve together towards a new solution. “By explicitly incorporating the business architecture in the design, we have created greater commitment on the business side. We have observed that this makes the dialogue between business and IT considerably more complicated but at the same time of a higher quality.”

Strategic position for IT At Procter & Gamble everything to do with IT comes under the international department known as Global Business Services (GBS). The Belgian Jos Van Pee was vice president at GBS until his retirement – a year ago now. “Our job consisted of running GBS as a business, in order to deliver more services at lower cost and to create more >

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> value.” Procter & Gamble proves to have a very

clear vision of IT. In this company IT is not merely a support service for the back office, but a strategic partner in the boardroom. The job of IT is to drive change within the business and to provide a real and concrete contribution. This is why GBS changed the name of the IT department to Information Decision Solutions (IDS).

“Back in the nineties already we worked on a master plan for architecture”, says Jos Van Pee. “We used this plan to incorporate all infrastructure and applications in Western Europe into one single IT platform.” After that, GBS continued to work on the platform concept. “First we converted the business processes into concrete services, with the associated milestones. We then worked out an integrated view of the appli-

PICTURE

Hans Zwitzer, business architecture manager at Air France KLM Cargo: “By explicitly incorporating business architecture in the design, we have created greater commitment on the business side.”

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cations, data and infrastructure, based on different platforms: one for ERP and CRM, a decision support platform, one which is customer-oriented and one for the product development (Product Lifecycle Management). Procter & Gamble were already working with platforms throughout the organization, accordingly we did the same in IT.” For the platforms GBS worked out a framework of consistent strategies, after which a definition and a business case were developed for each platform and each strategy.

Thorough approach “We described the status quo at the time, estab-

lished what the objectives were for a period of three years and devised a method to enable the achieved results to be measured. After that we took initiatives in line with the objectives.” In order to keep a record of progress, GBS conducted measurements of target compliance for the architecture, its operational results, costs and success ratios of the various initiatives. The fact that GBS took a thorough approach to these matters was evident from the fact that each platform was given its own organization, including its own architect, a financial manager, a service operation manager and so on.

“Enterprise architecture is at the core of any IT strategy”, explains Jos Van Pee. “It requires a clear understanding of the various dimensions of IT.” Working with enterprise architecture offers a fine challenge in the longer term, but at the same time the IT manager needs to set himself on a realistic mission. “It is best to start out with a project portfolio for around three years and to find the right balance between what is achievable and what is not.” Measuring results is essential in this.

Attempting against one’s better judgement to meet an unachievable objective has a highly demotivating effect on staff, whereas an achievable objective encourages everyone. “It is important for IT to take a leadership role upon itself. IT needs to demonstrate to business what is possible and what the consequences are if it does or does not decide to make use of this capability.”

Credibility The recent debate organized by CIOnet on enterprise architecture revealed, nevertheless, that many questions still exist around the subject. It is generally known that senior management of quite a few companies in reality still consider IT as purely a cost item. Is it at all possible in this context to make a case for investment in enterprise architecture? “It certainly is,” believes Jos Van Pee, “even though the resulting verdict will largely depend on the culture prevailing in the business.” One thing here stands out clearly: there is no point in attempting to convince the CEO about enterprise architecture by handing him a piece of technology. “It is more important that the IT manager should be able to submit a series of potential

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PICTURE

Peter Strickx, CTO at the Federal Government Department ICT: “If we are able to implement business – in our case, political – decisions faster thanks to enterprise architecture, then the business will naturally have a keen interest in employing it.”

results to the CEO, which he will understand with his business hat on. As the IT department adds to its achievements it will gain credibility with the business side of the organization, therefore making it easier to get the green light for other initiatives.”

If the organization does not have a manager with visionary ideas on the IT side, the company will find it more difficult to get going with enterprise architecture in the context of business and IT alignment. “Business still needs to be given the right idea of what enterprise architecture can mean to the organization”, says Hans Zwitzer. “Credibility is therefore very important indeed. Just putting enterprise architecture forward as the next best thing is certainly not a good idea. Business will not accept it. Besides, that would not be entirely true either, since the idea surrounding enterprise architecture is not new in itself. Consequently it also begs the question as to how the IT manager can keep the idea of enterprise architecture up-to-date in the longer term as well, once he has introduced it into the organization.”

Framework not immutable “It is enabled not just by working around a framework for enterprise architecture, but also by focusing on the processes themselves”, claims Monique Snoeck, who is a professor at the department of Information Management of KU Leuven. “In this context the organization must also have a governance system which it

can use to determine whether a new initiative is consistent with the lines set out in the enterprise architecture. But at the same time the architecture must not constitute an immutable and static whole. The framework needs to be able to evolve in the future. For this reason it is just as important also to provide procedures which allow for changes in enterprise architecture.” At the same time there is definitely a leadership role in store for IT regarding the concept of enterprise architecture. “On the business side a highly centralized organization often focuses on the local optimum, whereas IT has a much clearer view of the global optimum. In that respect IT can take the lead, and contribute that insight to the business.”

What remains is to measure the results associated with enterprise architecture in concrete terms. In particular it is still the most direct method of establishing how enterprise architecture is contributing towards the results of the organization. “One of our objectives is to be able to speed up decisions through the use of enterprise architecture”, says Peter Strickx, CTO at the Federal Government Department ICT (Fedict). “This can be of great importance in the political world. If we are able, thanks to enterprise architecture, to bring business – in this instance political – decisions to fruition faster, then the business will obviously have an immediate interest in enterprise architecture. The challenge therefore does indeed consist in presenting the measured results for the appropriate indicators.”

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Putting an EA practice into place

AGILITY and flexibility Enterprise Architecture (EA) is a means to achieve business/IT alignment and to develop flexible and robust information systems. This article explains what benefit you can expect from putting an EA practice in place, tells how EA frameworks can help you concretely and finally takes the edge off a few misconceptions.

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n 1987, Nobel Prize Winner Solow made the observation that “computers are found everywhere but in the productivity data”. This ‘Productivity Paradox’ referred to the fact that while the whole world was revolutionized by computers which were strongly associated with increased productivity, this did not show up in the productivity figures. One of the major factors that contribute to this productivity paradox is the lack of business/IT alignment. Despite the fact that a lot has been said about business/IT alignment the past few years, putting alignment into practice is not always easy. One of the techniques to achieve business/IT alignment is Enterprise Architecture.

The term ‘Enterprise Architecture’ most probably means different things to different people. The definition of an architecture used in ANSI/IEEE Std 1471-2000 is: “The fundamental organization of a system, embodied in its components, their relationships to each other and the environment, and the principles governing its design and evolution.”

The term ‘enterprise’ in the context of ‘Enterprise Architecture’ will typically be used to refer to an entire enterprise, encompassing all of its information systems. But it can just as well refer to a specific domain within the enterprise, or, when the goal is to integrate an extended enterprise, then it includes the partners, suppliers, and customers, as well as the internal business units. In all three cases, the architecture encompasses multiple systems, and multiple functional units within the (extended) enterprise.

Putting EA into practice means that you need to

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create an architectural description of your enterprise and its information systems. An architectural description is a set of (formal) descriptions that allow to reason about the structure of the system.

As such, an Enterprise Architecture is like city planning: it defines the building blocks, their relationships and provides a plan from which you can build a system. While none of us would even undertake a relatively small project like the construction of a house without using the services of an architect, many (large) software projects are realised without starting from an encompassing enterprise architecture plan. This project-based approach without relying on an Enterprise Architecture boils down to the same thing as designing a living room without having the overall plan of the house.

In construction projects there are three roles: the owner of the project, the architect who makes the plans and the construction company that builds according to the plans. Note for instance that in construction projects for the Belgium government, it is forbidden by law that the architect and constructor belong to the same company.

These same roles exist for software projects.

First, there is the owner’s view: this defines the business architecture. It is an essential view in achieving business/IT alignment as it defines the organization, its governing rules and interactions for which information systems need to be developed. In the second place we find the Information System architecture which is the specification of the required information support for the business

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functions. Both architectural views together define the ‘demand’ side. Thirdly, on the supply side, there is the implementation: the technical solution that is to be realized by the ‘construction company’ and that should provide the functionality as required in the specification. The solution is described by means of a Technology Architecture, which pictures the hardware & software platform types, and an Application Architecture, which describes the services and information offered to support business functions.

Each of these views may or may not be documented explicitly. Moreover, for each of them, the documentation practice may range from informal text to formal modelling techniques. Each of them may be crafted manually or with the support of software tools. Architectural frameworks offer you support by providing guidelines for creating architectural descriptions (e.g. the Zachman framework), and by providing guidelines for an architecture development process (e.g. TOGAF).

Enterprise Architecture is foundational for modern enterprise management and governance. It defines a common language and management tool for business and IT by providing a blueprint of the mission of the organization, its people, products, services, information, applications, technology and infrastructure.

This common language facilitates the alignment of IT with business needs. The structured descriptions and the availability of a long term plan allow more easily mastering complexity and designing for change. This is a fundamental advantage as, unlike in the construction world, agility and flexibility are key requirements for most information system architectures.

Finally EA contributes to more robust, generic and therefore reusable solutions. Whereas a purely project-based approach tends to focus on the single use case valid at that point in time, a long term vision is required to develop generic solutions that are also capable of addressing tomorrows use cases.

Because of the encompassing nature of an EA, the perception lives that EA is a time consuming and costly activity. The creation of a totally en-

compassing plan with a sufficient level of detail is no doubt a long term endeavour with a high cost.

But EA can be created at different levels of detail and in an initial stage, high level EAs already offer the substantial advantage of creating a common language and facilitating alignment. Subsequent refinements can be achieved domain per domain, creating in this way a federated architecture.

While a federated approach is more likely to succeed, it holds the risk of a stove-pipe view on the organizations and as a consequence the risk of failing to develop an enterprise-wide understanding of business processes, business rules, information flows, etc.

Another misconception is that EA is by definition a tool for or aiming at centralization and standardization. By presenting an overall picture, EA is the right tool to find out which areas could profit from standardization, such as to increase interoperability. In this way EA helps to achieve more flexible architectures in the long term.

In summary, by installing an architect role in the organization, we avoid purely technical projects as proposed by suppliers. Instead, the architect has a strong control on mapping supply to demand and can be made accountable for the quality, agility and flexibility of the outcome.

PICTURE

Prof. dr. Monique Snoeck, Information Systems Department, KU Leuven, is the author of this article.

REFERENCES FOR FURTHER READING

http://nl.wikipedia.org/ wiki/Enterprise_architecture http://www.togaf.org/ http://www.zifa.com/

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2008 Enterprise Architecture Survey

A good strategic alignment tool 40% of the Belgian and Dutch CIOs have adopted an Enterprise Architecture initiative. Only 25% are not planning any EA programmes (see graph 1, below).

These programmes are gaining in popularity among large organizations, but they are still maturing. However, alignment between business and IT has been clearly proven.

ENTERPRISE ARCHITECTURE ADOPTION

tecture in our organizations, and find out whether CIOs and IT managers use Enterprise Architecture as a strategic tool for business & IT alignment.

25%

No, and none planned

Benefits Firstly, the survey revealed that the expected benefits which drive organizations to set up an EA programme and function are being realized.

9.6%

No, but planned within two years

25%

No, but planned within one year

40.4%

Yes

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

1 GRAPH 1

40% of the CIOs have adopted an EA initiative.

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T

hese were the findings of the CIOnet Enterprise Architecture Survey carried out during the period December 2007 – January 2008, in which 15% of the current CIOnet community (52 Belgian and Dutch CIOs) took part. The respondents work in every sector, mostly (80%) for larger Belgium-based organizations (> 1000 employees). 20% work for organizations based in the Netherlands.

Through this survey, the CIOnet EA task force wanted to take a snapshot of Enterprise Archi-

The business drivers which organizations gave as the reason for launching an EA programme are listed in graph 2 (page 11).

This is the normal maturity path which organizations follow.

Furthermore, the drivers are more at strategic/ tactical level than at operational level (service delivery, project management), which is correct since EA is a strategic decision-making and transformation tool.

Nevertheless, respondents find it difficult to quantify and measure the hard value it delivers.

This was to be expected, since the benefits of EA are more about risk avoidance and long-term

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benefits than about flexibility and time to market, and so are hard to translate into hard Euros.

Some important barriers to achieving the EA goals mentioned are:

ENTERPRISE ARCHITECTURE BUSINESS DRIVERS

Improve the alignment of business and IT organizations Support and enable business change & flexibility Improve process effectiveness

• The most common problem is the lack of skilled resources. Due to the fact that the position of enterprise architect is a fairly new, emerging role, it is logical that it will take time for architects to become knowledgeable and experienced. In general, the IT market experiences shortages when it comes to a lot of profiles.

Reduce IT project delivery times

• Organizations with EA are facing problems in terms of internal politics. Breaking down silos is not an easy task, given issues with convincing management, raising funds and removing cultural barriers in order to kick off an EA function.

Secondly, most respondents rated their organizations as “already adequate” to “excellent” in aligning IT with the business. Only 20% to 30% agreed that there were some areas which needed improvement.

Better strategy alignment However, based on the survey, we observed that respondents who have an EA in place do indeed have better strategy alignment.

The detailed comparison results on page 12 explain why we have reached this conclusion. Organizations which have an EA practice in place: • Rank enabling business change and flexibility as the leading business driver, whereas business/IT alignment comes second. This correctly

Reduce IT cost Improved service delivery Improve cross-business unit interoperability Infrastructure renewal Legacy transformation Enable outsourcing 0%

10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 2

indicates that those organizations are somehow further along on the maturity curve.

• Over 70% have a mostly complete and equally up-to-date view of all aspects. They also score better on data (information) and business process architecture layers (see graph 3, page 12).

GRAPH 2

The drivers are more at strategic/tactical level than at operational level.

EA is indeed a strategic decision-making and transformation tool.

• 40% have business/IT ownership, compared with only 10% when no EA function is present.

As expected, IT is always involved in an EA programme due to the fact that IT plays an integrated, cross-company role, whereas business is more likely to be responsible for a particular functional domain (silo). Furthermore, IT should be accountable for the EA benefits realized.

In 74% of cases, IT owns and leads the EA function. In only 26% are both involved, which should be the case since alignment requires improved cooperation and communication > between business and IT.

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DOCUMENTING THE ENTERPRISE MODEL

60%

Systems and Technology Platforms

47%

Business Strategy

33%

Respondents who have an EA in place do indeed have better strategy alignment.

30%

65%

90% 55%

Not adopted EA yet

Adopted EA

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• Experience positive architecture output in three domains, i.e. future visions, project architectural governance and architecture principles for guidance in carrying out programmes and projects.

In practice, architects (business or technical) within an organization are less involved during the operational project lifecycle at present, and focus more on future strategic planning. In fact, we believe that architects do not need to be involved continuously throughout the project lifecycle, so we recommend that architecture governance rules are defined carefully.

• 45% already have a set of documented principles and the remaining 55% are busy developing one. In contrast, in organizations without EA, only 20% have a documented approach, 30% do not think it is useful and 30% do not have an opinion.

However, everyone agrees that some architectural principles should be documented in order to achieve the future vision in a structured way.

However, 64% of organizations have not yet documented these architectural principles.

• As a result of well-documented EA, 100% have a clear understanding and keep track of the link

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85%

40%

Organization Structure Business Processes

75%

50%

Ongoing and Planned Projects

GRAPH 3

100%

53%

IT Strategy

Data

75%

between their strategy, the projects and programmes they are running (or planning) and the impact on their organization. Without this, organizations score lower and only have traceability for major projects or programmes.

• Are realizing the benefits they were hoping for when they originally started their EA programmes, whereas those who have not adopted EA mention areas such as improved understanding of current and potential elements, and better tracking of the benefits realized by projects and programmes.

This enables us to conclude that EA really does make a contribution towards improving business/ IT alignment. However, it is hard to quantify.

Most organizations perform EA in an ad-hoc, basic manner and do not yet leverage EA process frameworks and tools fully. The main problem today is that it is hard to find highly-skilled and experienced EA architects.

The CIOnet Enterprise Architecture Survey 2008 was conducted by Dirk Leirman (Quadro Consulting), also author of this article.

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Case study

Basell learns lessons

Outsourcing IT Plastics producer Basell has been outsourcing its IT to CSC since 2003. “It was the only way to deal effectively with a succession of mergers and acquisitions”, explains Guy Lemmens, the global director IT suppliers management who was responsible for the project at the time.

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asell, a specialist in polypropylene and polyethylene, was formed in 2000 following the merger of the petrochemical companies Elenac, Montell and Targor, with Shell and BASF as the two shareholders. Four years later, it passed into the hands of the American company Access Industries. The business, with its head office in the Dutch town Hoofddorp, currently has sales of € 10.5 billion and has production units in 19 countries worldwide.

With the reorganization of the worldwide IT operations, management wanted to simplify business processes, save costs and achieve greater flexibility. The Belgian Guy Lemmens worked at Basell until last year – he is now an independent IT consultant – and helped shape the project. “The changes we needed to introduce worldwide were so far-reaching that the outsourcing of the IT infrastructure was the only practical option for us.

Because we would not have been able to push the necessary changes working only from the internal organization.” After an initial call for tenders to four candidates, IBM and CSC remained as finalists. The choice was made for the latter, which took on about 40 IT staff from Basell.

Lemmens looks back favourably on the deal, but has also learned some lessons. “We achieved a spectacular cost reduction of 40 percent and the organization was committed to working in a more structured manner.”

PICTURE

Guy Lemmens, former global director IT suppliers management at Basell: “Outsourcing IT was the only way to deal effectively with a succession of mergers and acquisitions.”

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As a consequence of its history (a series of successive acquisitions and mergers), there was a strong need to thoroughly restructure the IT organization three years after the company was set up. “In 2003 our IT was very patchy, with dozens of suppliers, each of them responsible for a small part of the service”, explains Lemmens.

But the consultant also admits that not everything ran smoothly. “We might have squeezed the lemon too hard during the contract negotiations.

Afterwards, we had to sit around the table again and change a number of contract conditions, including the duration. We also underestimated the time it would take to manage the deal. I also learned that it’s best to solve your internal problems first and not carry them into the outsourcing, because that just makes problems a lot worse.” In this context, Lemmens refers to the standardization and replacement of the PC park (6,000 units), which was included in the contract but which caused a lot of problems.

Advertorial

IT under pressure to do more, spend less

Data center transformation

As the pressure mounts for data centers that are both thrifty and inventive, it’s becoming clear that data centers can’t be simply fixed. They must be transformed.

Today’s CIO is expected to manage and maintain an increasingly complex technology infrastructure and at the same time help the business grow.

Not to mention lower operating costs, improve efficiency and reduce exposure to risks.

Yet, while CIOs are under intense pressure to make their data centers more efficient and effective, data center change is often limited to improving or augmenting the existing infrastructure. As a result, data centers are quickly approaching a resource crunch.

Resource restraints In the last 10 years, physical servers in data centers have quadrupled, according to analyst firm IDC. With high power costs, it takes about two years for the typical server to consume its purchase price in energy in the U.S., assuming efficient cooling.

Expanding data center capacity to support business growth is no longer a viable option.

HP recommends a transformational approach To achieve an infrastructure flexible enough to enable growth without taxing existing systems, long-term cost savings and real business security, data centers need to transform.

This means creating a comprehensive strategy, using the following modular data center concepts: • Consolidation means fewer facilities which reduces costs and simplifies the infrastructure.

Resources used for routine tasks can be turned to supporting business growth.

Key Data Center Resource Challenges In the next five years, more than half of all large enterprises will face a shortage of data center floor space.

By 2015, the pool of qualified senior-level technical and management data center professionals will shrink by 45 percent.

By 2010, more than half of all data centers will have to relocate to new facilities or outsource some applications.

Over the next five years, power failures and limits on power availability will halt data center operations at more than 90 percent of all companies.

Source: Data Center Institute • Automation of standard data center operations, such as provisioning, auditing or resource reallocation, increases reliability, reduces risk of error and helps shift resources from maintenance to innovation.

• Virtualization helps to make better use of your equipment, requiring fewer physical servers and lowering energy and space requirements while making it easier for business to shift course quickly.

• Energy and space efficiency improves the reliability of business systems, and reduces energy consumption and cost.

Instituting transformative technologies in logical, incremental and manageable phases is critical to a comprehensive data center transformation.

WONDERING HOW TO GET STARTED?

Please visit http://www.hp.be/dct Join our IT Transformation Series: • Application Simplification, Modernisation & Consolidation (17/04/08) • Service Delivery Management (24/06/08) Register for these round-table sessions at http://www.hp.be/shareit

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CEO view

Roularta boss on IT:

A permanent CHALLENGE “A permanent challenge.” That is how managing director Rik De Nolf summarizes IT within Roularta.

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T at Roularta is particularly complex. It is involved in a number of different fields that are highly strategic for the business: prepress and production, subscription management and the internet, to name some of the more important ones.

The IT division has a total of 80 staff (out of 3,000 in the company as a whole). Carlos Van Den Bossche is currently head of the department. He returned from retirement last year. “Carlos had stayed in close contact after he retired.” This concerns a temporary, transitional period. “We are looking for an IT manager who will first of all lead the development activity and over time will become the head of the entire IT department. In my opinion, our business is so specific that you need to have internal experience first before you can effectively lead the IT department.”

Rik De Nolf has a lot of contact with his CIO. “IT has an ever growing impact on the business. I follow IT developments closely and frequently discuss the major issues with Carlos. Not so much the technical aspects but I make sure that everyone is on the same page. For example, if we decided to apply the Belgian subscription system in France, the French management team would need to fully back that decision.”

PICTURE

Rik De Nolf, CEO of Roularta Media Group: “IT has an ever growing impact on the business.”

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Trust But how does Rik De Nolf, as CEO, keep up with the latest technological developments?

“That is a big problem”, he admits. “Naturally, you

have to have confidence in your employees. You have to keep asking questions. Make sure that all the necessary parties buy into the project and that they are in agreement. I have learned that to reach good IT solutions you first of all have to listen especially carefully to the end users. We once had to start from scratch three months into a project because the users were not sufficiently listened to during the analysis stage.”

As regards the CIO, he or she must in the first place be a good people manager, says Rik De Nolf. “That is the big challenge. He has to be able to inspire a team and reflect the ambition of the objective on to his colleagues. He needs to have an entrepreneurial spirit and also be able to transfer this attitude to his people, so that they too feel greatly involved. He needs to give the people who are developing the application very clear information about the ultimate objective.” This combina- >

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CEO view

tion of qualities is not easy for the Roularta boss to find in an IT person. “IT is a specific profession and I have the impression that IT professionals are fairly closed. You have to communicate with them in a different way than you do with journalists or commercial people, for example.”

Pioneering IT has always been important for the publisher and its impact has only become larger in recent years. Thanks to technology, Roularta can deliver pioneering work in a number of fields, explains De Nolf. “Take the prepress. The IT team from the prepress department developed a number of standards (for the exchange of advertising text, photos, PDFs), and these have since grown into national standards. The Netherlands also adopted these standards and the same thing may well happen in France.

“And as a result, we get better results year after year. Thanks to IT we can serve our advertisers in exactly the way they want, so that they can place the right advertisement in the right format in the right regional edition.”

Observing Roularta is now facing an important practical decision regarding subscription management.

“We have one million subscribers in Belgium for all our titles combined; in France (with the takeover of Groupe Express-Expansion) another one million is added. The normal practice for the new titles is to outsource all of this, as is the case with most French publishers for that matter. The outsourcing partners, however, sometimes change ownership or systems, leading to concerns for the publishers about the continuity of the effective operation of their subscription service. Imagine having one million readers with nothing to read.

“We developed our subscription system ourselves and always kept its operation in-house.

This has the obvious advantage that the service is interlinked with invoicing, bookkeeping, despatch and that the whole system is fully automated. In-house development takes more time to complete but you can be certain that the systems always remain well connected with each other.

“Now we need a new version, first of all to support new marketing initiatives. We are now investigating whether we can do the exercise at group level, thereby integrating France into the system.

We’re not quite there yet. A joint venture partner has opted to purchase an American package.

We are observing their experience and then we will be able to judge whether the package delivers the desired results.”

Rik De Nolf is not opposed to the purchase of external packages in principle but has found that in practice in-house development pays for itself many times over.

“With each new step in automation, we always ask the question: buy a package or develop it ourselves? There is no unequivocal answer to that. We try buying something every now and then but every time we conclude, with the benefit of hindsight, that it did not work! Buying a package is expensive in itself, and it’s not unusual for the overall cost to be doubled when you customize it to your needs. Buying a package also

State of the art Overall, Rik De Nolf is pleased with progress on the IT front. Although he also admits that it’s not always that easy. “We are state of the art in terms of prepress and subscriptions. I am also pleased with our own CRM-system for the sales applications. But the challenges in terms of the internet are enormous and there’s still a large amount of work ahead of us. We sometimes get the feeling that it’s all going too slowly. And that is frustrating.

We don’t have enough people to make all the new ideas and initiatives happen the way we would like.”

But Roularta has until now not dared to appoint someone from elsewhere in the business – because it would be easier to find the people management skills there – as head of the IT activities.

“I think that you need to have sufficient technical knowledge and you need to follow technical developments closely”, explains De Nolf. “And you can’t expect that from a sales director.”

“Our issues are so comprehensive that I think you need a technical background to be able to understand them well.”

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creates problems in terms of integration. Everything is connected here, which is great once it’s all up and running but integrating an outside package is a difficult job.”

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Special feature

Time for an Information Diet

UNPLUG completely Every year, people start with their best intentions: losing weight and doing more exercises. But a new issue is emerging: you also have to go on an information diet.

A

s with the oversupply of food, the information mountain is growing by the minute.

And just as people can get addicted to food, they can also turn into information junkies. The more information they receive, the more information they want. We already know that only five per cent of all information is ever being used. If we only would know upfront what five per cent that is.

Moderate information skills Work and private life are becoming integrated.

Contemporary IT has made this possible. The in-

Who am I? An important step aimed at reducing information overload is to know yourself. Who else knows your information profile best? For example, do you know how much information you receive per medium, how much time you spend per medium, and if you are using the right technology in the most effective way?

People differ in the way they collect, analyze, and disseminate information. Yet hardly anyone uses this knowledge when they exchange information. If we send a message in whatever format, we mainly think about ourselves.

We do not even train the sender when we receive unwanted information. Feedback as in oral communication, is hardly ever done with for instance e-mail of physical documents. So next time you get irritated or frustrated by a message, provide genuine and honest feedback.

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ternet has given rise to unlimited and fast access to free-of-charge, abundant information. Also, the attitude towards the ownership of information has changed. A number of organizations give free access to their information sources. The rationale behind this is that the application of information can lead to new knowledge or increased profits.

More than half of the work force can be regarded as information workers. Information is their business. At home, we are also busy with all sorts of information: magazines, television, the internet, your social networks. We think people know how to cope with information. After all, that is what we do every single day. Unfortunately, few of us are educated in good information skills. Most of us are ‘trained on the job’, often resulting in moderate information capabilities.

I will start today A change of eating habits starts with you. Only you have access to the grey matter between your ears.

The same applies to your information behavior. If you want nutritious information that is healthy and easy to digest, you have to change.

Take a close look at the best practices on the sidebars. The following measures can also be used for personalized, tasty information.

• You are not a victim if you receive too much information. Nowadays, it is accepted to follow a diet.

People dare to say: ‘No thank you. I have had enough.’ The same expression can be used when it comes to information. Not easy for the information junkies among us, but we have to learn the hard way: there is simply not enough time to keep up with all information sources.

Special feature

Nice or necessary to know Perform a one-day information audit. Assess to what category the information you receive belongs: ‘need-to-know’ or ‘nice-to-know’.

Pruning the information sources is important in the first category. What information can be missed without hampering or obstructing your decisions. The second information flow can easily be stopped. You do not need to have the information readily at hand. Often, it is only used for gossiping or satisfying one’s hunger for information.

• People like to talk to other people. In the earlier days, knowledge came from other people. Now we think our IT systems and the internet are the sole supply of wisdom. Yet people are still the best search engine. They deliver the right information within the right context.

• You hardly ever need more information to make a good decision. What is needed, is more time to reflect on the information already available. Like good chewing on your food is better for your digestion, so is viewing the existing information from various angles better for your decision-making process.

• Stay curious, but not too curious. Do not try to have a broad knowledge of many subjects. Instead, be an expert of a few information areas.

• Try an information sabbatical. Or have a day without any e-mail conversation. Certainly a new incentive for senior executives is to have a couple of days without information or gadgets. Disconnect from the digital world whenever possible. Set aside some moments for solitude and quiet reflection. Unplug completely.

In the end, a conscious choice what information to absorb and, at the same time, show your information behavior to your environment, is everyone’s duty.

Readers and Listeners Seventy per cent of all people have a preference for receiving information in written form: they are readers. The others like to listen. This is of course no absolute number. It also depends on the type of medium. E-mail, chat or SMS: a listener prefers oral contact, preferably with a face-to-face encounter. If you want to make sure the receiver understands your messages, you have to take into account how the addressee prefers his information.

PICTURE

Dr. ir Guus Pijpers MBA is Managing Director of Acuerdis and Associate Professor of Information Behavior at TiasNimbas Business School, Tilburg, the Netherlands. His most recent Dutch book is entitled Op informatiedieet – Naar een beter gebruik van informatie (On an Information Diet – Towards a Better Use of Information). Publisher Business Contact, ISBN 9789047000488

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Column

CIO going into business

W

hen Yves Vander Auwera passed the torch on to me (see CIOnet Magazine 1), I was pleased to take on the challenge. 2008 is after all an Olympic year.

For me in any case, 2008 is a year in which I will be pushing my boundaries yet again. A few months ago I made the decision to leave Acerta, where I had been CIO for 4 years, to move over to Bank van De Post and take up the post of managing director, responsible for ALM, Risk Management, Management control, Loans, Successions and IT. For various reasons, I saw this step as a career opportunity not to be missed. First and foremost it was a return to the financial sector where I had spent fifteen years in a range of different functions. In addition, Bank van De Post is at a pivotal moment in its history, as it seeks to reposition itself within the banking landscape. The recent advertising campaign at the end of last year, on television and billboards, is a first step in our ambitious plan. On top of that, I was also attracted by the broader responsibilities.

The rapid integration in the management team, the application/introduction of an IT project approach to various other areas, and the diversity of the issues to be dealt with make the balance for the first months very positive! What perhaps surprised me most is the speed of the impact your decisions have, as IT projects in many cases run a course of several months, or even years.

And apparently the move has elicited quite a few reactions: an IT person going into business! Is it really so strange? The alignment of business and IT that we have been working on for some time has led to IT being involved in the implementation of new business projects. Within the service sector IT is even an essential link in the chain of processes and products necessary to increase efficiency or support growth or both.

For me, there is absolutely no need to make a distinction between business and IT. IT is, along with marketing & sales or operations, for example, one of the disciplines within a business; each with its own characteristics and properties. The appropriate strategy, a good dose of common sense, enthusiasm, passion and a good team around you are the basic ingredients for succeeding as a manager whether you’re in business or IT. ‘Working together’ is the key to success!

MARC VAN DER SCHUEREN

Managing Director of Bank van De Post The columnist for this issue passes the torch for the next issue on to a colleague.

Marc Van der Schueren has chosen Piet Van Petegem, now IT Manager at the industrial group Joris Ide and previously consultant with Delaware/Arthur Andersen and CIO at the Belgian national broadcaster VRT. Topic: the interesting career moves of Piet.

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