'Big data' one of 'eight great technologies' for Whitehall investment

David Bicknell

4 months ago 0 Comments

I was interested in an announcement last week by the UK's minister for universities and science David Willetts who set out plans for the government to invest £600m in 'eight great technologies'. Of that £600m, £189m will be allocated to support data innovation.

In his speech at the Policy Exchange, Willetts said the £189m will follow a £150m investment in e-Infrastructure made in October 2011, and will be invested over the next two years in key areas such as bioinformatics and environmental monitoring.

He added that we are already seeing the benefits of companies such as IBM, Cisco and Intel making a number of investments in to the UK.

"Business will invest more as they see us invest more in computational infrastructure to capture and analyse data flows released by the open data revolution," Willetts said.

M....Read More

IT industry pays tribute to Langsdale

David Bicknell

5 months ago 0 Comments

Happy New Year from the IMIS blog.

It’s funny, you have some senior CIOs in charge of corporate IT at major institutions and then suddenly there’s all change, and sadly, not always for the best of reasons.

I mentioned here recently the departure of Phil Pavitt from HM Revenue & Customs for Aviva. Little did I expect one of the other giants of government IT to lose its CIO too. But sad to report, Philip Langsdale, CIO at the Department for Work and Pensions – and previously, airport operator BAA – passed away before Christmas. It marks a difficult time at DWP which is currently trying to implement the government’s flagship Universal Credit benefits system.

DWP is starting to see a lot of publicity about the challenges in delivering Universal Credit and having to find a new CIO able to get to grips with the IT management challenges&nb....Read More

Many UK IT professionals not aware of ICO guidance on cloud computing

Keri Allan

6 months ago 0 Comments

I came across an interesting story recently, highlighting that over 40 per cent of IT professionals are unaware of the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) guidance and recommendations on cloud computing.

This comes off the back of a recent survey commissioned by security firm CipherCloud, which questioned 300 IT professionals across key industries including financial services, healthcare, and government over the last month.

Over 40 per cent of the professionals questioned admitted they are unaware of the ICO guidance and of those who were aware, less than 27 per cent could confirm their organisations are compliant.

With responsibility for data security now re....Read More

Phil Pavitt to leave HMRC for Aviva

David Bicknell

6 months ago 0 Comments

Every so often, a giant of the IT industry moves on, leaving large footprints in his wake. That is very much the case today with the news that HM Revenue & Customs' chief information officer Phil Pavitt is leaving the public sector to join the insurance group Aviva.

Pavitt will leave in early January after three years at HMRC. Previously he was CIO at Transport for London. At HMRC, where his role also encompasses strategic transformation and change, Pavitt has overseen an IT transformation programme that has seen the department achieve savings of up to £226m. His replacement will be Mark Hall, who has actually been CIO since September while Pavitt has been continuing his director of change role.

Pavitt is to join Aviva as global director of IT transformation with a remit of leading the execution of the organisation's IT strategy where his role will include rationalisin....Read More

General Motors turns to insourcing

David Bicknell

7 months ago 0 Comments

The US carmaker General Motors has announced that over the next three to five years it plans to 'rehire' most of the IT work that it previously outsourced. The move marks a significant about-turn for the company, which was an early adopter of outsourcing and offshoring.

Now, one former CIO, Ralph Szygenda's approach to outsourcing, dubbed the "third wave" has been replaced by a completely different approach from new CIO Randy Mott, whose "first generation of insourcing" is expected to result in the rehiring of 10,000 technology professionals.

This blog - and the responses to it - makes for interesting reading on the pros and cons of outsourcing.

Creating cyber security capacity in developing nations

David Bicknell

8 months ago 0 Comments

I was at a briefing last week held by the UK's Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) in advance of a Budapest intergovernment cyber security conference at which the UK government indicated it is planning to set up an international centre to help developing countries build up their cyber security capacity.

The new centre will be funded by around £2m per annum which is being allocated for the FCO's international cyber security capacity building efforts. The £2m will come from  money committed by the government for the National Cyber Security Programme.

The 'Centre for Global Cyber-Security Capacity Building' will be situated in one of eight cyber 'academic centres of excellence' in the UK with the precise location being announced by the end of 2012. It is likely to be sited at one of the following universities: University of Bristol, Lanca....Read More

The value of extending internal social initiatives beyond the company firewall

Keri Allan

8 months ago 0 Comments

I recently came across IDC’s fourth annual Social Business survey, which revealed that as it matures as a customer and engagement channel, use cases have grown into a wider range of categories including customer experience, sales enablement, digital commerce, enterprise social network (ESN), innovation management and socialytics.

The 2012 survey showed that as users request relevant solutions to extend outside the firewall, security and privacy are the top two important functionalities identified by companies.

"As enterprise social software grows into ESNs, solution functionalities like profiles, activity streams, and blogs have quickly become assumed," says Vanessa Thompson research manager for IDC's Enterprise Social Networks and Collaborative Technologies. "The marked shift in the buying behaviour of solutions....Read More

Cloud-based IT services continue to grow

David Bicknell

8 months ago 0 Comments

The Gartner research group has just came out with some interesting figures. It believes the cloud computing services market will grow nearly 20% in 2012 to total $109 billion worldwide.

Most of that growth will come from business process services (also known as business process as a service, or BPaaS) which covers business processes delivered from the cloud, including email, payroll and cloud advertising. 

BPaaS represents the largest segment, accounting for about 77 percent of the total market, while infrastructure as a service (IaaS) is the fastest-growing segment and is expected to grow 45.4 percent in 2012.

Software as a service (SaaS) - probably the best known of the cloud-based services where software is effectively rented, not bought - is the next-largest segment and is forecast to grow to $14.4 billion in 2012.

In 2011, the cloud se....Read More

A seat at the boardroom table

David Bicknell

8 months ago 0 Comments

I recently came across this article about IT management in "Information Management". It addresses the issue of keeping up with and managing the business's ever-increasing expectations.

It makes the point that technology is always changing, forcing the role of IT leadership to change with it. It also argues that in the insurance industry, as in any vertical market, the IT department is now charged with a lot more than keeping the lights on. In fact, it seems that IT leadership is focused almost as much on emerging technologies as it is on the enterprise systems they develop and maintain.

I liked the discussion of whether the business side is attempting to gain a better understanding of IT’s undertakings as IT is trying to manage the business's expectations, especially t....Read More

Supplier management application usage set to rise

David Bicknell

8 months ago 0 Comments

A recent advertisement in the UK for a Procurement Director in a major government department stressed that the role would involve working with the department's chief information officer (CIO). In fact, the CIO was a key stakeholder in the procurement head's role.

IT managers and CIOs are now working increasingly closely with procurement leads, especially in the public sector.

And a recent survey has indicated that in organisations, 95% of enterprise procurement teams are now understanding the benefits of spend analysis, contract management and procure-to-pay (P2P) automation, with the adoption of supplier management applications set to rise.

The study, from ISG Research, reveals that supplier management is one of the most popular segments of the market in 2013.

Nearly 40 percent of companies surveyed say they are planning to ....Read More