Smart Business February 2011 - UK Edition
Welcome to the February issue of Smart Business, CSC's UK newsletter.
This month's examples of how we've been helping companies address pressing issues include a revolution in IT support at Bombardier and a radical new approach to new application development at Royal Mail. We also feature reports on CSC surveys about trends in IT outsourcing and supply chain management, and a masterclass - led by Michael Capellas: a true master - on cloud computing. Plus you can read my own thoughts on what promises to be an interesting year for CEOs and CIOs alike.
We always welcome feedback so please let us know if there's anything that's caught your interest in this issue. And if you're on Twitter do come and join us there too.
Andy Williams
President, Northern Europe, CSC
Question time
Andy Williams, CSC’s president of Northern Europe’s business operations, gives us his thoughts on what CSC and its customers can expect from the year ahead.
Andy Williams took over responsibilities for CSC’s Northern European operations last May. Under his stewardship, CSC has made important strides in cloud computing, forged key new supplier partnerships and experienced sustained growth while others have struggled. Smart Business caught up with him at the start of the year to discuss his thoughts on the latest trends in IT and what they’ll mean for both CEOs and CIOs in the UK and beyond.
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Innovate to accumulate
Nigel Kirkham, VP of CSC’s Tech & Consumer group, discusses the need for outsourcing partners to add value beyond the letter of the contract.
A CSC survey recently revealed that UK companies who outsourced some or all of their IT function were disappointed by the lack of innovation delivered by their outsourcing partners. The same survey, however, revealed that innovation is rarely identified as a key driver in specifying outsourcing programmes in the first place. Nigel Kirkham explores this dichotomy and offers some thoughts on how outsourcing partners can demonstrate value outside the traditional cost-saving framework.
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Help yourself
Manufacturer Bombardier Transportation is empowering staff to solve IT problems themselves with CSC’s Service Desk Online leading to increased efficiency and a significant reduction in IT support costs.
Most large organisations find themselves increasingly dependent on IT and with this comes a rise in IT support needs. For Bombardier Transportation meeting those needs demands significant resource. To improve how its employees use IT services Bombardier Transportation partnered with CSC and moved to a self-service approach to IT support with Service Desk Online, driving down calls to the support desk by 10 per cent.
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Cloud busting
Disruptive technologies, and in particular the cloud, are likely to be adopted almost universally in the next few years, but how did we get to this point so quickly?
At a CSC-hosted masterclass, CSC customers had an opportunity to ask that question of industry heavyweight Michael Capellas, former CEO of HP and Compaq and now cloud technology pioneer. Joined by experts from CSC and several of its key partners, Capellas led a discussion on technology evolution and how it has brought the world to the brink of business change on such a huge scale.
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Alpha mail
Adrian Steel, head of infrastructure management at Royal Mail, explains how he’s working with CSC to capitalise on the new cloud computing platform at Royal Mail
Royal Mail’s move to Microsoft’s BPOS cloud-based office productivity platform was chiefly motivated by the attractive variable cost model it would introduce. But the same factors that enabled an ambitious rapid migration to go without a hitch have also ushered in a new era of rapid product development that promises a massive boost to collaboration and productivity moving forward. In a second interview for Smart Business, Adrian Steel explains.
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Chain reaction
Lessons on how businesses survived the economic downturn are becoming more evident thanks to results of a global CSC study into supply chain progress.
Each year CSC conducts a survey of developments in supply chain strategy and practice. Completed by supply chain executives from manufacturing and service companies across 20 industries worldwide, this year’s Global Survey of Supply Chain Progress focused on supply chain management policies and practices, supply chain continuity and sustainability initiatives. The results show that the supply chain is now viewed as a core competency and supply chain efficiency was a key factor for business survival during the recession. However, there are also some warning signs to heed.
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