MIS100 2009:Bubbling under

Suncorp Group
Senior IS executive: Andrew Diver, CIO, Vero New Zealand
Total screens: 1205
Industry: Finance and insurance
Website: www.vero.co.nz

Suncorp Group (NZ) includes well-known brands such as Vero Insurance, Tyndall Investments, Asteron, Guardian Trust, Autosure, Comprehensive Travel and Mariner Insurance. It will continue to pursue a greater presence in the New Zealand broker market and direct markets; saying regulation, taxation and the introduction of the KiwiSaver scheme are expected to create future growth opportunities.

Suncorp executive management changes in the past six months include the departure of CEO John Mulcahy and the appointment of Chris Skilton as acting CEO.

Andrew Diver leads New Zealand technology operations and acts as both CIO for Vero New Zealand and executive general manager for Suncorp’s technology operations here.

Diver reports to Jeff Smith, group executive, business technology. He says key ICT projects for the coming year are the adoption, rollout and proficiency of Agile delivery practices and the adoption and utilisation of open-source technologies.
Kristin School
New Zealand Steel
Senior IS executive: Alister Park, manager information systems
Total screens: 1443
Industry: Manufacturing
Website: www.nzsteel.co.nz

NZ Steel is in the midst of a core LAN upgrade and complete server virtualisation project. Controlling costs whilst achieving business targets around production, quality and market share is important to New Zealand Steel, which is owned by publicly-listed Australian parent company BlueScope Steel.

While NZ Steel has enjoyed a strong domestic market in recent years, a less than favourable foreign exchange rate continues to affect export income, particularly in the current economic climate. Timely and accurate information coupled with reliable and effective computing business systems, is therefore considered a competitive advantage.

NZ Steel has VoIP technologies for its site at Glenbrook and three smaller satellite sites. Mobile and wireless technologies are also important, with onsite shift team leaders staying in contact via cellular mobile technologies and radios. Use of smart phones is further improving management mobility and on-site wireless networks are also used. E-business initiatives give customers the ability to directly place and monitor orders, while a B2B system links NZ Steel with customer and supplier systems.
Manukau City Council
Housing New Zealand Corporation
Senior IS executive: Mark Corbitt, information technology manager
Total screens: 1390
Industry: Health and community services
Website: www.hnzc.co.nz

Housing NZ owns the state housing portfolio and its main activity is the provision of rental housing. Mark Corbitt is the new IT manager, taking over the role from Rob Herries. Under its three-year Risk Management Plan, HNZC seeks to incorporate best practice into its culture. Towards this, opportunities for operational efficiency and effectiveness are being captured and there is a focus on the quality and stability of information and associated systems. The Corporation will consider implementing electronic learning systems to help frontline staff access information to support them in their job. Introduction of the data warehouse in 2007 has made a significant difference to the provision of quality, timely and accurate reporting and analysis.
Stella Travel Services
Diocesan School for Girls
Turners and Growers
Bunnings
Hawkes Bay District Health Board
Bay of Plenty Polytechnic
Senior IS executive: Rabindra Das, IT manager
Total screens: 1138
Industry: Education services
Website: www.boppoly.ac.nz

IT manager Rabindra Das says the polytechnic has a number of key strategic partnerships under development, including one with the University of Waikato, which has led to integration and key shared services. Examples include shared network access, library access, video conferencing and hardware procurement between the polytechnic and University of Waikato. Das says another key strategic goal is the development of closer realationships with ICT vendors to leverage vendor skills and ensure vendors provide more value added services and can partner at a higher level. He says the ISS team will partner with fewer more strategic vendors to provide solutions to assist in developing competitive e-learning and flexible learning products and services. ICT helps the polytechnic to develop competitive e-learning products and simplify business processes to achieve competitive advantage. Current challenges include managing change and securing funding for application development, infrastructure and ICT facilities. In the next 12 to 18 months, major ICT projects include development of student management information systems, CRM software developments, a virtual reality hub, audio visual streaming servers and a financial software upgrade.
Television NZ
Senior IS executive: Damian Swaffield, general manager technology
Total screens: 1603
Industry: Information
Website: www.tvnz.co.nz

Cost efficiency and the need to do more with less are key points of focus for TVNZ. ICT tools and systems deliver the resources, skills and support for the appropriate levels of governance and intellectual thinking a digital media organisation like TVNZ relies upon, says CIO Damian Swaffield. He says broadcast and IT based technologies sit at the heart of the media revolution, both in emerging business channels such as online, video on demand and IPTV as well as in the core of video processing for linear TV. IT systems are needed to manage and store content as well as deliver it to audiences. ICT continues to implement business supporting projects such as digital transformation of the content value chain with workflow-driven, digital asset management systems to replace manual tape-based business processes; as well as a transformation of the advertising sales business through replacement systems and technology, and continued investment in the online products. Also planned are investments in networking technologies to support the move to a digital workflow, along with storage, virtualisation and wireless technologies.
Tyco Fire & Security
Senior IS executive: Antony Mayo, group IT manager NZ
Total screens: 1254
Industry: Manufacturing
Website: www.tyco.co.nz

Organic growth is a major focus for Tyco Fire & Security New Zealand, which provides electronic security systems, fire protection, detection and suppression systems; sprinklers and fire extinguishers; and security services.

Tyco Fire & Security has completed implementation of cash parcel track-and-tracing via GPRS wireless technologies and mobile devices. Other achievements included completion of a major implementation in conjunction with the NZ Fire Service in which new technologies were used to increase the reliability of signals received from fire and safety alert panels on buildings.

In 2009, the company is focused on cash processing, workforce management and data management systems; and an internet access and security upgrade.
Customer interface initiatives are also planned.
Coca-Cola Amatil
Senior IS executive: Donna Wright, CIO
Total screens: 1355
Industry: Manufacturing
Website: www.ccamatil.com

Attracting, developing and retaining high-calibre people, accelerating growth and investing in new beverage categories and acquisitions are key organisational goals for Coca Cola Amatil in 2009. The company has to deal with the impact of the recession on its internal costs as well as how its retail customers and consumers purchasing behaviours are affected, says CIO Donna Wright. From an ICT perspective she says a key focus is to review the number of ICT vendors the organisation deals with. Overall ICT strategy is focused on application rationalisation through implementation of SAP technologies. The largest ICT projects by budget for 2009 are development of a mobile sales force tool, a call centre technology upgrade and expansion and integration of VOIP technology.
Statistics New Zealand
Senior IS executive: Matjaz Jug, chief information officer
Total screens: 1650
Industry: Government and defence
Website: www.stats.govt.nz

the ICT team at Statistics NZ is focused on projects including systems in support of the census, development of statistical processing systems and data dissemination systems. Also on the agenda are integrated respondent management and strategies for the mitigation of business continuity risks related to legacy systems, and ongoing software and server virtualisation. CIO Matjaz Jug says facilitating ease of access to official statistics and internet data collection are among the challenges the IT team faces. ICT is needed to build a sustainable, technological platform, yet there is constant pressure to do this in the most cost effective way. The internal team maintains servers and PC hardware and outsourcing is used for extra support around some systems and network management.
Tait Electronics
MediaWorks
Senior IS executive: Paul Thompson, group IT manager
Total screens: 1420
Industry: Information
Website: www.mediaworks.co.nz


VoIP and unified communications are high on the MediaWorks ICT agenda for 2009. Group IT Manager Paul Thompson says the company is keen to benefit from the increased productivity unified communications can provide, and the cost savings associated with VoIP technologies and services.

From a business perspective, MediaWorks is working to increase revenue share through its television stations and national radio brands. There has also been a marked increase in online interaction between the company and its customers, leading to a significant focus on all online assets and activities.

Telecommunications services to MediaWorks are split between three separate suppliers, a less than ideal solution and a key driver for the move to a unified communications solution, says Thompson. Currently, WAN services are supplied by TelstraClear and phone services are moving to TelstraClear as the VOIP project is rolled out. Mobile services remain with Vodafone.

Unlike many organisations, MediaWorks is yet to be convinced of the cost justification of server virtualisation and wireless technologies, which can’t deliver the bandwidth required for TV and radio file transfers and streaming.
Nelson Marlborough Institute of Technology
Senior IS executives: Adri Noordover, IT network and technical manager; and Stephen Tanner, IT customer services manager
Total screens: 995
Industry: Educational services
Website: www.nmit.ac.nz

NMIT seeks more accurate targeting and streamlined deployment and running of IT services, and easier access to services and information. IT network and technical manager Adri Noordover says better awareness and management of organisational cost and income structures is also sought.
In 2009, NMIT is focused on selecting and implementing a Service Oriented IT framework and supporting toolset. Other focus areas include implementation of a new finance and business intelligence system, implementation of unified messaging solutions, and extended use of national (Karen) and regional (The Loop) education networks for video conferencing and shared services. Upgrade of timetabling and student management systems is also occurring.
Software and server virtualisation is ongoing, and NMIT is extending wireless infrastructure throughout its campus to better meet student expectations. NMIT is also extending its e-business connections and developing improved web portal connections and business-to-business transaction platforms. The NMIT ITS team leader role has recently been split into two separate roles – Adri Noordover is IT network and technical manager; and Stephen Tanner is IT customer services manager.
Restaurant Brands NZ
Ministry of Economic Development
Senior IS executive: Channa Jayasinha, chief technology officer
Total screens: 1435
Industry: Government and defence
Website: www.med.govt.nz

The Ministry of Economic Development’s role is to help the government develop and implement business and consumer policies and services that will help New Zealand develop an internationally-competitive economy.

The aim of the communications and information technology team under chief technology officer Channa Jayasinha, is to maintain and improve a sound regulatory environment for ensuring reliable, innovative, efficient and reasonably-priced communications infrastructure services, as well as to promote the development and uptake of e-commerce, ICT skills, and ICT infrastructure.
Jayasinha says significant investment has been made in IT platforms in the past four years, and independent benchmarking recently found the Ministry’s core IT systems deliver good value and above-average performance.

“The security and stability of systems is an ongoing priority, with the 2008/09 IT work programme expected to deliver enhanced levels of preparedness and flexibility,” says Jayasinha.

In shaping its IT strategy, MED envisages a work programme that will provide investment in smart desktop, personal devices and telephony systems that allow people to be more mobile and productive. In particular, core information will be able to be accessed in more efficient and integrated ways.

MED will complete IT projects in the areas of unified communications and VoIP technologies, CRM and knowledge management systems, e-business and Web 2.0 strategies and organisational mobilisation. Significant areas of ICT expenditure include general infrastructure improvements; Companies Office application redevelopment (called Project Enterprise) and the replacement of IPONZ - the Intellectual Property office core business application.
Deloitte