MIS 100 2007(1-20)

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1 University of Auckland
2 New Zealand Defence Force
3 Fonterra Co-operative Group
4 University of Otago

2006 Ranking: 4

Senior IS executive: Mike Harte, director, information technology services
Reports to: Chief operating officer
Size of IS shop: 230

PCs: 12,470
Mobile PCs: 1430
Terminals: 0
Hand-held devices: 38
Total screens: 13,938

Industry: Education services
PC environment: Windows XP, Apple Mac, Linux, Toshiba, Dell, Lenovo, HP
Server environment: Novell, Unix, RedHat Linux, VMS, Windows, Apple Mac, IBM, HP, Digital Alpha, Compaq
DBMS: Oracle, SQL
Address: Leith Street, Dunedin
Website: www.otago.ac.nz
Key IS projects this year: FMIS project; second data centre; application migration project – all in-house corporate systems on Windows/Oracle/Java platform.

The University of Otago will continue to enhance its international reputation as a research-led organisation and has recently completed a strategic direction to 2012.
From an IT perspective, director of IT services Mike Harte says the strategic planning has identified a number of imperatives that will require IT management to better understand business needs and to closer align these to IT strategy. “A key issue is alignment. We need to understand what the organisation’s needs are going forward and what it needs in terms of IT governance and leadership — that is where we feel we can add value.”
Questions being asked include whether the university has the appropriate advisory bodies, input groups and access to customer response to help align business and IT and how to ensure IT becomes more customer driven. A further focus is IT organisational structure. Harte has started seeking ideas from all IT staff and a representative group of customers regarding how the division can be organised to best meet the needs of its customers. Harte says this process will take a while but the inclusiveness is highly popular and likely to produce the best outcome.
“It’s a little like a ‘State of the Nation’ survey: I have been in this role for two years and this is a chance for me to revisit existing perceptions and where I see IT as a division moving forward and how we are viewed and delivering. We are looking at our customers’ needs and wants and where we add value and also at obstacles to delivery. Staff are providing individual and team submissions.”
As a large New Zealand university, Harte says there are ongoing challenges around service management, including IT support, delivery, capacity and prioritisation. There is increasing demand for new and improved IT services, along with a large number of systems projects potentially important to the business. IT management is therefore seeking greater involvement of senior management in prioritisation of IT work.
Like other universities, a need to comply with the pending Public Records Act from 2010 is important and Harte says “significant IT input” will be required for this project.
For network connectivity and security, the university is also reviewing identity management and authentication, authorisation and access processes to the core network and services, particularly as a result of investigating ‘capability building’ on the KAREN research and education network. “KAREN is a wonderful tool for research but a key issue is identity management. If we want to collaborate across organisations, then we must be part of a federated identity management system that allows staff to be authenticated back through their own organisation.”
Harte says a wireless network pilot launched last year received positive feedback from students and delivers secure wireless access. “If a laptop gets a virus we can shield the servers from it. If someone tries to hack into the wireless network, they will be shut down. Wireless is a key project for us to improve service to students and we envisage having a wireless cocoon over the campus by the end of 2007; 65 per cent of our students own their own laptop.”
The university is building a second data centre. It is in the design phase and is in response to the original data centre reaching capacity plus the requirement to reduce overall business risk.
Harte says there are distributed campuses — two sites in Wellington, one in Christchurch and one in Auckland; and there is now an Invercargill campus following the merger with the Dunedin College of Education.
Connection is currently via Telecom WAN links. However, traffic between all campuses will soon be running over the KAREN network’s 10GB backbone and Harte says traditional telecommunications services are likely to be reviewed as KAREN is bedded in.
The university would like to put together an “elegant” mobile computing solution, says Harte, as it presently supports a mixture of hand-held devices on mobile networks along with academics working overseas. “Blackberry technology works very well as do the range of Windows Mobile devices. This year we are evaluating those technologies and looking for a single, cost-effective solution that we can support from an enterprise point of view.”
VoIP is being researched and while the university has distributed PABX systems, it is looking at the next generation of VoIP technology. The university has multiple sites and the benefits of VoIP may balance or outweigh the investment costs, says Harte.
5 Telecom New Zealand
6 Ministry of Social Development
2006 Ranking: 6

Senior IS executive: Tim Occleshaw, chief information officer
Reports to: Deputy chief executive, people capability and resources
Size of IS shop: 350

PCs: 11,400
Mobile PCs: 1700
Terminals: 0
Hand-held devices: 135
Total screens: 13,235

Industry: Government and defence
PC environment: MS Windows 2002, Dell, Compaq
Server environment: HP Unix; MCP; Solaris; Windows 2000, NT; HP 9000; Unisys; Sun
DBMS: Oracle, DMS2, SQL
Address: Level 8 Bowen State Building, 32 Bowen Street, Wellington
Website: www.msd.govt.nz
Key IS projects this year: Client management system; management information system for CYF; new service model for Work and Income.


The Department of Child Youth and Family merged with the Ministry of Social Development (MSD) in mid-2006 to create an organisation of more than 9000 staff, 13,000 screens and with an annual turnover of $1.14 billion annually. However, the size of the IT team under CIO Tim Occleshaw has only increased by around 30 positions, to 350 permanent staff.
Occleshaw says the MSD is an outcomes-focused department, and one of the consequences of this is that both client and front-line staff requirements directly drive IT strategy and architecture. “We put clients at centre of everything we do and that puts some pressures on the IT systems. Our front line staff has evolved business processes and practices but IT and systems infrastructure has not been able to evolve as fast, so that’s a big challenge.”
Large IT projects for 2007 include a Client Management System pilot to be trialled among 800 users in the Bay of Plenty region and contact centres. Occleshaw says the MSD’s SWIFTT system, which manages core benefit calculations and payments, does the job well and isn’t up for replacement. However, SWIFTT is transactional in nature and not well suited to support the management of client relationships, which is where the new Client Management System (developed by Irish software developers Cúram Software) comes in.
“The Client Management System will make a significant difference to the way our staff can work with clients; allowing us to work with much better information, reducing the administration overhead, and also allowing new staff to come up to speed faster.”
Occleshaw says increasingly state sector agencies are joining together to provide better integrated services to New Zealanders. “Isn’t it better for our clients if government organisations can work together so that clients don’t have to talk to several different agencies about the same thing? But for many of us this means we have to work in new and different ways. At the moment, MSD’s infrastructure and systems don’t lend themselves particularly well to cross-government collaboration, so this is one of the drivers of our infrastructure roadmap.”
MSD’s general approach is to leverage technology to remove barriers to services and to enhance responsiveness to clients and stakeholders. Occleshaw says MSD is not seeking to reduce personal contact with customers, but to use technology to put them at the centre of what it does. Key IT activity supporting this includes the new Client Management System; greater integration of systems and joining of disparate repositories of client information into a single view of the client; evolution of integration strategy towards a service oriented architecture; and a management information system (SAS data warehouse) program for Child, Youth and Family. This aims to build managers’ capability to recognise trends, understand drivers and know what the information means, and what action they should take in response to indicators.
Occleshaw says the MSD has a knowledge management programme that will go well beyond being only a document management system. “We want to get this right – knowledge management has been a buzz phrase for a few years without being fully understood. We have an intranet which forms part of the organisation’s knowledge, together with a document management system (Objective). We are also using collaboration tools and looking at how to leverage the knowledge stored in various user based network drives.”
The MSD is a VoIP pioneer, with a fully integrated VoIP network since 2000. Recently, Genesys and Cisco-based VoIP technologies and systems have been deployed progressively across its contact centres to replace old managed services, with predictive dialling and routing tools.
MSD is moving from its mainframe systems in a careful, risk averse way, says Occleshaw, and is re-platforming and removing a system from the Unisys mainframe – the Trace system - that manages customer debt.
7 Fletcher Building
8 Carter Holt Harvey

2006 Ranking: 10

Senior IS executive: Pat O’Connell, chief information officer
Reports to: Chief executive officer
Size of IS shop: 150

PCs: 5000
Mobile PCs: 1500
Terminals: 800
Hand-held devices: 1000
Total screens: 8300


Industry: Manufacturing
PC environment: Windows XP, Dell, IBM
Server environment: Windows 2003; Solaris; Linux; AIX;
Compaq; Dell, iSeries, pSeries; Sun
DBMS: DB2, Oracle, SQL
Address: 640 Great South Road, Manukau City, Auckland
Website: www.chh.co.nz
Key IS projects this year: M&A support; legacy system migration.


Business integration and growth are on the agenda for Carter Holt Harvey — which was purchased for $NZ3.3 billion by entrepreneur Graham Hart in March 2006. A softening economy exacerbated by a challenging export market is the main challenge faced by Carter Holt Harvey, says CIO Pat O’Connell. He says new business integration and synergistic use of existing IT capability are key IT goals for the group. “Accurate information, fast information and optimised planning are all important to the business, and are processes in which IT has a significant impact.”
In the coming 12 months, Carter Holt Harvey will continue a number of upgrade projects in the areas of ERP, business intelligence and financial systems. Hardware upgrades and work on server virtualisation are also on the agenda. O’Connell says Carter Holt Harvey has not made a significant investment in VoIP to date, but this year will extend data connectivity through access to 802.11-based wireless networks and mobile technologies. The e-channel is an additional focus area, and like many organisations in this year’s MIS100, Carter Holt Harvey is planning to upgrade disaster recovery and business continuity systems.
O’Connell says all IT functions are conducted in-house with the exception of SAP development and support, which is outsourced to former Carter Holt Harvey subsidiary Oxygen Business Solutions.
Ongoing acquisition activity by Hart’s Rank group also continues to provide challenges.
“We are constantly reviewing options for synergistic integration from all aspects — operations, application portfolios, licensing, and technologies, as we bring more business under the Carter Holt Harvey umbrella,” says O’Connell.
9 ANZ National Bank

2006 Ranking: 7

Senior IS executive: Tomasz Smaczny, chief information officer
Reports to: Graham Hodges, CEO
Size of IS shop: 500

PCs: 8300
Mobile PCs: 1800
Terminals: 0
Hand-held devices: 0
Total screens: 10,100

Industry: Finance and insurance
PC environment: Windows 2000, XP; HP; Dell
Server environment: Windows 2000, 2003; Solaris; Citrix; AIX; HP; Dell; Tandem; Stratus; Sun; IBM
DBMS: SQL, DB2, Oracle, Sybase
Address: 1-9 Victoria Street, Wellington
Website: www.anz.com/nz and www.nationalbank.co.nz
Key IS projects this year: Telling platform replacement programme; sales and service platform replacement programme; direct link platform upgrade programme.


ANZ National is New Zealand’s largest bank when it comes to customer numbers. The bank’s focus for the coming 12 months is on growing the business both in revenue and market share, with technology identified as critical to the execution of these business goals, says CIO Tomasz Smaczny.
“We must be positioned to partner and enable the business to achieve these goals. Accordingly, alignment with the business is a critical requirement for the Technology Team and we have invested considerable effort developing a Technology Business Strategy that reflects and supports delivery of the business’ goals,” says Smaczny.
The Technical Strategy of ANZ National also reflects this alignment. Smaczny says team structure follows strategy, and the technology team has recently moved to a new structure and operating model specifically designed to underpin its focus and engagement with the business. The new structure includes adoption of a business unit-oriented and portfolio approach to managing technology. This model has also been designed to encompass and deliver greater leverage of resources across the extended technology team.
“We recognise that people are the foundation of our success and have established a variety of programmes to ensure that we attract, retain and foster talented people. One such programme has been the development of clearly defined people and technical leadership streams, which provides our team members with viable options to pursue either career path,” says Smaczny.
Based on the new Technology Business Strategy, ANZ National has allocated substantial investments in its banking channels with channel IT projects for internet banking, telling, telephone banking, and call centres. These projects deliver the infrastructure that the business requires to transform its operating model, says Smaczny. Other projects include a sales and service platform replacement investment, hardware upgrades; server virtualisation and implementation of VoIP infrastructure. Business continuity and disaster recovery planning are further focus points for 2007.
The largest areas of IT project expenditure are the telling platform replacement programme, sales and service platform replacement programme and direct link platform upgrade programme.
10 Massey University

2006 Ranking: 9

Senior IS executive: Gerrit Bahlman, chief information officer
Reports to: General manager, strategy and finance
Size of IS shop: 90

PCs: 7197
Mobile PCs: 965
Terminals: 0
Hand-held devices: 0
Total screens: 8162

Industry: Education services
PC environment: Apple Mac; Linux; Windows 2000, XP; HP; Advantage; Toshiba
Server environment: Apple Mac; Linux; VMS; Windows 2000, 2003; HP Intel-based; HP Others; IBM
DBMS: SQL, Ingres, Oracle
Address: Highway 57, Palmerston North
Website: www.massey.ac.nz
Key IS projects this year: Telecommunications upgrade; storage
disaster recovery; desktop standard operating environment; virtualisation
Computer Laboratory leasing refresh; consolidated printing and photocopying; online enrolment and student programme management.



Massey University has three campuses and 26 points of presence throughout New Zealand. The three major campuses in Palmerston North, Wellington and Albany, Auckland cater for some 38,000 local and international students of which approximately 18,000 students, in New Zealand and offshore, study by distance education.
The five-college structure provides a diversity of degrees, diplomas and certificates. Massey University specialises in the fields of sciences, agriculture, creative arts, humanities and social sciences, education and business. It also has the biggest business college in New Zealand.
Gerrit Bahlman, chief information officer, says Massey has a strong focus on research and research-led teaching and encouraging success at a postgraduate level. Leading edge research is undertaken on all three campuses and the University has invested in equipment in support of its commitment to research. This includes high-performance computing, Nuclear Magnetic Resonance Spectrometry, advanced research data networking and a variety of collaboration technologies. A major upgrade of the core network of the University has just been completed and rollout of a consolidated printing and photocopying environment is currently underway. A full refresh of all undergraduate computer laboratory equipment is scheduled for the middle of the year.
While Massey does selectively outsource a number of IT function areas, Bahlman says there is growing concern that outsource suppliers are stretched and unable to provide the level of service necessary to pursue such strategies. He says mergers and acquisitions result in smaller, highly-focused providers being swallowed within larger cultures that do not understand the nature of the business. This introduces risk into the outsource environment.
“The larger the IT provider, the further removed their management is from context sensitive service delivery. In general, the quality of service provision lowers as the size of the IT provider increases. Large organisations cannot provide an intimate long-term understanding of their smaller customer needs,” says Bahlman.
Massey University has just completed an in-house redevelopment of its student management system. As with most educational institutions, the online environment continues to be an important channel and services include full registration, record information access, online payment and universal email. Internal administration on the web provides academic and general staff with access to online support structures and services.
A major project underway is the redevelopment, extension and integration of Massey University’s online enrolment capabilities, with student programme management facilities. Bahlman says this replaces an innovative but aging existing web enrolment capability.
Other key IT projects in 2007 include a telecommunications refresh, disaster recovery focus, and moves toward a desktop standard operating environment. Massey University will also embark on a financial systems upgrade, and investigate CRM and VoIP technologies. Efficiencies gained through server virtualisation and consolidation strategies will also be extended.
Bahlman says IT area concerns going forward include staffing and workforce planning in the face of a labour market skills shortage, and emerging and existing issues surrounding data security.
11 Progressive Enterprises
12 Air New Zealand
13 Inland Revenue Department
14 Auckland University of Technology

2006 ranking: 23

Senior IS executive: Liz Gosling, director IT services
Reports to: General manager, service and operations
Size of IS shop: 70

PCs: 5692
Mobile PCs: 1103
Terminals: 0
Hand-held devices: 396
Total screens: 7191


Industry: Education services
PC environment: Apple Mac, Windows XP, Linux, Cyclone Computers, Toshiba, Apple, Lenovo, IBM
Server environment: Linux, Novell, Windows 2000; Apple, Cyclone Computers
DBMS: Oracle, MySQL, SQL
Address: 55 Wellesley Street East, Auckland
Website: www.aut.ac.nz
Key IS projects this year: Web portals; CRM; infrastructure upgrades; information architecture.


Following a rewrite of its strategic plan in 2006, Auckland University of Technology (AUT) now has five key objectives for the next five years: Providing excellent education, conducting excellent research, actively engaging with communities, attracting and retaining excellent staff, and effectively managing its resources.
Liz Gosling, director IT services, says AUT’s focus is always on practical applied education, enabling opportunities in the modern professions and disciplines of today’s economy. Challenges include the need to maintain and grow student numbers in a tight education market, driven by low unemployment in New Zealand. Gosling says it is also a challenge to maintain technical support that is robust, easy to implement and cost effective.
The following key IT groups report to Gosling: The Client Services team, which is responsible for first and second-line support, training and audio-visual equipment; an Information Systems team focused on projects and system integration; a Technology Services group forming third-line, back room server, and telecommunications infrastructure support; and an on-site digital printing copy shop called PrintSprint.
Gosling says AUT is a large purchaser of telecommunications and as a result has been able to negotiate satisfying commercial deals with core telecommunications’ supplier TelstraClear. However, she says what’s important to AUT is access to e-learning and that is dependant on home broadband performance. “Cheap, good quality broadband available to New Zealand homes is vital to us; we can then deliver content-rich course content over our e-learning platform. What we can deliver at 56Kbps or less is less engaging.”
Key projects for 2007 include business intelligence, CRM and financial software upgrades. AUT is also committed to the cost savings afforded through server virtualisation and VoIP technologies and has implemented an organisation-wide Cisco VoIP System.
Wireless and mobile services are being extended and Gosling says AUT has around 70 Blackberry devices that it finds simple to support. On the e-business front, AUT is changing the structure of its key website from ‘one size fits all’ to separate portals — one for staff and students, and a transactional portal.
15 University of Canterbury
16 New Zealand Police
17 Land Transport New Zealand

2006 Ranking: 15

Senior IS executive: Tony West, chief information officer
Reports to: General manager, corporate services
Size of IS shop: 60

PCs: 7710
Mobile PCs: 205
Terminals:0
Hand-held devices:0
Total screens: 7915

Industry: Government and defence
PC environment: Linux, Windows XP, HP, Intel-based clone or OEM, Toshiba
Server environment: Linux; Solaris; Windows 2000, 2003, NT; Unisys; Dell; HP Others
DBMS: Jade, Oracle, Unisys RDMS, SQL
Address: Level 4, NZ Post House, 7-27 Waterloo Quay, Wellington
Website: www.landtransport.govt.nz
Key IS projects this year: Operator rating system; performance monitoring system; Unisys outsourcing.


Land Transport was formed in 2004 from the merger of Transfund New Zealand and the Land Transport Safety Authority. It is a significant user of information technology with nearly 8000 screens and an IT team of 60.
“Information and effective business systems are key to Land Transport New Zealand achieving its strategic goals,” says Tony West, chief information officer. “We are a knowledge-based organisation and the key to operational success is to enhance our use of that knowledge.”
West says while organisational direction and business strategies are reasonably well understood within the information systems and technology group, further work is required to ensure both strategies are more closely aligned. “We are still building IT governance structures, which take some bedding down, and we are continuing through the business planning process along with implementing new enterprise architecture.”
He says government policy changes “always create surprises”, and the IT service arms of government departments driven by legislation can not foresee all IT systems and services required in the future.
“Big blocks” of work for Land Transport for the next year include changes to support new Transport Operator licensing legislation, a system that looks at all transport operators and operations, and is part of the implementation of the rating system that targets information to allocate resources to risk. Land Transport will also make a significant investment in VoIP to coincide with new premises, and complete a document management system project designed to support knowledge management processes within Land Transport.
Land Transport is also seeking to make more transaction services available online. It is also about to finish a project with NZ Post that allows for online Land Transport NZ payments and renewals at NZ Post desktop counters via n-tier architecture.
18 ASB Group

2006 ranking 14

Senior IS executive: Clayton Wakefield, head of technology and operations
Reports to: Hugh Burrett, managing director, ASB
Size of IS shop: 450

PCs: 6000
Mobile PCs: 1100
Terminals: 0
Hand-held devices: 100
Total screens: 7200


Industry: Finance and insurance
PC environment: Windows 2000, XP; Acer; Dell; Toshiba
Server environment: MCP; Windows 2000, XP, Server 2003, NT, XP; Dell, HP, others
DBMS: DMS, SQL
Address: Level 28, ASB Bank Centre, 135 Albert Street, Auckland
Website: www.asbbank.co.nz
Key IS projects this year: KiwiSaver, internet business banking.


Online banking security performance and business banking services are major focuses for the ASB Group in 2007 and beyond.
Business challenges faced by the group include the competitive nature of the industry and market fluctuations, which can affect lending volumes and interest margins. CIO Clayton Wakefield says the IT team, systems and initiatives underway are well placed to meet these challenges head-on.
Online projects include a new internet banking service called Fastnet Business Banking, which allows businesses to conduct banking transactions over the internet securely and in real-time.
ASB is an innovator in online security and Wakefield says ASB was the first bank to introduce two-factor authentication technologies. ASB online banking users enter a user ID and login password but can also receive a special code via text or a token device to authorise larger transactions beyond a limit the customer determines. “As internet use becomes more pervasive, we are focused on appropriate levels of security for our customers balanced with convenience, cost and risk. Our customers recognise the benefits of extra security.”
As a default provider for KiwiSaver, ASB faces a significant upgrade of ICT systems and software to support the scheme and Wakefield says this is the bank’s most significant IT project for 2007. Other key IT projects include refined business intelligence and data warehouse tools. Treasury system replacement is also on the investment plan and the bank’s CRM system will be enhanced and continue to be integrated into all systems. Cost and operational benefits around server virtualisation are also being investigated.
ASB is pleased with the benefits it has realised from installing a full VoIP network using Cisco Call Manager, says Wakefield. These include reduced toll costs, the introduction of video, unified messaging, distributed call centres and the creation of a ‘single environment’ across the bank’s 150 dispersed sites.
ASB has no plans to implement 802.11 wireless technologies but continues to expand its use of cellular mobile network service for remote workers.
19 Bank of New Zealand

2006 Ranking: 21

Senior IS executive: Paul Tait, chief information officer
Reports to: Chris Bayliss, general manager technology and operations
Size of IS shop: 300

PCs: 4000
Mobile PCs: 1685
Terminals: 385
Hand-held devices: 1268
Total screens: 7338

Industry: Finance and insurance
PC environment: Apple Mac; OS/2; Desktop Unix; Windows 2000, XP; Dell; IBM
Server environment: AIX; HP Unix; SCO Unix; Sun; Windows 2000, 2003; HP Intel-based; xSeries, iSeries, zSeries
DBMS: DB2, Informix, Oracle, SQL, Sybase
Address: State Insurance House, 16 Willis Street, Wellington
Website: www.bnz.co.nz
Key IS projects this year: Re-use of components through service oriented architecture; strengthening online and mobile banking capabilities.


Strategic priorities for the Bank of New Zealand in 2007 include building retail banking presence through excellent service. This will be achieved through offering customers new and unique ways to save money on fees and mortgage interest, as well as ways to earn higher interest on deposits.
“We’ll also be looking at ways to streamline the customer banking experience further, making it easier, cheaper, and faster to bank with us. Our latest offering ‘TotalMoney’ encompasses all of these things and based on the extremely positive response we’ve had from new and existing customers, it’s the packaged solution they’ve been waiting for,” says CIO Paul Tait.
Tait says a key business challenge for the BNZ is in creating the ability to be as nimble as smaller niche banking players. “However in saying that, our success at the Cannex Banking Awards shows that not only are we the best value for money in terms of the large banks, but our home lending, personal lending, and credit cards offerings are strongly competitive with anything available on the market.”
The regulatory moves afoot in respect of unbundling and opening up the Telecom network, as well as portability, are all positive and will enable improved service opportunities for the BNZ, says Tait. “The other major challenge is the cost of mobile termination fees as a result of the high interconnect fees that are being passed on to customers. These significantly threaten the profitability of pushing our services online at costs customers will find acceptable. For example, it is expensive to preserve free calling into our 0800 numbers for account enquiries from mobile phones. Some innovative thought is required to continue to deliver cost effective personal mobility for customers, something we are working on presently.”
20 healthAlliance