MIS 100 2007(1-20)

* Click on the triangle symbols to reveal the information for each organisation.
1 University of Auckland

2006 ranking: 1

Senior IS executive: Stephen Whiteside, IT director
Reports to: Director administration
Size of IS shop: 300

PCs: 12,294
Mobile PCs: 2010
Terminals: 250
Hand-held devices: 800
Total screens: 15,354

Industry: Education services
PC environment: Apple Mac, Windows XP, Dell, HP, Lenovo
Server environment: AIX, Linux, Solaris, Windows 2003, Sun, IBM, Apple, Dell, HP
DBMS: Oracle, SQL, MySQL
Address: 22 Princes Street, Auckland
Website: www.auckland.ac.nz
Key IS projects this year: Upgrade of HR systems; new city data centre; enhancement to online presence, eResearch.


As New Zealand’s largest university and research centre, the University of Auckland wants to grow its research income so that by 2012 it is double the 2005 income figure.
Stephen Whiteside, director of IT, says the university’s IT team of 300 is focusing on improving student services via “quite a large number” of new process and service improvements. “The Government is reviewing the way it funds tertiary teaching and learning so that research funding is now more based on outcomes. A key driver for the IT team is therefore to provide measures and reporting around teaching and learning systems and to improve the quality of our indicators.”
Challenges the university faces are the low unemployment rate, which decreases the number of students choosing to study at Masters degree level, and lack of affordable suitable student accommodation within Auckland.
To address these and other challenges, Whiteside says collaboration and connectivity between systems and locations is important. As are new education delivery channels such as e-research, which allow researchers to collaborate online to complete work they can’t complete individually or in person. Access, processing, and storage computer grids are used to facilitate shared online international research.
Whiteside says observing international universities and their innovations around research and funding is helpful and international collaboration supports the growth of local research activity.
The university, for instance, has a close relationship with the earthquake engineering division of the University of San Diego and access to its ‘shake table’. There is also international research collaboration on medical analyses such as bio-engineering of the human heart, physiological modelling and geno-mapping.
Scheduled legislative acts like the Public Records Act, effective from 2010, creates work for the IT team and developing improved document management and supporting systems is a key activity for 2007 along with process enhancements in HR and student administration areas.
Telecommunications and international data networking needs are well supported by the KAREN research and education data network, and this has removed a lot of barriers to national and international connectivity, says Whiteside. Whiteside says local telecommunications costs still have a prohibitive effect on teaching, learning and research. “We still need to be able to provide our students with a much better deal for remote access to our campus. Students are often time poor because of travel or part-time work commitments, so the need to record lectures and provide more flexibility accessing learning material is important. Access to true broadband services is still woefully inadequate in New Zealand and we need that access to become far more ubiquitous.”
Whiteside says while new voice system investments are VoIP, the benefits are contained because the university does not have a large number of dispersed and remote sites – VoIP will therefore continue to be implemented “very incrementally”. Wireless technologies will be significantly expanded in 2007 and identity management technologies enhanced to allow visiting academics to wirelessly access the network.
The university will implement a new data centre in 2007, and investigate a combined disaster recovery centre with other universities including the University of Waikato.
2 New Zealand Defence Force

2006 Ranking: 3

Senior IS executive: Derek Locke, chief information officer
Reports to: Chief of New Zealand Defence Force
Size of IS shop: 300

PCs: 14000_
Mobile PCs: 3500
Terminals: 0
Hand-held devices: 500
Total screens: 18,000

Industry: Government and defence
PC environment: Windows XP, Compaq, Dell, IBM,Toshiba
Server environment: Solaris, Other Unix; Windows 95/98, 2000, NT; Compaq; HP9000; OEM Intel-based
DBMS: Oracle, SQL
Address: Defence House 15-21 Stout Street, Wellington
Website: www.nzdf.mil.nz
Key IS projects this year: ERP system upgrade; infrastructure and telecommunications upgrade; server replacement.


The New Zealand Defence Force (NZDF), which integrates and manages three services – army, navy and air force – faces some “big issues” in 2007. But these are good challenges that will make the NZDF more professional and agile, says CIO Derek Locke. They include rolling out a new strategic plan, and development of robust governance structures, with a new senior management team led by the Chief of Defence Force, Lieutenant General Jerry Mateparae.
The combined organisation has a vision of being “the best in everything we do” with a mission to secure New Zealand against external threat, protect sovereign interests and take action to meet likely contingencies in areas of strategic interest to New Zealand.
To complete these strategic changes, NZDF has received additional funding of $4.6 billion over 10 years (beginning from the 2005/06 financial year) to support the Defence Sustainability Initiative (DSI). Locke says there is subsequently a lot of focus around new recruitment to support DSI and to counter a significant drop in personnel numbers.
Like many public organisations, Locke says NZDF is committed to a “huge” knowledge management project called Information Management and Exploitation which addresses storage issues around unstructured data. NZDF is also investing heavily in disaster recovery and business continuity projects, including pandemic planning, and is considering the effects of global warming on IT-supported systems.
Key NZDF IT systems are ERP systems supported by SAP software, email and other messaging systems, and operational systems that support war fighting. These systems must be capable of being deploying rapidly for overseas use, and there is pressure on IT systems and staff as a result of multiple military deployments, including ensuring NZDF has enough people, equipment and bandwidth. “Bandwidth at home is barely sustaining us and we are constrained by the lack of a high speed bandwidth network servicing the country. The demands of email, data and voice traffic are all exceeding our bandwidth capability, and yet we are still ensuring we meet our operational commitments. NZDF would be one of the biggest users of telecommunications in New Zealand,” says Locke.
He says ‘minimum broadband’ services should start around 100Mbps, particularly for large organisations with SAP-type applications that require “fat pipes” to be deployed to full potential. NZDF is investigating the use of dedicated satellite capability, and is in initial discussions with potential providers for a large satellite connection to be used mainly for data and in remote areas. Mobile technologies are important, says Locke, and NZDF is currently rolling out Blackberry devices to staff. “We have people travelling overseas for two weeks at a time and you cannot use anything other than GSM technology in the main for that.”
ICT projects for 2007 include investment in business intelligence tools and server virtualisation software from EMC – NZDF aims to reduce server numbers from 750 to around 200 within two to three years.
Defence is also extending its investment in Nortel, Cisco and Juniper VoIP technologies, and is looking at trialling 802.11-based wireless technologies. “There’s a lot of misconception about wireless technologies and data security,” says Locke. “We use wireless in our enterprise systems and there are more secure wireless solutions available now – there’s no reason that wireless can’t be used.”
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

2006 Ranking: 5

Senior IS executive: Mark Ratcliffe, COO, technology and enterprises
Reports to: CEO
Size of IS shop: 2250

PCs: 7263
Mobile PCs: 3670
Terminals: 0
Hand-held devices: 600
Total screens: 11,533

Industry: Information - telecommunications
PC environment: Windows XP, HP, IBM
Server environment: AIX, HP Unix, Irix, MVS, Solaris, HP Others, iSeries, pSeries, Silicon Graphics, Sun
DBMS: DB2, Oracle, SQL, Sybase
Address: Level 2, Telecom Networks House, 68-86 Jervois Quay, Wellington
Website: www.telecom.co.nz
Key IS projects this year: Operational separation; number portability; local loop unbundling; Next Generation Telecom – IP network rollout; Yahoo! Xtra joint venture; voice services platform replacement.


Telecom, New Zealand’s largest listed company, is undergoing significant change and strategy revision in order to drive the business forward in the new regulatory environment.
New Government telecommunications legislation announced in 2006 included proposals for operational separation of Telecom’s business into wholesale, retail and network units. It provides for unbundling of the last mile ‘local loop’ access and the sale of standalone broadband without a phone connection, known as ‘Naked DSL’.
Mark Ratcliffe, chief operating officer technology and enterprises, says Telecom’s focus is on engaging positively with Government and the wider industry in order to develop the operations, products and wholesale services that meet the requirements of the Government’s regulatory review. “Our key business objectives are to implement a sustainable, future-proof separation model that meets the requirements of the Telecommunications Act. We have proposed a structurally separated access network company that would own and operate the network assets. This would allow for a simpler separation model and faster delivery of local loop unbundling and Naked DSL. It would also allow for deregulation in other areas, enabling Telecom Retail to innovate and compete vigorously for customers, and further broadband network investment. We are consulting with Government and the wider industry on this now.”
Business challenges include developing and implementing an effective separation regime in collaboration with Government and industry, and adapting to this new operating environment. Telecom is also prioritising work streams to ensure it delivers local loop unbundling and Naked DSL as required under the new legislation. “The telecommunications industry is at a critical juncture. Telecom is obviously at the heart of the regulatory reforms being implemented. However, the changes being introduced impact the entire industry: It is critical the right incentives for investment are retained in order to further enhance telecommunications services to New Zealanders,” says Ratcliffe.
Echoing the trends offshore and locally, Ratcliffe says Telecom is also encountering supply constraints in its traditional sourcing approaches for skilled staff. “The shortage of skilled IT people we’re experiencing is similar to the dot com boom and Y2K days of seven or so years ago. This has been heightened by the volume of work required to implement critical projects including operational separation, local loop unbundling and Naked DSL.”
This year, Telecom will invest in a wide range of internal IT initiatives including ERP, business intelligence and CRM systems, server virtualisation, VoIP and mobilisation technologies, disaster recovery and e-business projects. Network de-commissioning and extension of customer product and services offerings are also planned.
Telecom is committed to continued investment in its broadband and mobile networks, after accounting for the new regulatory environment. Telecom has begun network expansion with the rollout of ADSL2+ infrastructure that will lay the foundations for Telecom to offer broadband connections with average speeds of eight to 12MBps for residential customers in the five principal metropolitan areas. Further broadband initiatives are being evaluated as part of the current separation and operational review. Telecom is also actively evaluating the potential of emerging mobile technologies for delivery of mobile voice and data.
6 Ministry of Social Development
7 Fletcher Building

2006 Ranking: 8

Senior IS executive: Paul Knight, chief information officer
Reports to: Chief financial officer
Size of IS shop: 250

PCs: 4877
Mobile PCs: 1855
Terminals: 1641
Hand-held devices: 287
Total screens: 8660
Industry: Manufacturing
PC environment: Windows XP, Citrix, Dell
Server environment: OS4000; Other Unix; Windows 2003, 2000; Linux; Dell; IBM; HP
DBMS: SQL, Oracle, Progress
Address: 810 Great South Road, Penrose, Auckland
Website: www.fletcherbuilding.co.nz
Key IS projects this year: ERP system upgrade; IP telephony; payroll system upgrade.


Fletcher Building is a New Zealand-based building materials manufacturer and distributor comprising five major segments – infrastructure, building products, steel, distribution and laminates and panels.
Fletcher Building has a strong and growing base in Australia, Asia and the South Pacific. It employs more than 15,000 people in New Zealand, Australia, the Pacific Islands and North and South America. Recent growth has been built on a three-point strategy: Improving the reliability of earnings, maintaining and improving internal capabilities and taking up external growth options where they meet acquisition criteria. Business objectives going forward include enhancement and adaptation of the business mix through investment and operational changes.
“We will continue to invest in both internal and external opportunities, although there may be changes in emphasis from time to time. For example, we are now looking more seriously at potential acquisitions outside Australia and New Zealand,” said CEO Jonathan Ling in a recent address to shareholders. Fletcher Building is also planning continued expansion in Australia and New Zealand.
CIO Paul Knight says the business and technology strategies of Fletcher Building are well-aligned and over the coming 12 months, Fletcher Building will embark on IT projects including ERP, payroll systems, investment in VoIP technologies, wireless infrastructure and hardware upgrades.
8 Carter Holt Harvey
9 ANZ National Bank
10 Massey University
11 Progressive Enterprises

2006 Ranking: 13

Senior IS executive: David Morrison, manager IT
Reports to: Managing director
Size of IS shop: 64

PCs: 1900
Mobile PCs: 100
Terminals: 2000
Hand-held devices: 400
Total screens: 4400

Industry: Wholesale and retail trade
PC environment: Windows 95, 98, 2000, XP, CE; Compaq/HP
Server environment: OS4000; Unix SVR4; Windows NT, 2000, XP; Compaq; iSeries; NCR
DBMS: DB2, Oracle, SQL, Teradata
Address: 80 Favona Road, Mangere, Auckland
Website: www.progressive.co.nz
Key IS projects this year: Systems integration.


A focus on sales, customer services and integration of IT systems are key priorities for Progressive Enterprises in 2007.
Acquired by Woolworths Australia in 2006, Progressive Enterprises continues to seek to leverage synergies in New Zealand with the new parent company.
David Morrison, IT manager for Progressive, says significant improvements are to be expected in the supply chain as a result of implementing Woolworths’ supply chain systems. From these changes IT will help their primary customer – the supermarkets – to deliver competitive advantage to Progressive Enterprises.
The support of senior management for IT, along with the necessity of an upgrade following the acquisition, is reflected in the IT project line-up for Progressive over the coming 12 months.
Progressive Enterprises is a light outsourcer, outsourcing IT education, some applications development and HR payroll.
12 Air New Zealand

2006 ranking: 12

Senior IS executive: Julia Raue, CIO
Reports to: Rob McDonald, CFO
Size of IS shop: 187

Industry: Transport and warehousing
PCs: 5976
Mobile PCs: 320
Terminals: 0
Hand-held devices: 120
Total screens: 6416

PC environment: Windows XP, Dell, IBM
Server environment: Windows 2003, Solaris, Linux, Sun, IBM, HP
DBMS: Oracle, SQL
Address: Level 19 Quay Tower, 29 Customs Street West, Auckland
Website: www.airnewzealand.co.nz
Key IS projects this year: Not disclosed.

In the face of increasing competition, concerns over the environmental impact of air travel, and variable travel and tourism trends, the IT services supporting Air New Zealand must by necessity remain dynamic and flexible.
The ICT team is composed of 187 staff dedicated to delivering continual operational performance improvements to the airline, particularly in the customer facing areas of online and airport self service experience, says immediate past CIO Alastair Grigg.
New CIO Julia Raue took over in April from Grigg. Grigg, who was interviewed for this year’s MIS100, says Air New Zealand has had huge growth in online bookings and is now re-setting targets around that and looking to provide even more capability and functionality for customers online. “There is also a need for improvement in the airport experience and the speed and ease at which people can move through [Air New Zealand systems at] airports,” he says.
Towards this, Air New Zealand is investing in improvements for better redundancy of systems, crucially important in an age where airports are resourced and organised on the basis of automated systems.
Other goals include revenue growth, and fleet and airline capacity growth, and the development of IT systems that better support travel agents, global distribution retailers and online travel agencies.
“Our e-channel strategy is diverse and not without complexity; we need to ensure all our flights and prices are well represented on any online travel sites,” says Grigg.
The Air New Zealand website, a critical sales and customer service channel for the airline, is constantly monitored and improved to enable customers to find information easily and conveniently, says Grigg. He says searches that return schedule results showing flights three days before and after the date specified, and an ability to book and pay ‘Air Dollars’ airfares online are appreciated by customers. But these functionalities require innovative and complex development of back-end systems.
Greater broadband adoption in New Zealand and abroad will help deliver Air New Zealand a larger target market of online users who respond well to a rich online user interface, including greater multimedia content, says Grigg. Air New Zealand is also developing software to automate re-bookings and cancellations and to help customers make re-booking choices online.
Air New Zealand has trialed SMS alerts for customer notification and communication and Grigg says while early trials were not widely adopted, the airline is looking at revising and re-launching the service because of its potential to instantly notify customers of important changes to flight and travel information if they cannot be reached by phone.
Key IT projects for Air New Zealand for the next 12 months include server virtualisation which Grigg says delivers a good return on investment despite the associated challenge of de-commissioning server environments no longer required. Cisco-based VoIP technologies will also be extended throughout Air New Zealand’s corporate head office and to other locations, as will Air New Zealand owned wireless network services in airline facilities including the KoruCare lounges in airports.
Air New Zealand outsources IT functions including host maintenance, IT education, elements of application development and PC maintenance to Dell or IBM. Backup and data centre services are delivered by IBM, network management and help desk services by Gen-i.
13 Inland Revenue Department

2006 ranking: 11

Senior IS executive: Ross Hughson, chief information officer
Reports to: Colin McDonald, deputy commissioner business development and systems
Size of IS shop: 320


PCs: 7623
Mobile PCs: 1066
Terminals: 50
Hand-held devices: 200
Total screens: 8939


Industry: Government and defence
PC environment: Linux, Windows 2000, Acer, Dell, HP, IBM, Sun
Server environment: Linux; MCP; Novell; Solaris; Windows 2000, Server 2003; Dell; HP Others; Unisys
DBMS: Access, DMS, Oracle, Progress
Address: 12-22 Hawkestone Street, Thorndon, Wellington
Website: www.ird.govt.nz
Key IS projects this year: KiwiSaver supporting systems; internal and external correspondence imaging; VoIP network and Genesys call centre system; systems to support student loans changes for amnesty and zero interest.


Inland Revenue Department has a busy year ahead thanks to Government commitments like the KiwiSaver and the student loan amnesty period and zero-interest scheme — examples of legislative changes that drive demand for new systems and extra flexibility and competency within the IRD IT team.
CIO Ross Hughson says in addition to these, IRD has a full ICT projects schedule for including upgrading and modernising core legacy applications like FIRST. Developed in the late ‘80s, FIRST is fast approaching 20 years and modernising this legacy application along with others will help deliver better business agility in a demanding legislative change environment.
Hughson says another challenge is continually working with the business to leverage existing information so that IR can be better informed and deliver on its outcomes. “How do we leverage off the information we hold in our data warehouse more successfully than we do at present? There is very good information in there that we could use to better assist customers with compliance and to help staff identify cases of non-compliance.”
IRD also has a lot to gain from the e-channel and developed a new e-business strategy in 2006 to help deliver on targets including the online processing of 80 per cent of IRD transactions within five-years (the present rate is 20 per cent.) Hughson says IRD is comfortable with the ‘e-enablement’ services it offers, but hasn’t marketed these to customers and education and promotion is required to build customer confidence. “Lots of countries are looking at the electronic benefits of online tax payments and access to information; we plan to drive that uptake over the next few years. The more we can expose services online, the more streamlined the whole process can be.”
He says this approach is also in line with Government e-strategies, and IR is keen to collaborate with the e-channel goals of other government departments. IRD is also redeveloping its intranet to improve internal efficiency and access to information, and to automate staff internal processes.
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
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