Case study: Nationwide Building Society

Peter Stafford’s promotion from head of IT infrastructure at Nationwide Building Society to IT director means he now spends most of his time working with the business to ensure the successful outcome of a £350m IT-led business transformation programme.

“Eighty per cent of my time is spent working with the business and senior executives creating the culture inside IT and the context outside for successful IT transformation over the next three years. Whereas before, I spent 80 per cent of my time managing my team and department,” says Stafford.

There are four key investment areas: the implementation of a service-oriented architecture (SOA) based on SAP software for the company’s core banking products; a mortgage sales origination platform to support the heavily regulated sales process; back-office automation; and a new datacentre.

“The aim is to create a flexible platform to increase speed to market, improve efficiency, drive out costs and make better use of information for more effective decision-making. With 70 per cent technology replacement, I must ensure the business gets what it wants out of this investment, while externally customers have a service they trust that responds quickly to their needs and is reliable and secure,” says Stafford.

With an overhaul on this scale creating the company’s IT platform for the next 15 to 20 years, Stafford has to delegate effectively and trust his team, which he restructured in April.

“My job is to ensure these four projects are brought into a coherent whole. There is a danger if I try to do too much, so I delegate to a team, which now has people experts in service management who are proactive with the business so we provide a service they actually require. I have also recruited people with experience in vendor management, IT governance and IT security,” says Stafford.

With a dynamic IT team supporting him, Stafford says he can focus on managing the delivery process, and aligning the IT plan with business strategy and what it is trying to achieve.

“I have to find out what IT needs to do to support the business. A big part of my job is getting the demand-supply model correct, which involves discussions about money, project delivery, service and risk,” says Stafford.

He has also clarified vendor relationships and has struck deals with BT for network delivery and Computacenter for desktops, so his team can concentrate on servicing the business in a tough economic climate.

“In a recession, businesses look to technology to help them become more efficient. My role is to ensure the IT function is the supplier of choice to this business and helps the company become fitter, leaner and faster by consistently delivering a high-quality, secure and robust service,” says Stafford.

Read part two of Computing's definitive guide to IT leadership here and how Holiday Extras' IT department interacts with the business here

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