CIOs consider the year ahead

2006 will be an important year for chief information officers (CIOs), as IT becomes increasingly central to strategy and planning in the private and public sector.

Computing asked a selection of leading CIOs and industry figures for their view of the challenges, priorities, hopes and fears for this year

John HigginsDirector general
Intellect 2006 needs to be the year where the true value of the IT industry is recognised and appreciated by customers. IT permeates all aspects of our lives and delivers benefits that many take for granted. To this end, public and private sector customers need to engage effectively with the industry on a range of issues, including early engagement on key projects, an improved understanding of the need to reward suppliers for success, and development of policies that encourage, not stifle, innovation and best practice.

Areas such as shared services, ID cards and Television Without Frontiers have the potential to shape and define the industry for many years to come. It is imperative that suppliers and customers alike understand the changing environment in which business is conducted and respond accordingly, otherwise in the face of increasing
international competition the UK will fall behind.

John SuffolkDirector general
Criminal Justice IT
Increased standards of professionalism in government IT, coupled with greater
efficiency and a move to a shared-services culture, will be the key developments this year.

For Criminal Justice IT, 2006 will see the bulk of the final rollouts completed, including the system-wide infrastructure upgrade and implementation of case management systems in criminal justice organisations.

Paul Coby
Chief information officer
British Airways
Technology is at the heart of BA. We see it as a critical
differentiator with our competitors. Automation drives cost out and simplification in. We are transforming our business into the first IT-enabled network airline.
BA.com gives visibility of the best fare and packages flights with a car, hotel reservations and tour excursions. What you see today on BA.com will become integral to our customer service in Terminal 5. You will be able to check in online, choose your seat, upgrade cabin, pay for excess baggage and check you are ready to fly, all before you even reach the airport.

Delivering all this requires an IT department that understands both the airline business and technology. Understanding technology is important, but without business understanding and process change IT is useless.

Gordon Hextall
Chief operating officer
NHS Connecting for Health
2006 will be a key year in the life of NHS Connecting for Health. With an increased pace of rollout and greater maturity of applications, there is scope for NHS managers and clinicians to see real opportunities for process change for the
benefit of patients.

NHS structural changes will also give us the chance to strengthen management focus on the delivery of IT-enabled change. And we will take the opportunity to look at innovative technologies to meet future NHS needs that might arise from the forthcoming White Paper.

JP RangaswamiChief information officer
Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein
2006 will be the year of delivery. 2005 was about always-on systems, but it didn’t happen. 2004 was about web services, but it didn’t happen. 2006 will
be characterised by growing consumerisation: the iPod effect.

Open source will force vendor-dominated markets to become consumer-driven. With telephony becoming software, identity and presence will
grow in importance. A customer-driven architecture will emerge, focused on
publishing, search, fulfilment and conversation. And the promises of yesterday will slowly come true. We will learn more about wikis and blogs, tags, RSS and the Semantic Web, and more about mobility and identity and presence. And things will begin to work. Slowly.

Matt Bross
Chief technology officer
BT Group
In a world of ever-increasing choice and complexity, customers will demand more efficient and personalised services. Ensuring that investment in new technology directly improves the quality of people’s personal and professional lives will be critical for advancing innovation.

For businesses, extending the reach of an IP platform will
provide a global innovation platform, enabling them to create new services, reduce costs, and grow and revitalise their business faster and with more confidence.

Robin Paine
Chief technology officer
London Stock Exchange I can identify challenges in the areas of governance, service predictability, innovation and investment. One of the key challenges is to maintain the
balance between a centralised approach to technology portfolio management against the benefits of a more federated approach. A corporate discipline that ensures consistency of IT architectures, standards and processes will typically deliver higher standards and predictable levels of service quality.

Another challenge for 2006 is to take on the role of champion of innovation and change; identifying evolving technologies such as virtualisation, software agility, grid and 64-bit computing to diversify and grow corporate revenue streams and to improve return on investment.

John Oughton
Chief executive
Office of Government Commerce
My mission for 2006 is to explode the myth that the Government’s Efficiency Programme is about cuts to meet the £21.5bn target. It’s about modernising service delivery to the citizen and internal processes, so more resources can be directed to the front line. Success for me in 2006 will be if, across the whole of the wider public sector, we can make serious progress on our shared services agenda. This could
transform how public bodies are run and improve internal efficiency hugely.