The most influential people in UK IT

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27 November-3 December 2012 | ComputerWeekly.com 

The most influential 

people in UK IT 

The UKtech50 

vieW our list of the cios, 

industry executives, public 

servants and business leaders 

driving technology in the uK 

and the winner 

leading the firm designing the 

smartphone chips at the forefront 

of the mobile revolution, our most 

influential person in british 

technology is arm ceo Warren east 

computerweekly.com 27 November-3 December 2012 1

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IT suppliers 

HP writes down Autonomy by $8.8bn 

HP claims to have been wilfully misled by 

former members of Autonomy’s management 

team in the lead-up to its acquisition, 

and has now written $8.8bn off of the 

company’s value. The announcement of the 

write-down came in the firm’s fourth quarter 

results for fiscal year 2012. HP said “a 

series of questionable accounting and business 

practices at Autonomy” were reported 

by a senior member of Autonomy’s leadership 

team only after HP bought the company 

for $11.7bn in August 2011. 

Broadband communications 

Virgin Media signs London Underground 

Wi-Fi deal with EE and Vodafone 

Virgin Media has signed a deal with EE 

and Vodafone to allow their customers to 

use Virgin’s Wi-Fi network on the London 

Underground. The company offered free 

Wi-Fi on the London Underground in summer 

2012 for anyone travelling through 

the 72 Wi-Fi enabled stations. 

PC hardware 

World’s oldest digital computer lives on 

The Harwell Dekatron, a pioneering 

computer built between 1949 and 1951, 

has been fired up after 20 years in storage 

and a three-year restoration project. 

The world’s oldest original working 

digital computer will go on display at 

The National Museum of Computing at 

Bletchley Park in Buckinghamshire. 

EmiratEs takEs WindoWs 8 

HP ElitEPad 900 to tHE sky 

emirates has started rolling out in-flight Windows 8 

tablets that enable cabin crew to access core customer 

relationship management and human resources information 

to improve customer service. it hopes the move to 

Windows 8 will allow cabin crew to access information 

that will help make service delivery more efficient. 

“We have created an application on Windows 8 that 

delivers a unique, personalised experience, with the 

necessary information for our cabin crew to better serve 

the needs of customers,” said Kevin griffiths, senior 

vice-president, cabin crew, at emirates. 

the week in it 

IT research & development 

BBC researches digital future with UCL 

The BBC is partnering with University 

College London (UCL) in a four-year 

research and development programme to 

investigate the future of digital content. 

Over the next four years, the partnership 

between the BBC and UCL will focus on 

a programme of research that seeks to 

advance communications technologies, 

internet research, content production, 

user experience design 

and access services, the 

BBC said. 

access the latest 

it news via rss feed 

Mobile software 

Nationwide launches mobile banking 

The latest milestone to be reached in 

Nationwide’s £1bn five-year IT transformation 

is the launch of its mobile banking 

service as the project moves towards 

the final straight. The building society 

launched its mobile banking service this 

month, which is built on the internet bank 

introduced in October 2011. 

Broadband communications 

Local authorities face £1bn broadband bill 

Local authorities could pay double that 

of central government to fund broadband 

roll-out across the UK after the European 

Commission gave the green light to the 

Broadband Delivery UK scheme, which 

will see a £530m pot of central government 

money split between counties for the 

installation of broadband infrastructure. 


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Government IT 

Government wants IT suppliers 

to reveal UK tax payments 

Government officials are considering the 

viability of ordering suppliers bidding for 

Whitehall contracts to disclose the amount 

of tax they pay in the UK relative to their 

UK revenue. The move follows revelations 

that multinational companies are paying 

too little in UK taxes relative to their 

size. The Public Accounts Committee has 

quizzed executives from Google, Amazon 

and Starbucks over taxes. 

IT jobs & recruitment 

Shortage of software engineers 

pushes up salaries by 10% 

Pay rates for software engineers are defying 

the downturn amid concerns that the 

UK faces a growing shortage of skilled 

programming professionals. Over a quarter 

of in-house software engineers have 

seen pay rises of 10% or more during 

the past 12 months as companies vie to 

attract the best talent. 

Government IT 

NHS suppliers must be forced to list 

prices online to slash £500m overspend 

The government must force NHS suppliers 

to list their prices on a comparison 

website to drive out £500m of overspend 

caused by price variation, according to 

research from Ernst & Young. The study 

found that discrepancies in the price of 

the same medical supplies could be 

costing the NHS up to £500m. 

the week in it 

IT services 

Gartner predicts PaaS revenue 

will reach $2.9bn by 2016 

Global revenue for platform as a service 

(PaaS) will grow consistently for five 

years to reach $2.9bn by 2016, up from 

$900m in 2011, according to research firm 

Gartner. But as the PaaS delivery model 

grows, it will intensify the competition 

between large cloud service providers 

and enterprise software suppliers which 

look to capture the growing market, 

Gartner predicted. 

Business applications 

LSE trading software sales rise 19% 

The growth of the London Stock 

Exchange’s (LSE) MillenniumIT trading 

software has outstripped the business 

as a whole in the past six months, with 

a 19% increase in sales. The exchange 

acquired Sri Lanka-based software maker 

MillenniumIT for £18m in September 

2009, when it needed to replace its ailing 

.Net-based trading platform Tradelect. 

IT architecture 

Dublin Airport Authority uses 

virtualisation to overhaul IT 

Dublin Airport Authority launched a major IT 

infrastructure overhaul earlier this year, using 

HP’s converged infrastructure and VMware 

vSphere platform. The virtualisation project 

has delivered cost savings, standardised 

IT, highly available infra- 

structure and a centrally 

managed environment. n 

HoW firms Plan to sPEnd it sErvicEs budgEts in 2013 

15.3% 

12.4% 

5.1% 11.7% 

39.4% 

16.1% 

access the latest 

it news via rss feed 

Decrease by more than 10% 

Decrease by 5-10% 

Stay the same 

Increase by 5-10% 

Increase by more than 10% 

We have no plans to 

use outside services 

Source: Computer Weekly/TechTarget 


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Click here 

to see last 

year’s 

UKtech50 

Click here 

to read 

profiles of last 

year’s top 20 

uktech50 

The 50 most influential people in IT 

Computer Weekly’s search for the most influential individuals in UK IT is over 

Computer Weekly has announced the 

third UKtech50, our annual definitive 

list of the real movers and shakers in 

UK IT – the CIOs, industry executives, public 

servants and business leaders driving the 

role of technology in the UK economy. 

The aim was to once more identify the 

50 most influential leaders in UK IT. An 

expert judging panel, representing every 

aspect of the IT profession, helped decide 

the results, along with a reader vote to 

determine who holds the most influence 

over the future of the UK IT sector in 2013 

– and hence the future of IT professionals 

across the country. 

1Warren East 

Chief executive, ARM 

ARM is at the heart of the 

digital revolution, arguably the 

UK’s leading home-grown 

technology company. At the top 

of its field globally, ARM chip 

designs are used in many Apple 

products and most mobile devices – even 

Microsoft launched its first tablet based on 

ARM chips. East is a role model for UK 

technology firms and budding entrepreneurs, 

and one of the major global representatives 

for the UK IT industry. According to ARM, its 

chips power around 95% of the world’s 

smartphones, with over 10 billion products 

shipped with ARM chips. The company’s 

next goal is to produce energy-efficient chip 

designs for servers to extend its reach into 

Intel’s datacentre heartland. Read an interview 

with the winner on page 12. 

2Iain Lobban 

Director, GCHQ 

Iain Lobban is the director of 

intelligence gathering facility 

Government Communications 

Headquarters (GCHQ), one of 

the three UK intelligence 

agencies working with MI5 

and MI6 to protect the UK’s national 

security interests. The agency’s cyber 

crime strategy has seen GCHQ taking a 

more proactive and collaborative role in 

helping companies and public sector 

bodies tackle the growing cyber threats, 

and Lobban has increasingly been the 

public face of this initiative. 

3Mike Bracken 

Executive director, Government 

Digital Service 

Mike Bracken is responsible for 

improving the government’s 

digital delivery of public services 

in a cross-Whitehall role 

that covers all the government’s 

online presence. His 

team recently launched Gov.uk, the new 

single government website, and introduced 

a digital strategy that will see major transactional 

services brought online in 2013. 

Bracken is the figurehead for a cultural 

change in how public services are delivered 

in a digital world. 

4 JP 

Rangaswami 

Chief scientist, Salesforce.com 

Former BT chief scientist 

JP Rangaswami is one of the 

UK’s best-known technologists, 

an evangelist and innovator 

who was among the 

first to see the potential of 

social media in the enterprise. In his 

current job, he promotes the development 

of social business worldwide, in a farreaching 

role that involves speaking 

at major conferences and advising 

companies on the implications of 

social networks. 


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Click here 

to read an 

interview with 

last year’s 

UKtech50 

winner 

Mike Lynch 

5Jane Moran 

Global CIO, Thomson Reuters 

As global CIO for Thomson 

Reuters, Jane Moran brings 

over 25 years of financial 

services and IT expertise to the 

organisation. She was voted 

the most influential woman in 

UK IT in a Computer Weekly poll in 2012. 

She is an active promoter of women in IT 

and diversity in the workplace on both 

sides of the Atlantic, with roles in Women 

in Technology International, the Anita Borg 

Institute and the National Center for 

Women in Technology. 

6Mike Lynch 

Entrepreneur, angel investor, 

Autonomy founder 

Mike Lynch won the 2011 

UKtech50 award as the most 

influential person in UK IT 

following the £7bn sale of the 

company he founded – 

Autonomy – to HP, which made 

him the most senior UK IT leader in the 

world’s biggest IT company. To the surprise 

of many, he was sacked from HP in May, 

with sources suggesting his style was 

incompatible with HP’s management culture. 

Nonetheless, he remains hugely influential 

in the UK IT scene, and is currently 

bringing together investors to create a fund 

to support UK tech start-ups. 

7Liam Maxwell 

Deputy government CIO 

Despite the “deputy” in his job 

title, Maxwell is the driving 

force behind a major overhaul 

of government IT. He believes 

that Whitehall spends far too 

much on IT, and is championing 

policies to introduce open standards 

and open source, to use more small IT 

suppliers, and to reduce the influence of 

the oligopoly of major systems integrators 

that dominate government IT projects. In 

the process, he is changing the relationship 

between government and the IT 

industry, and if successful will bring huge 

changes in how IT is delivered across the 

public sector. 

8Sir Jonathan Ive 

Senior vice-president of 

industrial design, Apple 

As senior vice-president of 

industrial design at Apple, Ive is 

more responsible than most for 

the consumer technology 

revolution. Since introducing 

the iMac in 1998, Ive led a 

design team widely regarded as one of the 

best in the world to create ground-breaking 

Apple products including the iPod, iPhone 

and iPad. He was knighted in 2012, and after 

the recent departure of other senior Apple 

executives has taken on wider responsibilities, 

including the software user interface 

for Apple’s products. The products designed 

by Ive have prompted huge changes in 

corporate and consumer behaviour that are 

likely to be felt for years to come. 

9Ralph Rivera 

Director of Future Media, BBC 

Ralph Rivera is responsible for 

delivery of all the BBC’s digital 

media products on the web, 

mobile devices and internetconnected 

TV platforms. The 

corporation’s CTO, John 

Linwood, reports to Rivera. His remit also 

includes overseeing the development of 

the BBC’s digital products – such as the 

iPlayer – and enabling ways in which 

these products can be experienced on 

desktops, mobiles, tablets and connected 

TVs. Rivera is also responsible for shaping 

and leading the BBC’s R&D activities and 

ensuring that the broadcaster is up to 

speed with developments in technologies 

such as 3D and HD. 

10 

uktech50 

Phil Smith 

Cisco UK CEO; chairman of 

Technology Strategy Board 

Phil Smith started 2012 as the 

new chairman of the 

Technology Strategy Board, the 

government-backed innovation 

agency charged with dispersing 

millions of pounds of public 

sector funds to boost science and technology. 

As Cisco’s UK chief, he also had a big 

role to play in 2012, with the networking 


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firm’s $500m investment supporting 

London’s Tech City and other tech start-ups. 

Cisco was a key London 2012 supplier, and 

as part of its contribution to the Olympics 

legacy the firm set up 30 Cisco Network 

Academies in East London schools. He was 

voted leader of the year at the latest 

National Business Awards. 

11 Andy Nelson 

CIO, HM Government; 

CIO, Ministry of Justice 

Andy Nelson took over as 

government CIO following the 

retirement of his predecessor 

Joe Harley in April. He fulfils the 

role on a part-time basis, 

combined with his position as 

CIO at the Ministry of Justice. He is also 

senior responsible owner for ICT capability 

and the G-Cloud as part of the government 

IT strategy, and is one of the main promoters 

of cloud computing in Whitehall. 

12 Phil Pavitt 

CIO, HM Revenue & Customs 

With one billion computer 

transactions processed per year 

touching virtually every person 

in the UK in one of the biggest 

technology operations in Europe, 

Pavitt has one of the most 

challenging tasks in public sector IT. When 

he took the role at HMRC, Pavitt joined an 

organisation with a poor reputation for IT 

– caused by failures such as tax credits, a 

controversial deal with EDS, and the scandal 

caused by the loss of CDs containing the 

child benefit records and other personal data 

of 25 million people. Pavitt went on to deliver 

a programme of considerable IT change 

across HMRC, cutting spending by more 

than £160m a year. 

13 Gerry Pennell 

Former CIO, London 2012 Olympics 

For a few weeks in 2012, Gerry 

Pennell was arguably the most 

important IT executive in the 

UK. Building, integrating and 

managing the technology supporting 

the London Olympic 

Games was one of the most complex and 

uktech50 

high-profile assignments in IT, and Pennell 

has been widely lauded for the success of the 

IT programme. He left Games organiser 

Locog in November 2012 and is looking for a 

new challenge – with his Olympic success, he 

will be in demand and is expected to turn up 

in a high-profile IT leadership role in 2013. 

14 

Joanna Shields 

CEO, Tech City; Former 

managing director, Facebook Europe 

Joanna Shields was recently 

announced as the new chief 

executive of Tech City 

Investment Organisation, the 

Number 10-backed body promoting 

tech start-ups in 

London, and also acting as the government’s 

business ambassador for the digital industries. 

She starts the role in January, after a 

successful stint at Facebook, where she was 

responsible for building the company’s 

revenue and for developing strategic partnerships 

across Europe. 

15 

Simon Moorhead 

CIO, Bank of England 

As Bank of England (BoE) CIO, 

Moorhead oversees the technology 

implementations which 

are made as a direct response 

to policy decisions. The BoE is 

also responsible for banks 

settling with one another, and its IT systems 

are crucial to transactions worth £570bn 

every day. He is growing the IT team at BoE 

to fill roles created as the bank takes on its 

new responsibility for financial services 

watchdog the Prudential Regulatory 

Authority. 

Tim Kelsey 

16 National director, patients and 

information, NHS Commissioning Board 

Tim Kelsey is the senior IT 

leader in the NHS, responsible 

for overseeing the Power of 

Information strategy that 

succeeded the widely criticised 

National Programme for IT. The 

10-year strategy aims to transform the way 

patients access and use information about 

their health. As such, he is responsible for 


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delivering on commitments to make patient 

records available online by 2015, and will be 

central to overhauling the role of IT across 

the health service. 

17 Francis Maude 

Cabinet Office minister 

As minister for the Cabinet 

Office, Maude has significant 

influence over the direction of 

the central government IT 

juggernaut. When cuts are 

made, they are announced 

through him, with departmental CIOs 

watching to see where his gaze will fall next. 

He has already delivered billions of pounds 

worth of cuts in government IT, and more 

are expected. He has focused on cutting 

consultancy fees, renegotiating contracts 

with big IT suppliers and reviewing hundreds 

of IT projects to see if they are worthy 

of continued funding. His political support is 

vital to plans for overhauling government IT. 

18 Matt Brittin 

CEO, Google UK 

Matt Brittin leads an operation 

that is Google’s second 

largest after the US and the 

most advanced in terms of 

e-commerce and online advertising 

spend. Brittin has 

defined himself in interviews as “fiercely 

supportive of the UK media landscape” 

and has positioned Google as a key player 

in a new environment where traditional 

publishers are still working out how to 

survive in the digital age. Under Brittin’s 

watch, Google is actively supporting 

tHE toP 5 currEnt it lEadErs 

in tHE uktEcH50 

n Jane moran, global cio, thomson reuters (5th overall) 

n liam maxwell, deputy government cio (7th) 

n andy nelson, cio, hm government; cio, ministry of 

Justice (11th) 

n phil pavitt, cio, hm revenue & customs (12th) 

n simon moorhead, cio, bank of england (15th) 

Twenty-three of the UKtech50 (46%) are CIOs, CTOs or other 

IT leaders 

uktech50 

UK start-ups through initiatives such as 

Tech City in East London. 

19 Catherine Doran 

CIO, Royal Mail Group 

As the third Royal Mail CIO in 

less than 18 months, Catherine 

Doran inherited a controversial 

IT transformation programme, 

as well as splitting off the Post 

Office as part of the reorganisation 

of the UK postal service. She joined 

Royal Mail in September 2011, responsible 

for devising and delivering the IT strategy 

to transform the technology estate to 

underpin the business transformation 

agenda that will lead to the privatisation 

of Royal Mail. 

20 

Martha Lane Fox 

UK government digital champion; 

Chair, Go On UK and RaceOnline 

Martha Lane Fox is the UK’s 

digital champion and founder of 

Go On UK and RaceOnline, 

which aim to get millions of 

people with no internet access 

onto the web. She is also chair 

of the Government Digital Service’s advisory 

board and sits on the Cabinet Office 

efficiency and reform board. She is perhaps 

still best known as a co-founder of 

Lastminute.com in 1998. 

21Dana Deasy 

Group CIO, BP 

Appointed as BP’s first global CIO in 2007, 

Dana Deasy is responsible for IT at one of 

the UK’s most important companies. He 

has overseen changes to IT strategy and 

supplier relationships that have cut $800m 

from the firm’s $3bn IT budget. 

22 

Philip Langsdale 

CIO, Department for 

Work & Pensions 

In 2012, Philip Langsdale moved from BAA, 

where he transformed the IT at Heathrow 

following the debacle of Terminal 5’s 

opening, to the Department for Work and 

Pensions, the biggest IT user in Whitehall. 

He oversees the IT behind Universal Credit, 

the government’s flagship welfare reform. 


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23 Denise McDonagh 

IT director, Home Office; 

Director of G-Cloud programme 

Denise McDonagh has worked in government 

IT for 31 years, and in 2012 took on 

the leadership of the G-Cloud programme 

to move public sector IT systems to the 

cloud and open up IT purchasing to more 

small suppliers. 

24 

Sir Tim Berners-Lee 

World Wide Web inventor; 

Director of Open Data Institute 

Undoubtedly the most famous UK 

computer scientist, Tim Berners-Lee 

boosted his profile with an appearance 

in the opening ceremony for the London 

2012 Olympics, to widespread geek 

joy. As well as his evangelising of the 

web, he advises the government on 

open data as a director of the Open 

Data Institute. 

25 Jonathan Kirby 

CIO, AstraZeneca 

Jonathan Kirby became CIO of pharmaceutical 

giant AstraZeneca in 2010, managing a 

$1bn IT budget with operations in over 100 

countries. He has led a global transformation 

programme, delivering significant value 

to the company. 

26 Bill Crothers 

Chief procurement officer, 

HM government 

Bill Crothers became government chief 

procurement officer in July 2012. He oversees 

the government’s strategic supplier 

programme, which will manage the commercial 

relationships of government’s top 

40 suppliers. He has a reputation among IT 

suppliers as a fierce negotiator. 

27 

Lesley Cowley 

CEO, Nominet 

Lesley Cowley has been chief executive of 

UK domain registry Nominet since 2002, 

where she is responsible for leading the 

organisation and the development and 

implementation of strategy. As such, she 

represents the UK on Icann, the body that 

oversees the administration of internet 

addresses worldwide. 

uktech50 

Judging tHE uktEcH50 

the uKtech50 list was decided by a judging 

panel representing every area of the uK 

it profession – along with a reader vote on 

who should top the list. 

the panel was chosen to represent different 

perspectives within it, so each individual 

acted as both an impartial and expert 

judge, as well as an advocate for their area 

of interest. 

the judges were: 

n charles Ward 

chief operating officer, intellect 

n adam thilthorpe 

director for professionalism, bcs 

n John harris 

chairman of it leadership group the 

corporate it forum 

n marc dowd 

principal of the cio group, forrester 

research 

the judging panel selected the top 50 

based on the following criteria: 

influence 

What authority or ability does the person 

have – either through their personal position 

or the role they hold – to personally 

influence the development of uK it, or to 

influence others in positions of authority? 

achievements 

What has the person achieved in the past 

12 months to help the development of the 

uK it? 

profile 

is the person recognised as a role model 

for aspiring leaders? how widely are they 

acknowledged by their peers as an authority 

and influence on uK it? 

leadership 

does the person demonstrate the skills and 

experience necessary to be seen as a leader 

in the development of it in the uK? do they 

have a leadership role and does that help 

them to develop the role of it in the uK? 

potential 

how likely is it that the person will 

have a significant impact on uK it in the 

next 12 months? Will their authority and 

responsibility grow? 


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28 Ian Livingston 

CEO, BT Group 

As CEO of the UK’s biggest technology 

firm, Livingston oversees the telco’s £2.5bn 

investment in fibre-based superfast broadband 

roll-out – a key driver for the future of 

the UK economy. 

29 Simon Meredith 

CIO, IBM UK 

Simon Meredith is the CIO for IBM in the 

UK & Ireland. In this role, as part of a global 

team, he has responsibility for leading corporate 

technology operations in the region, 

closely aligned with strategic business 

initiatives to enable innovation and growth 

for IBM. 

30 

Dame Wendy Hall 

Professor of Computer Science 

at University of Southampton 

Wendy Hall is one of the most respected 

computer science academics in the UK. 

She is founding director, along with Sir Tim 

Berners-Lee, of the Web Science Research 

Initiative, which was launched in 2006 as a 

long-term research collaboration between 

the University of Southampton and MIT. 

31 John Douglas 

CTO, Burberry 

As CTO of one of the UK’s most influential 

fashion brands, John Douglas has led the drive 

to make the firm a leading social enterprise, 

using social networking technology both for 

customer engagement and to improve internal 

collaboration across the company. 

32 

Paul Cheesbrough 

CTO, News Corporation 

In 2012, Paul Cheesbrough was promoted 

toP 5 WomEn in it in uktEcH50 

n Jane moran, global cio, thomson reuters (5th overall) 

n Joanna shields, ceo, tech city (14th) 

n catherine doran, cio, royal mail group (19th) 

n martha lane fox, uK government digital champion (20th) 

n denise mcdonagh, director of g-cloud programme (23rd) 

Thirteen of the UKtech50 (26%) were women this year. 

uktech50 

from CIO of News International in the UK, 

to take over as CTO at Rupert Murdoch’s 

global News Corporation, taking a leading 

role in the firm’s digital publishing 

strategy. He is a strong supporter of cloud 

computing and has led the company’s 

move to the cloud. 

33 

Willem Eelman 

CIO, Unilever 

Willem Eelman became global CIO at 

consumer goods giant Unilever in April 

2010, with an innovation development 

budget of some €300m. Among his major 

initiatives is a global business intelligence 

and analytics strategy to deliver real-time 

customer information. 

34 

Mike McNamara 

CIO, Tesco 

Mike McNamara last year faced the unenviable 

task of succeeding his new boss, Tesco 

CEO Philip Clarke, as the retail giant’s CIO. 

Technology is one of the two major strategic 

investment priorities at Tesco, alongside 

stores, and he oversees a £150m plan to 

grow online channels. 

35 Christine Ashton 

Head of IT strategic 

development & performance, BG Group 

Christine Ashton is responsible for the 

strategic direction of IT – its overall performance 

and security – at gas giant BG 

Group. Prior to joining BG in 2010, she was 

group strategy and technology director at 

Transport for London. 

36 Paul Coby 

IT director, John Lewis 

Paul Coby spent nearly a decade as 

CIO at British Airways, before leaving 

the airline last year. Soon after, he 

became IT director at department store 

chain John Lewis, tasked with improving 

the retailer’s multichannel customer 

shopping experience. 

37 

Darrell Stein 

Director of IT & logistics, 

Marks & Spencer 

In 2006, Darrell Stein became CIO at 

Marks & Spencer. By the second year of 


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his tenure, he had reduced incremental 

IT spend by 60%. He is leading M&S’s 

development of its new retail website. He 

also has a seat on the operating board and 

responsibility for logistics. 

38 Michael Gove 

Secretary of state for 

education 

In 2012, Michael Gove scrapped the 

much-derided GCSE ICT curriculum, and 

called for the development of a new 

course that includes a far greater degree 

of computer science. His reforms are 

aimed at creating a new generation of 

IT professionals. 

39 Susan Cooklin 

CIO, Network Rail 

Susan Cooklin is the CIO at Network Rail 

where she leads activities that underpin 

a large and complex technology portfolio 

focused on reducing the cost of running the 

railway by 21% by 2014. 

toP 5 from it industry in uktEcH50 

n Warren east, chief executive, arm (1st overall) 

n Jp rangaswami, chief scientist, salesforce.com (4th) 

n mike lynch, entrepreneur, autonomy founder (6th) 

n Jonathan ive, senior vice-president of industrial design, 

apple (8th) 

n phil smith, cisco uK ceo (10th) 

Fourteen of the UKtech50 (28%) are from the IT industry 

40 

Ailsa Beaton 

Director of information, 

uktech50 

Metropolitan Police 

Ailsa Beaton not only runs the IT for the 

UK’s biggest police force, but also plays 

a significant role in establishing the new 

semi-private organisation that will run 

national police IT systems. 

41 Elizabeth Varley 

Co-founder & CEO, TechHub 

TechHub is at the heart of the London 

Tech City movement to attract start-ups 

to East London and boost investment and 

innovation in UK IT, with Elizabeth Varley 

as its CEO. 

42 

THINKSTOCK 

Jennifer Rigby 

CIO, Department of Energy 

and Climate Change; chair of 

government green IT 

Jennifer Rigby plays a leadership role in promoting 

sustainability across government. In 

January 2012 she became chair of the Green 

Delivery Unit responsible for the delivery of 

the government green IT strategy. 

43 Kate Craig-Wood 

Managing director, Memset; 

Intellect board member 

Kate Craig-Wood is co-founder and managing 

director of cloud company Memset. 

She is an advocate of green IT and cloud 

computing, chairs Intellect’s climate change 

group and was also a key player in the technical 

architecture of the Cabinet Office’s 

G-Cloud project. 


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44 

Tom Steinberg 

Founder of MySociety, 

Theyworkforus.com, Fixmystreet.com 

Tom Steinberg has shown the public, 

private and voluntary sectors how powerful 

technology can be when used in a 

practical way to improve people’s lives. 

He is the founder and director of several 

democracy websites in the UK, and was a 

member of the government’s Public Sector 

Transparency Board. 

45 Simon Wardley 

Researcher, CSC Leading 

Edge Forum 

Simon Wardley is a thought leader advising 

some of the biggest UK companies on 

the intersection of IT strategy and new 

technologies. He is an evangelist for cloud 

computing and the use of open source 

technologies. 

46 

David Clarke 

CEO, BCS the Chartered 

Institute for IT 

As CEO of the Chartered Institute for IT, David 

Clarke represents the UK IT community to 

government and across the IT industry. 

47 

Hossein Yassaie 

CEO, Imagination Technologies 

Hossein Yassaie is chief executive of 

Imagination Technologies, a British maker 

of mobile graphics and microprocessor 

chip technologies that power many of the 

most advanced mobile phones, media 

players and tablets. 

uktech50 

48 David Willetts 

Minister for universities 

& science 

David Willetts is a key player in the government’s 

plans for improving science 

and technology education and boosting IT 

apprenticeships. 

49 David Henderson 

CIO, A&N Media 

As CIO of the publisher of the Daily Mail 

and Metro newspapers, David Henderson is 

transforming the company’s IT by moving 

key applications to the cloud. 

50 

Joe Baguley 

Chief technologist EMEA, 

VMware 

As one of the leading UK influencers at virtualisation 

company VMware, Joe Baguley 

helps drive the strategy of a supplier that 

has transformed datacentres and helps 

customers moving to the cloud. n 

toP 5 in Public sEctor 

n iain lobban, director, gchQ (2nd overall) 

n mike bracken, executive director, 

government digital service (3rd) 

n liam maxwell, deputy government cio (7th) 

n andy nelson, cio, hm government (11th) 

n phil pavitt, cio, hmrc (12th) 

Sixteen of the UKtech50 (32%) are in the 

public sector. 

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ARM 

profits 

grow 22% 

ARM and 

C&WW backs 

Cambridge 

Weightless 

wireless 

standard 

uktech50 interview 

UKtech50 winner: Warren East, ARM 

ARM’s CEO tells Kathleen Hall how the ubiquity of its chips in smartphones has 

catapulted the company to the forefront of the mobile revolution and why its 

business model is crucial to fostering the innovation necessary for the digital age 

There is no doubt ARM has benefited 

from exposure to exponential structural 

growth in the IT market. “ARM’s 

existence more or less overlaps entirely with 

the internet and the worldwide web,” says 

CEO Warren East. “We’ve been part of this 

tremendous digital revolution. Having been 

in the right place at the right time has been 

helpful,” he says. 

But it is the company’s unique business 

model, which licences chip designs rather 

than the manufacturing of standard semiconductors, 

which has enabled it to capitalise on 

the seismic industry changes. Since becoming 

CEO in 2001, East has seen the company 

become a world leader under this approach. 

Model for the digital world 

East believes ARM’s business model is better 

suited to the digital world because of 

the innovation it fosters. “Just look at all the 

innovation in the mobile space, where ARM 

has been strong, and compare that over the 

same period to the world of PCs. It’s a different 

picture altogether. If you think about 

the revolution enabled by mobile, it’s a completely 

different order of magnitude,” he says. 

“We don’t deliver one recipe and that is 

it, we deliver the ingredients. We actively 

discuss with partners what they can do that 

is different from what we have in the ARM 

world,” says East. 

“Our business model of partnerships 

enables choice, leads to a competitive supply 

chain for companies building products 

and innovation because of that competition. 

That is a great way forward for the industry 

at large,” he says. “I’m a firm believer in two 

heads being better than one, and when you 

multiply that by our more than 300 semiconductor 

partners, 300 heads are going to do an 

even better job.” 

It is a model that has seen ARM enjoy consistent 

double-digit growth, having recently 

posted a profit increase of 22%. 

WINNER 

East attributes the company’s success to 

having always approached the market as 

global, with the company being licensed 

across multiple products and companies – 

from the smallest sensors to supercomputers, 

as well as smartphones. 

“So there is tremendous scope and scalability,” 

he says. “It’s been a continuous 

process of concentrating on pursuing that 

path and keeping investment and cost levels 

under control so that our partners know 

our business is a healthy, secure place to be 

when they put their future in our hands.” 

Financial prudence is crucial to winning 

trust and building long-lasting relationships. 

“Our industry does suffer from a number of 

companies failing to make profits. And if you 

are engaging with a business, you need to 

know in the long term that the supplier today 

will still be around to invest in your future 

over the next five, 10 and 15 years. There 

needs to be that long-term assurance.” 

Does the more recent use of ARM in lowerend 

laptops and Windows 8 tablet devices 

mean the company is manoeuvring itself into 

rival Intel’s space? 


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Read 

another 

interview with 

Warren East 

“We have said for some time that ARM is 

the architecture for a digital world, and that 

doesn’t mean just mobile, or the exclusion of 

the PC – it involves the whole digital world,” 

he says. “Intel has been hugely successful 

with microprocessors in PCs and more latterly 

servers, but we regard that as a fairgame 

market for ARM, too.” 

Confidence in UK tech 

East sits on the government’s UK Trade and 

Investment board for technology. So what 

does he think ought to be done to encourage 

more companies like ARM? “I don’t 

want to stray too much into government 

policy. I think the government has got a difficult 

task on its hands anyway, and interference 

from companies such as ours is probably 

not desperately helpful. 

“The UK is a good place for technology, 

as we produce innovative, problem-solving 

engineers. ARM operates with different 

design centres around the world, yet 40% of 

our employees are based in the UK. So the 

raw materials are pretty good.” 

East has a background in engineering 

and design, and that knowledge helps him 

interact with customers around the world, 

although he admits it has been 20 years 

since he last designed a chip. 

But he is positive that as a country the UK 

is well placed to become a global technology 

player, both geographically – being situated 

between the biggest technology markets of 

the US and Asia – and in terms of the country’s 

cultural temperament. 

“As a country, the UK is in some ways very 

culturally flexible. That’s in our history and 

even goes to the route of the English language 

itself, which has borrowed from so 

many other languages. As a culture, we’ve 

always been open to interacting with other 

people,” he says. 

East also believes the business climate for 

technology has recently improved, with the 

introduction of initiatives such as the Patent 

Box, which allows companies to apply for a 

reduced 10% corporation tax rate to profits 

attributed to patents. 

The government’s encouragement of technology 

clusters such as Tech City are also 

a positive development, he says. “The fact 

that technology is even on the government’s 

agenda is really good progress, compared 

with 10 to 15 years ago.” 

But fostering tech clusters and support for 

innovative companies doing R&D through tax 

breaks will not instantly create technology 

companies, says East. 

He points to the Cambridge tech cluster 

being 50 years old as evidence that such 

environments often need a long period of 

incubation. “Although technology appears to 

be a fast-moving space, it often takes a long 

time to develop.” 

Investing in the future 

The second half of 2012 has been more 

sluggish than expected for the smartphone 

market. And while East says the company 

has not scaled down its overall recruitment 

drive, it has cut its cloth accordingly to manage 

costs in the uncertain economic climate. 

“We’ve hired 700 people over the past 

three years, which is a net increase of around 

30-40%, and we will continue on that trajectory. 

We’re doing that so we can invest in 

the business now for products that will be 

“I see a fantastIc 

future In arM’s 

uktech50 interview 

technology across a 

range of applIcatIons” 

licensed in three years and available to buy in 

five. I see a fantastic future in our technology 

across a range of applications, so we need to 

make the investments now.” 

ARM is continuing to create new products 

as well as improve on its existing portfolio. 

“The internet of things won’t deliver value 

unless we have a network infrastructure in 

place, so we are having products designed 

into that end of things and also into servers.” 

As the move to an increasingly connected 

world means a heavier infrastructure 

and server footprint, energy-efficient 

technology is going to be crucial. “It’s going 

to require a huge amount of energy – more 

than the world can afford. And ARM is 

one of the tools in achieving a sustainable 

solution,” says East. n 


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HP, Autonomy and the 

questions that must 

be addressed 

The accusations of “questionable accounting and 

business practices” that led to HP making an 

$8.8bn write-off on the $12bn acquisition of 

Autonomy has shocked and surprised most people who 

followed the rise of Autonomy into the FTSE100. 

The question is, how could alleged accounting malpractice, 

on a scale warranting an $8.8bn write-down, 

go unnoticed by auditors or financial advisors – both 

before HP’s acquisition and in the year since? 

There are several vital issues to be addressed in any 

attempt to work out just what is going on. 

n HP overpaid for Autonomy and was on track to lose 

substantial value with large numbers of former staff 

leaving the company. 

n HP has a terrible track record of losing value from 

major acquisitions. Look at EDS and Palm. 

n HP’s announcement overshadowed dreadful financial 

results, with areas of its business haemorrhaging revenue. 

Personal systems sales were down 14%; servers, 

storage and networking down 9%; services down 6%; 

even the cash cow of printers was down 5%. Ironically, 

revenue from its software sales – including Autonomy 

– was the only bright spot, growing 14%. 

n People are coming out of the woodwork to say Autonomy 

has long used creative accounting techniques. But 

still it was a quoted company, regularly audited and 

given a clean bill of health. Thorough due diligence by 

HP’s advisors uncovered no discrepancies. 

n HP did not tell Autonomy founder Mike Lynch – nor 

any public authorities – about what it claims to have 

discovered before issuing a press release. That in itself 

is extraordinary. 

If the allegations are proved, it will raise issues around 

the whole UK corporate governance regime. The worst 

case is if Autonomy turns out to be a British Enron. 

If the allegations are overblown, HP’s reputation will 

fall off a cliff. If HP is proved to have over-reacted to 

some questionable – but not illegal – accounting, it 

could be the final straw for a company in trouble. 

Someone is going to be a big loser when this highstakes 

game is played out. n 

Bryan Glick 

Editor in chief 

editor’s comment 

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Download 

Juniper’s 

research on 

BYOD 

BYOD FAQ: 

Answers to 

IT’s burning 

questions 

about BYOD 

BYOD: Bring your own 

device – or demise? 

Businesses must put in place security measures and 

device management policies to meet the challenges 

posed by the BYOD trend, writes Nitin Bhas 

Bring-your-own-device, or BYOD, is the 

growing trend of consumers using their 

own mobile computing devices, such 

as smartphones and tablets, in the enterprise 

to access corporate assets. 

These assets can include internal company 

documentation, work calendars, employee 

and client contact details and emails. This 

intrusion of the consumer device into the 

enterprise space can be problematic. 

The combination of increased data connectivity 

and the consequent need to be 

connected anywhere and everywhere has 

prompted a change in employee attitude 

towards their use of devices to access workrelated 

documents – and of their employers 

to permit such access. The fact that most 

services themselves are now cloud-based and 

thus accessible via multiple devices is another 

factor contributing towards this growing trend. 

What is driving the BYOD trend? 

The use of personal mobile devices to 

access work-related spreadsheets, emails, 

calendars and other files should depend on 

individual company policy – assuming the 

company in question has articulated such a 

policy. The number of consumers using personal 

devices at work is increasing by the 

day – surveys indicate that a significant proportion 

of employees use their own mobile 

devices for both work and personal use. 

Several factors feed into this growing trend 

– the development of the mobile device market 

and increased use of mobile devices in 

general within the enterprise; wide network 

connectivity and always-on devices providing 

access to files and emails anywhere and everywhere; 

and the availability of a greater variety 

of mobile enterprise apps and solutions. 

As the demand for ubiquitous enterprise 

mobility increases, the scale of this usage is 

opinion 

only going to increase. Consequently, according 

to our latest forecasts, the number of 

employee-owned smartphones and tablets 

used in the enterprise will more than double 

by 2014, reaching 350 million – compared 

with almost 150 million this year. 

Security implications 

The next question should be whether this is 

a win-win situation for the employees and 

employers? While this approach can bring 

productivity benefits to businesses, it also 

poses security risks. The threat from unprotected 

employee mobile devices is of significant 

importance. The potential for financial 

loss, legal liability and brand damage from 

unprotected devices is one of the most 

underestimated risks facing enterprises. 

There are a number of issues and implications 

that need to be addressed and measures 

have to be taken via new mobile device 

management (MDM) policies and security 

measures. Enterprises need to be aware of the 

different activities on their employees’ mobile 

devices – including emails, files and documents 

stored, and installed apps – so an MDM 

platform will be the umbrella under which 

important security and management functions 

will fall, including policy management, strong 

authentication, data and device protection. 

While most employees are happy to use 

their own device, most of those devices do 

not have any form of security or protection. 

So, while BYOD has become an inevitable 

trend for the enterprise, businesses need to 

create new user IT policies and address the 

key security issues emerging. New security 

measures along with MDM policies need to 

be put in place. n 

Nitin Bhas is a senior analyst at Juniper Research. 

This is an edited version. Click here to read the full article online. 


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Scale out 

with Windows 

Azure SQL 

Database 

Microsoft 

makes Azure 

open source 

friendly 

buyer’s Guide 

Windows moves toward 

infrastructure on demand 

Microsoft’s Azure is an operating system for the cloud, offering 

a set of connected servers. Tim Anderson reports 

Buyer’s guide 

Infrastructure on demand part 3 of 3 

Microsoft’s Azure cloud was conceived as an abstract platform for applications, 

but has moved to offer infrastructure as a service (IaaS) as well. 

Microsoft announced its Windows Azure cloud platform in October 2008, 

and, after several previews, it became commercially available in February 2010. 

At that time, Amazon had already established a strong presence with its AWS (Amazon 

Web Services), especially S3 (Simple Storage Service) and EC2 (Elastic Compute Cloud), 

and Microsoft was under pressure to come up with its own cloud platform. Unlike Amazon 

though, which has been an internet company from its inception, Microsoft was (and is) heavily 

invested in on-premise servers, along with a business model based on resellers and partners 

who sell and maintain that hardware. This may account for Azure’s rather muted launch. 

Azure in 2008 

Back in 2008, Azure was announced as an operating system (OS) for the cloud. The company 

chose to create a platform that was more than just Windows 

servers in the cloud, perhaps in part to keep it distinct from its 

on-premise offerings. Azure is “an operating system for the 

cloud”, said director Manuvir Das in 2008. “An abstract execution 

environment.” 

The idea was developers would write services to run on Azure’s 

“fabric” – a set of connected servers which Microsoft maintained. 

The focus was on the services, and the fact that they ran on Hyper-V 

computerweekly.com 27 November-3 December 2012 16 

REAL444/ISTOCKPHOTO

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virtual machines was as far as possible abstracted away. The same was true of storage. Azure’s 

cloud database in its first preview was not SQL Server, but a cloud version with limited features 

called SQL Data Services, along with table and binary large object (Blob) storage. 

Hyper-V 

The focus on services rather than servers put Azure firmly in the platform as a service (PaaS) 

category, rather than infrastructure as a service (IaaS), at its launch. That said, it has always 

been an imperfect abstraction. Services for Azure are deployed on Hyper-V virtual machines 

(VMs), and the pricing at the 2010 commercial launch reflected that – with different costs 

for small, medium and large instances. Microsoft also wanted to offer developers a familiar 

programming model, so an Azure web role is essentially an ASP.NET web application. 

Developers were unhappy with the cut-down SQL Data Services, which Microsoft replaced 

with full SQL Server for Azure’s commercial release. This proved to be the start of a trend 

towards making Azure less like a new cloud OS, and more like a Windows server in the cloud. 

The old Azure portal 

A fundamental feature of the old Windows Azure – until the announcement of new features 

in summer 2012 – was that all VMs are stateless. A way to think about this is that when you 

create an application and deploy it, Azure builds a Hyper-V 

VM and spins it up. That VM is the golden image for your 

application. If something goes wrong, Azure may delete the 

deployed VM and replace it with the original. It is not quite 

that simple, since Microsoft also takes responsibility for keeping 

the OS patched and up to date, but it is still true that any 

data stored in the VM after deployment is liable to be deleted 

at any time. In order to store data consistently, you need to use 

storage or database services. There is also an option to mount 

a VHD, stored as an Azure Blob, to give your VM a persistent drive. Even the VM role in the 

old Azure is stateless, though in this case Microsoft leaves OS maintenance to the user. 

The new Azure portal 

In summer 2012, Microsoft announced an extensive set of new features for Azure. This 

includes a new management portal as well as new services. Among many significant 

changes, perhaps the biggest is the introduction of a new type of Azure Virtual Machine. 

Unlike the old VM role (which has been in beta since 2010), 

an Azure Virtual Machine is consistent. You get a Windows 

Server in the cloud, on which you can install and run any 

Windows application. Just like a machine in your own datacentre, 

the responsibility for patches and updates is yours. 

VMs are still replicated three times for resilience. 

There are several reasons for this change. One big one is 

application compatibility. Under the old model, any application 

that stored data locally had to be modified to work on Azure. 

Now existing applications will run unchanged on Azure. It is 

also a fundamental shift in the Azure platform, making it an IaaS platform for the first time. 

Azure virtual networks 

A key part of the new Azure is Virtual Networks. This features lets you connect a network 

of Azure VMs to your local network over a gateway virtual private network (VPN). 

Currently this requires you to use one of a limited range of VPN security devices from 

Cisco or Juniper, with other hardware possible but not supported. The benefit is that VMs 

on Azure become a seamless extension of your on-premise network. You can join Azure 

VMs to your Windows domain, or host a domain controller in Azure. There is no need to 


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think about how to synchronise local users and Azure users since they all use the same 

Active Directory. Since Azure VMs can be deployed or removed on demand, one benefit is 

that you can use Azure to scale out your IT infrastructure without buying new hardware. 

Azure also offers a machine-to-machine VPN connection called Azure Connect. 

System centre 2012 

The advent of IaaS in Windows Azure introduces hybrid cloud support to Microsoft’s 

platform. A hybrid cloud is one that combines public and private clouds in order to 

take advantage of cloud resources, while still maintaining on-premise infrastructure. 

Microsoft’s System Centre 2012, which is a suite of network management applications, 

can connect to Azure, as well as to on-premise networks. There is also an Azure add-on 

for Orchestrator, which lets you automate the creation and monitoring of IT resources. 

A full System Centre deployment can enable users to deploy applications to Azure 

automatically using a self-service portal such as System Centre App Controller. This 

kind of set-up is complex to configure, and there are differences and inconsistencies 

between a private cloud using System Centre and a public cloud on Azure. The concept 

is powerful though, and as these tools mature Microsoft’s hybrid cloud will become 

more attractive. 

Moving away from PaaS 

Is Microsoft moving away from platform as a service in the new Azure? That is not the 

case, according to Azure general manager, Bill Hilf, speaking to Computer Weekly at a 

cloud computing event in London earlier this year. “We’re not abandoning platform as a 

service, that’s where the future lies, but building that bridge is crucial. Just raw VM hosting 

is outsourced IT, that’s not what’s going to cause a fundamental shift in how we think 

about computing. The PaaS plus IaaS strategy is the future,” he said. 

That said, Hilf also stated that Microsoft received substantial pushback from developers 

over the previous PaaS-only model: “There are still a lot of applications that write files to a C 

drive. The message before was, ‘You need to rethink how you do that.’” 

The official message is this: Take advantage of the more seamless, scalable PaaS model 

where possible, but use IaaS for compatibility. However that underplays the significance of 

IaaS in Azure, which has transformed the extent to which businesses can use it as an extension 

of on-premise resources. 

The radical changes Microsoft made to Azure in summer 2012 have changed it from a 

cloud platform which was solid but somewhat awkward to use into a resource worth consideration 

for almost any business using Microsoft’s platform, from occasional use by developers 

testing or prototyping a new application, to full network integration and use as an 

additional on-demand datacentre. The new management portal makes it easy to get started. 

Even Linux VMs are supported, with Ubuntu, Suse and CentOS systems on offer in the Quick 

Create gallery. 

There are caveats. One is that most of the new features 

are still in preview, so full production use is not yet recommended. 

Second, the inconsistencies between Azure 

› Re-defining Azure cloud computing message 

› Azure’s identity crisis 

› Windows Azure issues hit users in Europe 

and System Centre 

cloud management are 

an annoyance. Third, 

it is worth noting that 

Amazon’s EC2 and 

other services also support Windows, with easy deployment 

and scaling of Windows applications via Amazon 

Elastic Beanstalk promised soon. Azure is now a compelling 

offering though, and those who dismissed its 

earlier incarnation should take another look. n 

azure general 

manager, 

bill hilf 


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SMEs use IT 

to drive 

business in 

downturn 

IT security 

workers must 

support 

business needs 

cw500 club 

How to speak the language 

of business in the boardroom 

CIOs at the height of their powers can still have problems communicating their 

agenda to the organisation. Bill Goodwin gives the view from the boardroom 

CIOs are winners – the Mo Farahs, Jessica Ennises and Usain Bolts of the business 

world. Right? Sadly, for many company boards, CIOs are indeed successful but 

hardly well-recognised in their own organisations. 

At worst, IT leaders are seen as people who like to say “no” – people who will find 

reasons why things cannot be done. To some, they are the technology equivalent of London 

Mayor Boris Johnson – controversial, a maverick and a bit scary. 

But it need not be this way, senior IT professionals heard at Computer Weekly’s latest 500 

Club meeting. 


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cw500 club 

Learn the language of business 

Robin Young, chief operating officer (COO) of the pub and restaurant group Mitchells & 

Butlers and a former CIO, offered some tips from his own experience. He was joined by Jim 

Norton, former BCS president and chartered director; and Nick Beighton, finance director 

of online fashion retailer Asos. 

Young recounted one of his most important lessons. 

He was working for a pharmaceuticals company in the 

run-up to the year 2000 and the CIO was presenting his 

plans for the millennium bug to the board. 

“We watched the CEO nod and smile and – it 

appeared through the IT lens – it was all going swimmingly,” 

he said. 

“But when the poor chap came in to take his accolades 

for the great work he had done, he received the 

biggest kicking I had ever seen. The chief executive 

believed his presentation was ‘emperor’s new clothes’ 

rubbish and that he had been conned. The gap was very 

simple. It was just communication.” 

The incident brought home to Young just how important 

it is for the CIO to learn to speak the same language 

as the rest of the board. Even the most simple IT 

architecture diagram can be too much for the boardroom, 

he told the meeting. 

“You might as well be talking Greek. They don’t have 

any idea what you are talking about. Use very plain 

English – no tins, no plug and play, no servers, no clouds 

– and speak in business language,” he said. 

But whatever you do, don’t be patronising, added 

Jim Norton. 

“the cIo 

receIved the 

bIggest kIckIng 

I had ever 

seen. the chIef 

executIve 

belIeved hIs 

presentatIon 

was ‘eMperor’s 

new clothes’ 

rubbIsh and 

that he had 

been conned” 

robIn young 

The CIO as gatekeeper 

Board directors who don’t understand IT are one thing MItchells & butlers 

but board members who think they understand IT 

better than the CIO are another. 

Norton said he was once confronted by a finance director with an idea for a new IT project. 

“The finance officer came to me and said, ‘This company needs one version of the truth’. 

People in the industry will recognise which particular company’s advertising slogan that was,” 

said Norton. “He said, ‘I would like this amount of money please’ and, as finance director, he 

expected to get it.” 

Norton asked him a series of questions: Where is your budget for training the people? 

Where is your budget for how we are going to build this into the way the company operates? 

How are we going to change behaviours? 

“He looked at me and said, ‘Let me come back when I have thought about this a bit more’.” 

Immerse yourself in the business 

The argument over the IT/business divide is an old one. But Norton said that it really is 

important for CIOs to become immersed in the business. 

CIOs need to understand the business if they are to help transform it and they need to 

understand it as well, if not better, than fellow board directors. 

“That needs a real link to the business at a grass roots level – an understanding of the 

processes that are critical to the business and an understanding of what we can do to make 

them significantly better,” Norton said. 

It is also important for CIOs to take the time to explain to business staff why IT projects 


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cw500 club 

matter, Norton said: “I have seen so many organisations where the technology was absolutely 

fine but no-one had taken the time to explain to the staff why it was necessary. 

“They have not taken the customers and the company with them. They haven’t bothered to 

explain why IT matters.” 

Gain business expertise 

Beighton advised CIOs to invest not just themselves, but their IT teams, closely inside the 

business: “Get yourselves and your teams from the back of the bus into the co-driver’s seat. 

If one side is finance and the other is IT, by completing that triangle, you empower your CEO,” 

he said. 

That ensures that IT is seen as critical to the business and wins the confidence of the CEO. 

“Actually the job is more fun, more interesting,” Beighton said. 

Norton agreed. “A CIO really needs to understand the business because the board isn’t 

going to reach out to you; you have to reach out to the board and show them that you understand 

the nuts and the bolts of the business as well as they do, preferably even better.” 

CIO versus CFO 

Beighton, who has experience both of running IT and 

acting as a chief financial officer (CFO), said there will 

always be conflict between the two roles. 

“The CIO says, ‘Oh no, the CFO is going to ask me 

how much it is going to cost.’ The CFO says, ‘I have no 

idea what this guy is telling me, but I know it’s going to 

be expensive,’” Beighton said. 

“Somewhere in the middle, I feel that the analytical 

discipline of the CIO and the CFO are really close. If you 

can bridge that gap with the CFO, you can find Nirvana.” 

Use your data-driven advantage 

CIOs may not realise it but they have a secret weapon 

in their armoury – they are the gatekeepers of the 

company’s data and they can make that work for them 

on the board. 

“Getting to that data and then fuelling the boardroom 

decisions with information transforms the value that 

your team is delivering,” said Beighton. 

“It transforms the way they see you, and suddenly, you 

are straight into the heart of the organisation. If you use 

that well, you have a big arsenal stuck under your seat.” 

Norton advises CIOs carry out post-implementation 

reviews of successful projects – something that CIOs 

› Sway the board: How to build a 

business case for data management plans 

› Business IT guide for SMEs 

rarely do: “It is absolutely 

crucial to demonstrate 

to the board why 

it was a great success 

and what the numbers were,” he said. 

“I feel that 

the analytIcal 

dIscIplIne of the 

cIo and the 

cfo are really 

close. If you 

can brIdge that 

gap wIth the 

cfo, you can 

fInd nIrvana” 

nIck beIghton, 

asos 

Talk business, not technology 

Your CFO will love you if you starting using the language of business change and business 

benefit, rather than technology, said Beighton. 

“It really works. If that becomes part of your language, people understand what you are 

talking about and see that you are trying to solve their problems,” he said. 

Be device-agnostic, because your customers are device-agnostic, he said. 


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“They don’t care what platform you are deploying and they 

don’t care what device you are favouring – they just want 

what your business is offering and they will get it any way 

that they can,” he said. 

Daring to fail 

Beighton urged CIOs to have the courage 

to take some risks with the business. Give 

projects a go – it doesn’t have to be perfect, as 

long as it’s good enough for now, he said. 

“That will 

fill some of 

your board 

with worry, 

but some of “If you try 

them might 

to coMplete a 

say, ‘Fantastic, 

let’s give it a go.’ project wIthout 

Control how much you are going to risk, control how 

much it will cost, but be brave enough to give it a go.” the budget and 

Focus on the business benefits 

If a CIO is going to work well with a CFO, controlling 

costs is obviously important. But more important, said 

Beighton, is delivering the business benefits. 

“This will absolutely get you into bed with the CFO 

and he will carry you down the street cheering,” he told 

the meeting. 

“Normally the benefits realisation is made up of 

many factors, bigger than the cost. By getting the 

benefits realisation anchored to what you are doing 

and why you are doing it – and talking confidently 

about it in the boardroom – you get back into the heart 

of the business again. 

“CIOs should have the confidence to say, ‘If you are 

not ready for the change that I am ready to deliver, then I will get on with another project 

where they are ready to do it,’” he said. 

For a CIO, honesty about timescales and budgets is essential, delegates at the CW500 

Club meeting heard. 

“If you try to complete a project without the budget and to a ludicrous timescale, you have 

no credibility,” Norton told the group. 

Communicate clearly with the board 

“There has to be really good communication. By that, I mean not just broadcasting, but 

actually two-way communication.” 

The IT element accounts for only 20% of the budget. 

› Business case analysis and business case guide 

› Guide to successful IT business services 

› Directors bank on IT to boost business 

someone on the board can help you out,” said Beighton. n 

to a ludIcrous 

tIMescale, 

you have no 

credIbIlIty” 

jIM norton, 

Independent polIcy 

advIser 

cw500 club 

Changing business processes and training staff takes up the 

other 80%, but boards often don’t appreciate that. 

Openness is particularly important if a project is running 

into difficulties. Covering something up invariably makes 

things worse. “You might be pleasantly surprised that 


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Mobile 

payments set 

to grow to 

17 billion 

transactions 

in 2013 

How to 

exploit the NFC 

retail 

opportunity 

mobile payments 

Competing 

firms jockey for 

position in mobile 

payments gold rush 

While the mobile payments industry is still in its infancy, 

the promise of the rewards is substantial and competition 

for market dominance is gathering pace, reports Kathleen Hall 

Mobile phones are expected to play a significant role in the future of cashless payments 

in remote and on-premise purchases. Payment companies are ramping 

up their mobile offerings in the scramble for this lucrative market. 

MasterCard is one provider boosting its offering in the mobile sector. The 

company is responsible for authorising payment transactions, clearing and moving data and 

settlement between parties. It handled $3.3tn last year with its network processing 12 billion 

transactions per second. 

MasterCard has been operating in the payments market for more than 40 years. But CIO 

Rob Reeg says the smartphone explosion is making a substantial impact on the market. 

“The amount of computing power in consumers’ pockets now is probably greater than 

the rocket science we had 30 years ago. So the question for us is how we leverage that for 

consumers to get what they want,” he told Computer Weekly at the company’s MasterCard 

Innovations Showcase event. 

Reeg currently spends half his time on the day-to-day operational side of the business and 

the rest on innovation. 

The company’s innovation division has around 20 people, having recently opened its labs in 

Dublin. But Reeg has plans to grow that figure to 200 by the end of 2013, which will include 

the innovation, marketing and product development teams. 

He says the move was part of a long-term strategy over the next five years rather than 

something expected to yield money in the short term. 

“When we look to the future it is to a world beyond card not just cash,” he says. 

Garry Lyons, newly appointed chief innovation officer and head of MasterCard Labs, says 

the company has already created over 100 prototypes of new innovative payments methods, 

many of which have a mobile flavour. 

“Mobile payments work when you can provide a compelling context-specific experience to 

the consumer,” he says. 


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How to use 

mobile payment 

technology 

to boost 

profitability 

Mobile 

payments 

opportunities 

for business 


His aim is to create an innovative start-up culture where teams were not afraid to try out 

ideas that might fail. “We can then invest in the innovative projects we are looking to promote 

and kill the ones that fail.” 

Mobile on-premise 

Providers are already beginning to offer both contactless mobile and mobile apps, with 

Orange Quick Tap Wallet for Barclaycard and the US-based ISIS Wallet, which work like 

chip-and-PIN credit cards, while Google and Square manage payments and pass them on 

to consumers’ cards over the web. 

The world of financial payments has a long history of partnerships but the market is still 

becoming familiar with the mobile operator entrants. 

“Nobody knows how the market will pan out,” says Charles Weir, founder of mobile apps 

developer company Penrillian. “The mobile operators are betting on near-field communication 

(NFC) because it plays to their strengths supporting security through SIMs; others like 

Square believe that other technologies will win. 

“Even a tiny fraction of every payment done through a mobile phone adds up to a fortune, 

so there’s plenty of profit to go round. And for players like Google there’s exciting advertising 

opportunities from knowing where you shop and what you buy.” 

But it will be some time before the market matures, he says. “Fewer than a dozen phone 

models currently support NFC payments. And it will take years for phones and terminals to 

become mass-market. A typical solution requires coordination with more than a dozen stakeholder 

companies, so there are commercial challenges.” 

Chicken and egg 

There are also issues around mobile providers not wanting to roll out NFC-enabled devices 

until there is a market for them. Retailers are understandably reluctant to overhaul payment 

systems until the consumer demand is there. 

For example, Apple has yet to release an iPhone with contactless payment. But Weir says: 

“It’s not a case of Apple pulling the market back. It’s more a case of the market not yet being 

big enough for Apple.” 

Angel Dobardziev, analyst at Ovum, says the issue of cost in replacing infrastructure would 

prevent retailers from rushing to embrace the technology in the short-term. 

“The point-of-sale system is a tiny fraction of the cost, then you have integration into the 

infrastructure, with CRM systems and that is the really expensive bit,” he says. However, he 

says roll-outs will happen as part of the refresh cycle, as NFC is undoubtedly the way retail 

payments systems are going. 

Dobardziev believes such m-commerce applications as remote payments will be a key 

driver in the uptake of the mobile wallet and eventually on-premise payments, as consumers 

and retailers warm up to contactless. 

vodafonE launcHEs global nfc sErvicEs 

mobile phone operator vodafone is the latest company to position itself in the nfc market, 

having signed a deal with digital security firm gemalto to deploy global nfc services to its subsidiaries, 

as well as banks and retailers. vodafone claims the partnership could see hundreds of 

millions of subscribers use its nfc services. 

the multi-year global contract will provide the foundation for “wave and pay” contactless 

transactions via mobile phone, as well as for new services that demand the highest levels of 

security and integrity, says vodafone. Key elements of the end-to-end platform will include endto-end 

security encryption between financial institutions and mobile operators and the company’s 

upteq nfc high-end card product, it says. 


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Payment providers such as MasterCard and Visa are strongly pushing in this direction. 

“They are wise to get into this space and are making significant investment to be relevant in 

this fledgling market,” Dobardziev says. 

“It’s both an aggressive and defensive move as they are seeking to defend their existing 

position against the new providers, but also see this as an area of expansion. 

“For example you can have all your loyalty cards and coupons in one place. The organisation 

that provides that platform will have huge insight into your consumer behaviour,” he says. 

“Many companies are positioning themselves to be that provider, whether that’s a cloudbased 

wallet you access via broadband or an NFC chip 

based in the SIM or on the device. At this early stage we 

don’t yet know which way it will prevail. 

“It’s a gold rush and a lot of players are trying to position 

themselves in the space.” 

Dave Birch, director of IT consultancy Consult 

Hyperion, is confident NFC will be a successful technology, 

but agrees the form it will take is yet to be decided. 

The move to put NFC in SIM cards may not be the 

direction the market eventually takes. The NFC element 

could be embedded elsewhere in the hardware of the 

phone, a move which would see the mobile network 

operators have less control in the market, he says. 

But despite new entrants to the market, Birch is confident 

the banks do not having anything to worry about 

yet. “The story is about ID rather than payments, the 

phone is just acting as a remote control for your ID, you 

are selecting who you want to be,” he says. 

MasterCard’s Reeg agrees that a lot of different stakeholders 

need to come together before NFC becomes a 

reality. “A lot of shake has to occur between manufactures, 

operator, payment infrastructure, banks are still 

doing their own thing. It’s an evolving landscape and it 

will take time to work through and get parties to come 

together,” he says. 

“you can 

have all your 

loyalty cards 

and coupons In 

one place. that 

platforM wIll 

have a huge 

InsIght Into 

your consuMer 

behavIour” 

angel dobardzIev, 

ovuM 

Different countries are working at different paces, with certain markets moving at a faster 

pace toward mobile payments. “We’d roughly bucket countries into categories of three, five 

and seven years,” says Reeg. 

In emerging markets the telcos have already firmly established themselves in the mobile 

payments sector, where citizens don’t have existing bank accounts, adds Ovum’s Dobardziev. 

The mobile payment market is already expected to undergo exponential growth by the end 

of next year. According to the Global Payments Report, the number of customers making payments 

with their mobile phones is estimated to grow to 17 billion transactions in 2013. 

This compares with 141 million in 2011, according to research from Capgemini, RBS and 

retail association Efma. Volumes are expected to surge once NFC e-wallets are launched. 

But figures from MasterCard show around 85% of world 

› NFC payments: the retail perspective transaction payments are still made in cash and cheque, with 

› Mobile payment technology - a buyer’s guide the rest electronic. Even in more mature markets such as the 

› E E signs MasterCard for mobile payments 

US, the split between cash and electronic is 50-50. 

This division represents a huge opportunity for electronic 

payments companies, but it also puts the mobile payments 

market into perspective as a growing market in a growing market. 

The battle to establish dominance in mobile payments is likely to rage on for some time 

before a clear winner emerges. n 


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Read 

more on the 

Downtime blog 

Consumers do what Apple dreams of 

Samsung is already the bestselling smartphone 

vendor on the block, but now it 

is looking to be unbreakable as well as 

unbeatable. 

Its new range of handsets may look like 

your average mobiles, but when in your 

hands you can twist them, bend them 

and screw them up into numerous shapes 

without even a scratch. 

The South Korean firm uses activematrix 

organic light-emitting diodes 

– Oleds – which are so thin, they can 

be fixed onto very flexible materials. So 

phones don’t have to have glass screens 

and can take more interesting shapes. 

An official launch date for the phones 

hasn’t been revealed yet Downtime can’t 

wait to have a play! 

gassy knoll WindoWs 

microsoft is not turning up its nose at the malodorous 

gases emanating from a wastewater treatment plant at 

cheyenne, Wyoming. instead, the company is conducting 

tests to run a new datacentre powered by sewage gas, 

according to us reports. 

although it is naturally something most people shun, 

microsoft realised the gas is just energy going to waste. 

if the trial is successful, microsoft plans to locate 

smaller datacentres at biogas-producing operations, such 

as wastewater treatment plants, livestock farms and landfills 

around the world. 

the development could be a boon to all farmers with 

gassy herds of cattle as microsoft could soon be in a position 

to turn a smelly liability into a profitable asset. 

downtime 

Santa doubts Google 

Anyone wanting to skip December – and 

there are bound to be a fair number – is in 

luck because there is an app for that. 

No, not from Apple, but rival Google. 

The ability to skip December, however, 

is not by design but by omission. Google 

developers failed to include December in 

the People app in the latest version of the 

Android mobile operating system. 

Users attempting to add a friend’s birthday 

using the “date picker” feature of the 

People app in recently-released Android 

4.2 are able to do so in any month as long 

as it is not December. 

The bug appears to be limited to the 

People app and does not affect Android’s 

Calendar app. Downtime has only a few 

days to see– watch this space! n

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