The role of the sponsor in a major business transformation is vital and as this episode of the Horizon CIO Podcast reveals, not always well understood or specified by the business. To get some insight into the role of the sponsor HR transformation specialists Joe Ales and Jason West of Underscore Group described how they help organisations get the …

Ratings agencies are a fact of life for the financial community and as cyber security rises in importance, so too must the security of an organisation be rated. Security rating platforms is a rapidly growing area of the security technology market. “Ratings give you the ability to tell a story that is not just about firewalls. There has been an evol…

Wellcome Trust chief technology officer (CTO) James Thomas told a Horizon CIO Network roundtable how his organisation has built a new operation with data and change at its heart. Talking to CIO and CTO peers from FTSE 100 organisations Thomas gives a frank insight into how to deliver change and reveals how he created a new culture and set of measur…

The first Horizon CIO Network roundtable event of 2019 focused on how organisations can implement artificial intelligence (AI). CIOs from major financial services, medical, retail, education, manufacturing and housing joined the debate. Keynote for the event was Alistair Maughan, who has been a partner with leading law firm Morison Foerster LLP sin…

The media industry has been highly disrupted by the internet and the move by consumers to digital media. This has led to major changes in the business models of media organisations. For the March Horizon CIO Podcast, three leading media business technology leaders came together to debate the impact, but more importantly the opportunity, for technol…

A quarter of major business technology leadership hires in 2018 were for a CTO role. 2018 saw a small decrease in role changes amongst the UK’s CIOs and CTOs. Speaking to major search providers, they too are seeing an increase in demand for CTOs and at both ends of the country. Financial services was one of the most active sectors throughout 2018, …

The Horizon CIO Podcast is brought to you in partnership with Future Processing: To discover what to include in your RFI, download How to write an RFI for outsourced IT Projects from Future Processing at: www.startnearshoring.com/rfi “It’s hot on the exoplanet Wasp 107 Bravo, 500 degrees celsius and that is very important. A team of experts from th…

As bank TSB knows all too well, how people perceive your brand is based on their technology experience. In the highly competitive world of online book retailing this is especially the case because of the dominant position of Amazon, which of course has transformed not only the retail of novels, but every shopping story you can name. Despite the sca…

For the second year in a row insurance business RSA Group has announced good results. During 2017 RSA Group, which in the UK is better known for its More Than general insurance (GI) brand, recorded profits of £322 million after tax, up from £20 million in 2016. The good results of 2016 prompted CEO Stephen Hester to state that the international ins…

In the spring of 2018 enterprise resource planning (ERP) software giant SAP announced that from 2025 its ERP software will be built to operate with just one database platform, its own SAP HANA database. Between now and 2025 SAP will continue to support ERPs using Oracle, SQL, IBM or a myriad of other database formats, but beyond 2025 it will no lon…

Picture by Matt Gore/icon Throughout this week London’s technology communities will come together to discuss, announce and consider the role of technology in the nation’s capital at London Tech Week. Driving a great deal of change and wider adoption of data are the first Chief Digital Officer (CDO) for London, Theo Blackwell and CIO for the South L…

Old fashioned processes and approaches to human resources are hampering organisations from employing the technologists they need to become relevant digital businesses in 2018. Business technology leaders have discussed the ‘skills gap’ for the last five years, although there is a shortage of skills, recruitment and employment practices are exacerba…

Graeme Hackland CIO at Williams Formula One, Damian Smith, Head of Information Technology at The England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB), IT Director Matthew Reynolds from Southampton Football club and sports portfolio CIO Mike Bohndiek formerly Head of IT at West Ham United. “In cricket we capture all the data about every head strike, which goes int…

“I think it is really important that the customer can take responsibility,” says Simon Lamkin, CIO of Brussels Airlines. Lamkin, speaking at a Horizon CIO Podcast roundtable debate, revealed to peers how digital transformation in the airline sector is reshaping the customer experience, but also the business processes of airlines and airports. Lamki…

In 2017 Royal Dutch Shell (Shell) announced it was exiting the controversial oil sands sector in Canada and was focussing on becoming an energy company. As Fortune reports, the company wasn’t making a rash decision, it had invested expertise and research into understanding the disruptions to energy production and usage. According to Fortune, Shell …

“I wanted to work much more closely with students and people who were at the cutting edge of working with technology,” CIO Claudette Jones says from University of the West of Scotland, where she is leading technology. The University of the West of Scotland (UWS) has four campuses in south-western Scotland across Paisley, Hamilton, Dumfries and Ayr …