Why IT is at the heart of everything we do

By Vincent Kelly, CIO, Orange Business Services

Managing the IT strategy for a 20,000 strong multinational company is a challenge in itself; but when you are the IT chief of a technology company, your decisions affect thousands of IT users. We talk to Vincent Kelly, CIO, Orange Business Services about how to align IT with the business.

What is it like to manage IT in an organization that has IT so central to its commercial activities?

Telecommunications, like financial services, cannot operate without IT. Information technology is at the center of everything - it improves the internal processes that let us launch new services and respond to customer needs. IT is also at the heart of the service
launches themselves, whether that's online access to service status through a portal or enabling sales-to-order processes. So as a CIO, my role is split between optimizing internal processes and helping to find new ways to deliver services to our customers. In IT
our people are our key assets, they make things happen,
so it's also ensuring we are functioning at our best.

How is your team set up?

We have 700 people, most of which are based in France and in our India and Egypt major service centers, and we support around 650 applications, such as ordering, billing and intranet. We work very intimately with our "business owners" with whom in each area we determine what projects to launch and what customer and end-user satisfaction initiatives to progress.

And do you work in isolation from the rest of the Group?
 
Not at all. My team is part of Orange Business Services, but we are also working with IT teams throughout the Group. And it's not just me sitting with the other CIOs and senior managers: our teams are connected in a matrix. For instance we have software factories so that all of the billing teams are linked. All the customer front-end teams are in a matrix, too, which means we can develop reusable components and deploy them across the Group.

Can you tell me what you have focused on since becoming CIO?

We started a process of cost optimization back in 2005 which involved offshoring, outsourcing and vendor consolidation, and we pretty much finished this in 2008. Something like 60% of our activity is now outsourced, which lets my team focus on projects that create business and customer value. We also focused on global alignment to ensure our processes are global. As a result, the service we offer our customers is consistent and to similar levels of quality from Asia to the U.S. Right now within the IT organization, our focus is on a portfolio of improvement initiatives.

How important is it to listen to your users?

It's really important - they tell you what is really happening, about how they use technology and how it impacts services for our customers. We survey internal IT users monthly, and the output has led us to a 360-degree continuous improvement program, which has included standardizing desktops and software using virtualization, SaaS and cloud computing. We've also streamlined incident management, change management and release management. A further step is deploying identity and assessment management systems because users were saying that they had too many passwords.
 
"I don't think the downturn has affected the way we work.  What it has done is cause us to be extra vigilant..."

It's not just about user convenience, this will cut the number of calls into the help desks to retrieve forgotten passwords.

How do you judge whether to invest in a technology?

When we look at IT investments and whether they are necessary, they must fit within one of three categories. First, there are strategy-based investments, which prioritize customer offers and major transformation projects, such as support for future convergent or end-user services. If we want to launch a new network service, there is an accompanying IT process that needs developing. Our second investment area is compliance with legislation like Sarbanes Oxley, much like any CIO has. And the third area - ambition - is interesting. This is where we invest to improve the customer experience and operational efficiency, whether that is in giving the support teams more visibility, account managers more contactability or the customer more control over their service.

And how are you finding the economic downturn - has it curtailed investments?

I don't think the downturn has affected the way we work. What it has done is cause us to be extra vigilant that our investments are correctly targeted. We do this by assessing what they are for (strategy, legal or ambition). If it falls within "ambition" and is based on operational efficiency improvements, then the project must have an ROI in nine months or it doesn't get the go-ahead.
 
How does IT support new Orange product launches?

As I mentioned, we have around 650 applications - many of these relate to specific services. To allow users to provision and control their own services for a Web interface, we often have to extend the IT and APIs to network components. Each year we do three major customer "releases" for the business, which deliver our IT commitments and a consistent end-to-end customer experience. At any one time, we are supporting around 80 service launches or enhancements. IT is much more connected to the business, in this sense, than it is in some industries.

Can you give me an example of how IT and customer offers go hand in hand?

Look at one of our recent offers - cloud computing. It's not just about hosting and connecting servers into the network and managing traffic flows. Customers need to be able to provision online, procure extra capacity online, view their bill online and raise tickets online. This is the IT part that we are responsible for developing.
 
As you mention cloud computing, what is your view on cloud models for delivering IT services?

Obviously we find cloud computing has a lot of potential. Internally, we ourselves are using cloud providers for point solutions like training and expense processing. We have a different approach to the desktop. We have enough users in the Group to be our own cloud provider without needing an external supplier. Our goal is to have a common infrastructure across the 200,000 users in the Group, with services from an internal cloud.

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