Interview with David Wilde, CIO of Westminster City Council
David Wilde
CIO of Westminster City Council
David Wilde is the CIO of Westminster City Council, one of the leading local authorities in the country. Tony Adams of Alsbridge met with David to discuss his views on IT.
Q David what do you see as the main differences between public and private sector IT?
A Public sector IT has to cover a much broader span than IT in most private sector organisations. In the private sector, its IT will support its business operating in a specific sector, such as banking or retailing. In the public sector, especially in local government, IT will need to support many different services making it much more complex. For example, at Westminster we have social care (including children’s and adult services) and the built environment – all very different businesses requiring very different IT systems. Corporate IT is much the same in the private and public sectors as both need systems to support the back office such as Finance, HR, procurement, etc.
Q What are the main challenges you see going forward?
A Supplier relationship management continues to be a challenge and the IT industry is still not as customer focussed as other service sectors. I would also have expected IT to be more commoditised by now. Why isn’t more of the IT Industry as simple as print buying? Also as CIOs, we must understand our own businesses more if we are to operate on a par with CFOs. As more IT services become commodity service, IT departments will need to offer a high performing commissioning service for the business. Doing it yourself will be the exception rather than the rule.
Q So what do you think about the current trends for shared services, outsourcing and offshoring?
A Yes you can achieve economies of scale by sharing but many organisations move towards shared services to retain services in-house as a last defence. This can compound in-built inefficiencies rather than improve services and reduce costs. Some shy away from outsourcing as they feel it will not support the retention or generation of local employment opportunities. It is possible to go down the outsourcing route while at the same time specifying that the solution should support local employment, as many other European countries seem to do better than the UK. Offshoring is a more sensitive topic. I think public sector bodies should have regard for local and national employment, while at the same time bearing in mind that they are spending tax payers’ money. Should uncompetitive local services be supported? However, it is the value proposition that matters in the end and this should ultimately drive any souring decision.
Q Getting technical for a while what impact do you think Utility, Cloud and SaaS will have?
A Utility is here today with a number of suppliers offering solutions. What is holding up take-up is lack of confidence from buyers. I feel that ultimately no-one should retain their own proprietary data centre. Cloud computing is currently going through a hype cycle with the telcoms industry overstating what is possible. I think before Cloud is really viable, there needs to be further market consolidation and the traditional telecoms providers need to stop defending their patch. Finally SaaS disappoints me. Most of the top tier ERP suppliers, SAP and Oracle, have established that SaaS works with their solutions, but I see the next tier of software suppliers, such as Anite, Confirm and Uniform, slower in making SaaS work. The large SI companies are also slow in embracing SaaS, which is probably as they generate substantial revenues from integrating, implementing and supporting traditional systems!
Q Any final thoughts on the future of IT?
A My vision is that in a few years time Westminster CC will be an infrastructure free zone, with all our applications being accessible from any computer /handheld through a simple browser and VPN connection. We will NOT own any servers or a data centre. We will buy our core IT services as a managed service, most probably at a price per user per year, and buy non-core services on a price per transaction basis. We will treat IT as a commodity and focus our IT investments and on the value it delivers for our residents.
A big thank you to David Wilde for spending time with us and sharing his views.
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