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IT INTELLIGENCE
CIO role
Mobilising for growth
As Group CIO, and the first one the Thomas Cook Group has employed, Edwards is acutely aware that his role must be clearly defined and accountable, working alongside the CIOs in place in the various countries in which Thomas Cook operates. “My vision here is to move to a classic demand management and supply management model, so I envision my country CIOs reporting into the business. They will be accountable for their local IT strategies, demand management and prioritisation of what they need to do on behalf of the business,” says Edwards. “I also see them being accountable for innovation in the way we use technology in the local markets for portfolio management and for solution management. So they are really shaping what we need to do on behalf of the business.” With Thomas Cook’s CIOs delivering projects, quality of operational services and financial transparency, the Group CIO, believes Edwards, must then be responsible for implementing change, restructuring and growth. “I see the group CIO function as a driver for the right policies, the right standards on a group strategy and on an architectural roadmap, so that helps give us some control frameworks along with the right processes of governance, but then fundamentally we are managing the supply side. In quite simple terms it is a soft ware factory. So creating the soft ware factories and infrastructure, service providers should be managed by the group as a supply chain into the demand being articulated by the country’s CIOs. This gives us better economy to scale.” With clearer management, superior results and performances will occur, but it is not all about the delivery ability of the staff, says Edwards. “It will come via our testing environments, our landing slots for moving things into production environments, which will allow us all to be moving in a similar direction when it comes to the solutions, the applications, or the infrastructure to serve our different local markets. That’s the vision. That’s the challenge. Many CIOs have gone on this journey and have been successful; many have failed.”
During the early part of 2010, The Thomas Cook Group – on Edwards’ insistence – focused on prioritising quick wins, putting in processes and governance around the issue of demand and supply and designing how their IT model will work in the new demand-supply model. The next step is understanding the impact that these designs have had on the business and, in 2011, to begin implementation. “Other things we still need to do this year is issue RFPs to a number of the usual suspects that can play in the infrastructure space, desktop networks and data centres,” says Edwards. “Because what I am looking for are global providers. Thomas Cook is a very ambitious business. It has grown considerably over recent years through natural growth and acquisition. We currently are looking at other emerging markets in Russia, China and elsewhere in Asia. We have a good footprint in Canada and North America, and we want to grow that. We are very dominant in the UK and Europe and we want to protect that and do other things in terms of our multi-channel strategy.” Thomas Cook is already in 22 countries and hope to diversify into regions that will pose a different set of challenges. “Such growth,” explains Edwards, “affects our infrastructure provision. We may be going into even more diverse countries than those in the European market, and this calls for more knowledge of data centre provision, data centre strategies, network provision, the future of cloud computing, virtualisation and workplace environments, whether that be desktop, laptops, terminal services or BlackBerries. This entire strategy needs locking down and we need to pick the right partners we are going to work with, which may be some of the people we work with today, or it may be new players.” The effects of the recession hit the travel and tourist industry particularly hard, both in a commercial and an operational capacity. “The recession has had an impact on our ambitions,” says Edwards. “From a strategic point of view we must ensure we retain market share in our traditional business, which is tour operating prepackaged holidays for our customers, of which we have 22 million. Also, more of our consumers are moving towards what we call dynamic packaging where, whether they do this online or go into one of our retail stores or call the contact centre, they want to be able to say: ‘Well actually I want to fly on this day to that destination, and then I want to move on to this destination and I want these hotels because I have already decided where I want to stay.’ So the consumer pre-packages their holiday, which is becoming more prevalent in the industry. Of course, what you have now is companies like Expedia and LastMinute.com that really are technology companies that are selling holidays rather than a holiday company like ourselves that uses technology.” As part of a strategy to manage margins and keep the Thomas Cook Group operating at the sharp end of the sector, Edwards is adamant that growth must be managed and strategised in a more structured manner. “I am looking at our independent businesses as a second gang plank to the strategy, which is where the growth story is, and the growth
“The CIOs that are going to make a difference today and in the future are the ones that can bring ideas to the table “
The Thomas Cook Group Thomas Cook Group plc is one of the world’s leading leisure travel groups with sales of around £9 billion (€12 billion), 22.3 million customers, 31,000 employees, a fleet of 93 aircraft and a network of over 3400 owned and franchised travel stores, with interests in 86 hotels and resort properties. It operates under five segments: UK & Ireland; Continental Europe (Germany, Austria, Belgium, France, the Netherlands, Poland, Hungary, Slovenia and Slovakia); Northern Europe (Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Finland), North America (Canada and USA); and German airlines operating under the Condor brand. The Group operates in 21 countries including India and Egypt.
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18/08/2010 15:43