Business Review Europe magazine - August 2016

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Epson: beyond printing specialists How Netflix & Uber use big data BMC on the 4th industrial revolution

Advantage

Aldermore

How the branchless bank maximises technology Special Reports: Spicerhaart, RSA Scandinavia and Seadrill

August 2016

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OPEN FOR ENTRIES

The17th Annual Banking Technology Awards Thursday 1 December | The Tower Hotel, London

The Banking Technology Awards 2016 are open for entries!

Now in their 17th year, Banking Technology Awards recognise the best of the best in financial services technology worldwide.

The winners will be announced at our gala dinner on Thursday, 1 December 2016 at the Tower Hotel in London.

Visit us online at www.bankingtech.com/awards for all the categories and details on how to enter.

Award sponsorship opportunities The award sponsorship package includes your logo in all Banking Technology Awards promotions in print and online.

You will also get a full page advertisement in the awards brochure and a table of ten guests.

For sponsorship enquiries, please email Judith McInerney at judith.mcinerney@knect365.com or call +44 203 377 3506

For general event enquiries, please contact: awards@bankingtech.com

EDITOR’S COMMENT

Tech takes centre stage W E L C O M E T O T H E A U G U S T edition of Business Review Europe!

This month very much focuses on the technology space, delving into a range of industries and how various innovations and processes are boosting business performance. Our lead profile is with Aldermore Bank, exploring how technology has transformed many of its operations on the frontline and backstage.

In the real estate arena, property selling specialist SpicerHaart has also undergone something of a technological renaissance. Read our exclusive interview to see how this has helped the company deliver for its customers.

At the front of the magazine you will find we divert into the world of robotics. I visited Epson’s innovation lab in Dusseldorf and interviewed its UK Managing Director Rob Clark about how the company is more than just a printing and projecting giant. The entertainment industry is also taking advantage of new tech and processes – specialist author Bernard Marr looks at how Netflix and Uber have made the most of big data.

Finally, sticking with data, we asked BMC what exactly this technological revolution, or Industry 4.0, means for data sharing and privacy.

We do hope you enjoy the issue; please send any feedback to @BizReviewEurope

Enjoy the issue, and the rest of the summer!

Tom Wadlow Editor tom.wadlow@bizclikmedia.com 3

CONTENTS

PROFILE

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EPSON:

MORE THAN JUST PRINTERS TECHNOLOGY

Seamless automation technology and customer experience

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LIST

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12 questions for BMC on the 4th industrial revolution TECHNOLOGY

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Netflix and Uber: getting big data right

C O M PA N Y PROFILES

40 60

Aldermore Bank Finance

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RSA Scandinavia FinTech

Spicerhaart Technology

90 106

SeaDrill Energy

Ministry of Health - Israel Healthcare

PROFILE

EPSON:

MORE THAN JUST PRINTERS

The technology pioneer has just unveiled a new force-sensing robot to help reduce barriers to automation for manufacturers.

Business Review Europe reports from Epson’s Dusseldorf showroom Written by: Tom Wadlow

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PROFILE IT MAY COME as a surprise to discover that Epson has been making robots for more than 30 years.

The renowned printing specialist has, even by its own admission, marketed this area of expertise far too well.

Ask a consumer what Epson makes,

chances are they will reply printers.

True, printing and inkjet innovation are still crucial, game changing projects for Epson. However, the company is heavily invested in many technological fields from visual communication and wearables to virtual reality and robotics.

“I kn is a perce are printing far too good printing i

– Rob Clark, Senior V and Managin 8

August 2016

EPSON: MORE THAN JUST PRINTERS

The latter was the focus of attention at a conference held at Epson’s Dusseldorf offices and innovation centre, showcased as a one of the four key pillars of innovation for the company.

now there eption that we g experts – we did d a job marketing in that respect”

Vice President of Epson Europe ng Director of Epson UK

Feel the force On display were robots armed with new force-sensing characteristics.

Employing Epson’s proprietary piezoelectric quartz sensing technology, the new S250 series force sensors are durable and sensitive, allowing them to accurately and consistently sense minimal amounts of force in six directions.

Rob Clark, Senior Vice President of Epson Europe and Managing Director of Epson UK, explains: “Essentially this is a step towards making the robot act more like a human. It is able to sense and understand how to pick up and place items into very difficult situations.

The robot must apply movement and pressure in order to place objects in the right place, it learns its environment.”

What this allows is for less complex, less accurate robots to become more accurate by learning on the job, greatly assisting manufacturers which may not possess the most advanced automation capabilities.

It also enables robots to assemble and move parts made to less precise specifications by getting them to fit into spaces as any human would.

All of this is part of a wider ambition to introduce dual arm 9

PROFILE

robots to the assembly line.

“Imagine moving three bricks with the middle brick held by the force of two either side of it,” says Dirk Folkens, Factory Automation Sales Manager for Epson Deutschland.

“You don’t want the middle brick to fall onto the floor, so this is why a dual arm robot needs a force sensor for both arms to work together.

“This is a core development for the dual arm robot, which will bring future technologies into today’s robot. Combine this with 3D printing the components the robots assemble, and automation could play an even bigger part in the whole manufacturing process.”

Economy and ecology The potential economic savings this could bring are obvious, with robots taking over from even more repetitive and mundane assembly tasks.

However, a trend both Folkens and Clark have noticed is that companies in Europe are becoming increasingly conscious of their ecological output.

Clark says: “Ecology is something we have a strong focus on, a message

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that resonates particularly strongly in Germany. Companies are looking to the likes of Epson to provide technologies and solutions that are in tune with the environment. Ecological IT is growing all the time, and the priority of eco versus cost is going up. One day cost and ecology will have an equal billing.”

“We have more customers who are taking care of their total cost of ownership, which includes the power consumption of a robot over its lifetime as well as its environmental footprint,” Folkens adds. “Our robots don’t need 380 volts – the power consumption is extremely low across our range of products, not just robots.”

Epson’s main focus in Europe centres on France, the UK and Germany, the latter a particularly strong market due to its enormous automotive sector. “If you compare the UK to the rest of Europe it is actually a little bit behind in terms of robots per 10,000 workers,” Folkens comments. “The country with the highest density is Japan, but Germany is not far off.”

Beyond printers For decades Epson has been an

EPSON: MORE THAN JUST PRINTERS

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PROFILE

undisputed force in the printing industry, but Clark is keen to emphasise the company’s wider expertise and the unveiling of the forcesensing technology demonstrates its pioneering capacity beyond printing.

“We’ve been number one in the market for projectors for the last 15 years,” he says. “I know there is a perception that we are printing experts

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“Essen this is a ste making the ro like a human sense and unde pick up and pl very difficult

– we did far too good a – Rob Clark, Senio job marketing Epson Europe a printing in that Director of respect. We’ve been selling robots for over 30 years and produced the robots in the first place because we needed them to produce watches for the Seiko brand – at the time there weren’t any

ntially ep towards obot act more n. It is able to erstand how to lace items into t situations”

EPSON: MORE THAN JUST PRINTERS

robots precise enough so we or Vice President of built our own.” and Managing Folkens adds: “In f Epson UK the four-axis SCARA robot space we have a 37 percent market share and are by far the number one producers. We are now in the six-axis robot space and trying to do as much as we can there too.”

Given the robotics market is far more B2B sales-driven than the marketing-driven printing sector, it is easy to see how Epson robots have gone somewhat under the radar with everyday consumers. That said, people have a fascination for robots.

“We put a robot into Media Mart in Dusseldorf to show consumers how it fills ink tanks for our Ecotank printers, and what it certainly did was attract people because everybody loves robots,” Clark explains. “However, did it help sell more Ecotanks?

Possibly. Did it sell us any more robots? No it didn’t. We can do the marketing but it’s not what makes the sale.”

Robotics investment is far more sensibly channelled into research and development. A massive $1.3 million is spent by Epson every day on R&D across the four pillars of innovation, allowing it to file 5,000 patents a year.

“They are what allows us to move from one generation onto the next,” Clark says. “I’m sure 10 years ago they didn’t imagine we’d be launching the force sensor today.”

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TECHNOLOGY

SEAMLESS A

TECHNOLOGY AND CU Nicholas Mobbs of PwC talks to Business automation can help companies big and

Written by: To

AUTOMATION

USTOMER EXPERIENCE Review Europe about how investment in small deliver improved customer service

om Wadlow

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TECHNOLOGY

“WHAT DO WE really mean by customer experience?” says Nicholas Mobbs, partner at PwC. The question emphasises the ever-widening scope of interaction that business now undergoes with customers, both in B2C and B2B environments. SMS, live web chat, social media and video have joined the more traditional methods of email and call centre communication between company and customer. Indeed, the call centre is now very much the omni-channel contact centre.

“What we try and do is govern and influence every single interaction between a company and their customers and make sure the touch points are positive,” Mobbs continues. “These are multiplying at such a massive rate and it’s possible to drown them with too much information.”

The need for effective automation of communication processes is thus clear, although the drive for efficiency needs to be delivered without losing the personal, human touch that many consumers value.

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August 2016

“You have to record where touch points happen, how customers are helped or not helped, and how they react to different interactions,” Mobbs adds. “The more data you can capture the more targeted you can be and the better you can provide services positively. It’s not possible to manage all of the channels in a manual way so automation is crucial, and this is where technology comes in.”

TECHNOLOGY AND CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE

PwC Ten years ago Mobbs co-founded Outbox Group, now an independent entity within PwC, specialising in the implementation of Customer Relationship Management systems such as Salesforce. The initial, and still important benefit of such systems was the enabling of effective management of calls by routing to the best-placed agent or providing automated

responses where appropriate.

What customer engagement technology allows front office contact centre agents to do now is interact with customers via social media, phone, email, SMS, live chat and more, synching and presenting data on previous interactions, making them as well as equipped as possible to deal with a particular enquiry.

The benefits are obvious.

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Customers’ multichannel enquiries can be automatically routed to staff with the appropriate skillset (e.g. departmental, language) and most likely to provide an effective, positive response.

Outbox Group, working within PwC is an independent entity existing as a centre of excellence across the EMEA region for the professional services giant. “We are really pushing to become a leader in the front office technologies, because that is where there is the most change and innovation within companies,” Mobbs continues.

“The B2B providers are now trying to become B2C providers and B2C are trying to move into B2B and wholesale markets, meaning there is huge change that is forcing them to rework the whole way they support and run their customer-facing functions.”

In the cloud The most significant development in the customer experience technology space has been the migration to the cloud. Rather than

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provide an on premise piece of hardware which requires heavy up-front and maintenance/renewal costs, a cloud host can significantly reduce barriers to entry.

Mobbs explains: “One of the biggest changes over the past 12-18 months has been this acceptance that cloud technology is in the front office.

Cloud is now standard. If you look Salesforce it has really led the way and Microsoft is very resistant to selling their traditional on premise solutions – everything is Microsoft cloud.”

“You’re only paying for something when you actually need it, whereas previously you had massive upfront investment before the project had even taken off. Cloud is on demand, you pay for the capacity you use. This means the barrier to entry for small businesses is much, much lower because the need for in house IT expertise is vastly reduced. The technology is hosted and developed externally on the cloud by specialist providers.”

In an age of mass data sharing, security is a natural concern for

Case study: GB Group • GB Group is an identity management company that turned over £57 million in 2015 providing services in building relationships, managing risk and compliance and combating fraud.

• The firm used several different systems supporting different functions which resulted in sales staff having to perform a lot of data work manually.

Watch the video to see how adopting customer engagement technology transformed its operations: www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q3fqI5NfG9k

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TECHNOLOGY

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TECHNOLOGY AND CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE

businesses looking to swap on premise for cloud. Industry standards are extremely thorough and rigorous, with countless certifications required to yield customer data and payment information.

“There has been lots of discussion on privacy and security but over the past two or three years the resistance to cloud has been markedly reduced,” Mobbs says. “The problem for those still sceptical is that there isn’t really a viable alternative now.”

Leap of faith?

Research by the Confederation of British Industry (CBI) shows that while 73 percent see improved customer service as the biggest benefit of developing digital technology, a number of factors are cited as holding business back. The main factors include connectivity, an unclear return on investment and a lack of appropriate skills inside their company. Exploiting the cloud can certainly counter the latter.

Outbox and PwC have already helped the likes of Sky, CBRE, Swiss

RE and many SMBs enhance their customer experience operations through technology, all them with unique propositions and hurdles that have been overcome.

Mobbs’s conclusion is that, ultimately, the risk of technological change is vastly outweighed by not adapting at all. And now is a better time than ever before to make the leap. “The rate of change is constant and relentless and business enterprise software will have to keep pace. Everything eventually will be carried out on mobile or on the go. Applications will become richer and richer.

“It is a challenging time and some people are scared of change, and some of the bigger companies have lots of existing investments they need to write off over the coming years, so change for them is extremely demanding. However, most people use Google and Facebook on smartphones today, so if we can make applications that feel familiar adoption will be much easier – 10 years ago this simply wasn’t the case.”

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LIST

12 questions for BMC on the 4th industrial revolutio Business Review Europe speaks to Christophe Bodin and Elodie Dowling on the respective strategic and legal implications presented by Industry 4.0 Written by: Tom Wadlow

on 23

LIST

The Strategist

Christophe Bodin Senior Vice President, Worldwide ESO Field Operations & Strategy BRE: What would you define as the 4th Industrial Revolution? When did it begin and when will it end or pass into the ‘5th Industrial Revolution’?

CB: The Fourth Industrial Revolution encompasses so much more than

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just digitisation of the economy. New innovations are shaping the very fabric of society, and how humans and businesses interact with each other. It is the convergence of nanotechnology, human life research, mobile technology, self- driving cars and robotics (to name but a few things) that are creating new paradigms yet to be truly defined.

It is hard to define exactly when the Fourth Industrial Revolution began, and there will be varying accounts and definitions. However, I would suggest it started post the financial crisis in 2008 with the apparition of a renewed digital economy. Uber for example, hit the scene in 2009, opening up a whole host of new ideas and possibilities for a more flexible, appbased society. An interesting pattern to note is that each previous industrial revolution started with innovation.

Take the first industrial revolution, for example, with the advent of the

THE 4TH INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION

“An interesting pattern to note is that each previous industrial revolution started with innovation. Take the first industrial revolution, for example, with the advent of the steam engine or the third industrial revolution with the introduction of the PC�

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LIST

steam engine or the third industrial revolution with the introduction of the PC. Predicting what the Fifth Industrial Revolution will be compromised by is challenging, but we expect to see further advancements in technology, robotics and big data.

How can businesses adapt to such a rapid speed of change?

What are the consequences of not making the most of data?

Constellation Research established that more than 50 percent of Fortune 500 companies in 2000 did not make it to the list in 2015, as we were transitioning between industrial revolutions. This is certainly a good indicator of what will happen to businesses who can’t adapt fast enough. Businesses can only be successful by making real changes to remain competitive in the Fourth Industrial Revolution.

Interestingly, possessing data used to be the key to success. Today, however, almost any data is available to anyone at any time. What is integral now is how it is used and harnessed

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THE 4TH INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION

for actionable insights. In an emerging revolution, businesses can only be successful when they focus on innovation based on what they are learning real-time vs. what they learnt from past successes and failures.

How is BMC helping businesses adjust and take advantage of the 4th Industrial Revolution?

In short, BMC offers BMC Digital Enterprise Management which is a set of innovative IT solutions designed to make digital business fast, seamless, and optimised from mainframe to mobile, to cloud and further.

What BMC offers is a set of unique solutions enabling the ‘Digital Age Enterprise’. What you need to become that agile, innovative, entrepreneurial new enterprise, regardless of your size, is a comprehensive solution set which ensures you can deploy digital services faster and reliably while at the same time optimising your existing and new infrastructure.

What advice do you have for businesses following

Safe Harbour and the new EU-US Privacy Shield?

First and foremost, take it as what it is - a very serious issue that can both enable and hinder your digital transformation. As the issue of global data exchange continues to dominate the press and legislative agenda, businesses should look to hire a data privacy officer (DPO) alongside a chief security officer (CSO) to oversee control, compliance and to most importantly, help to enable a complete digital transformation.

Do you believe businesses that harness data have a responsibility to educate their customers on how their data is being used and what it means?

I believe so. In the vast majority of the cases, businesses use data to be more relevant to their customers and to be more successful. By educating and explaining how customer or consumer data is used, businesses will ultimately develop a stronger, longer term relationships with customers for years to come.

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LIST

The Legal Expert

“The speed at which technology is moving, together with the legislation to be ratified, is making relying on existing legislatio

Elodie Dowling Corporate VP, EMEA General Counsel BRE: What legal and compliance challenges has the so-called 4th Industrial Revolution presented to businesses (large and small)?

ED: The 4th Industrial Revolution is presenting many legal and compliance-related challenges to businesses, especially around data privacy, environmental matters and

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modern slavery just to name a few.

The speed at which technology is moving, together with the time it takes for legislation to be ratified, is making relying on existing legislation very challenging. By the time legislation comes into effect, it is very often out-dated.

Moreover, businesses are nowadays being exposed to a highly demanding environment, where beyond responsibility, the expectation is now to think ahead of legal requirements which may become outdated quickly, to put in place the ‘best in class’ policies, practices and procedures to run your business.

What lessons can be learned from Safe Harbour and the new EU-US Privacy Shield?

Just how much of a big legal

THE 4TH INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION

e time it takes for on very challenging” issue is data privacy today?

There are many lessons to be learned from Safe Harbour and the new EU-US Privacy Shield.

The fundamental cultural differences related to the kind of data considered protection-worthy in each continent is one of them. In the EU it includes all personal data including sensitive data, whilst in the US it is mostly only sensitive data.

The invalidation of Safe Harbour and challenges on Privacy Shield have also shown us that only a political agreement on the matter will allow both continents to cross the bridge on this debate.

This implies a change in national legislation from the US-side, getting closer to the EU approach and as a result starting to reflect some of the underlying EU values.

Considering the volume of data

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E U RLO I S2T0 1 6

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THE 4TH INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION

being exchanged between the EU and the US on a regular basis, which is the highest in the world, not having a satisfactory agreement in place is bringing a lot of uncertainty to businesses, and this is never a good thing.

This is likely to impact US businesses even more heavily than EU ones, given that in the past they were able to rely on a simple vehicle (Safe Harbour) to be compliant with data privacy law and this is no longer an available option.

In the meantime, alternative vehicles businesses can use to stay compliant are EU Model Clauses and Binding Corporate Rules. However, these rules are much more cumbersome and as a result not all companies are able to comply with them. This can easily translate into businesses being unable to pursue their business objectives with Europe unless they significantly upgrade their organisational and security measures around data handling.Â

How are you helping businesses to be compliant in the aftermath of Safe Harbour?

BMC is helping businesses stay compliant by deploying its Binding Corporate Rules (Controller and Processor). These allow customers to rely partially on BMC’s own compliance with data privacy to meet some of their own data obligations as a company. In addition, BMC is helping by integrating the concept of Privacy by Design in its products and service offering.

Should companies go further than legal compliance regarding educating customers to fully understand how their data is used and what this might mean?

Customers are the ones with primary obligations regarding data privacy issues and as such, they should ensure that they are aware of their legal obligations themselves.

It remains for each company to decide how much they want to/ need to train their employees with regards to data privacy issues.

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TECHNOLOGY

NETFLIX AND UBER: GETTING BIG DATA RIGHT Business Review Europe looks at how Netflix and Uber maximise their use of big data to deliver industry-leading solutions to their customers Written by Bernard Marr

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WHETHER WE ARE aware of it or not, we are currently witnessing history being made. Big data is a movement that has the power and the potential to completely transform every aspect of business and society.

From the way we go about our daily lives to the way we treat cancer and protect our society from threats, big data will transform every industry, every aspect of our lives. We can say this with authority because it is already happening.

Some believe big data is a fad, but they could not be more wrong.

The hype will fade, and even the name may disappear, but the implications will resonate and the phenomenon will only gather momentum. What we currently call big data today will simply be the norm in just a few years’ time.

Big data refers generally to the collection and utilisation of large or diverse volumes of data. In my work as a consultant, I work every day with companies and government organisations on big data projects that allow them to collect, store, and

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analyse the ever-increasing volumes of data to help improve what they do.

In the course of that work, I’ve seen many companies doing things wrong — and a few getting big data very right, including Netflix and Uber.

Netflix: Changing the way we watch TV and movies The streaming movie and TV service Netflix are said to account for one-third of peak-time Internet traffic in the US, and the service now have 65 million members in over 50 countries enjoying more than 100 million hours of TV shows and movies a day. Data from these millions of subscribers is collected and monitored in an attempt to understand our viewing habits. But Netflix’s data isn’t just “big” in the literal sense. It is the combination of this data with cutting-edge analytical techniques that makes Netflix a true Big Data company.

Although Big Data is used across every aspect of the Netflix business, their holy grail has always been to predict what

N E T F L I X A N D U B E R : G E T T I N G B I G D ATA R I G H T

‘Although Big Data is used across every aspect of the Netflix business, their holy grail has always been to predict what customers will enjoy watching’

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‘Uber stores and monitors data on every journey their users take, and use it to determine demand, allocate resources and set fares’

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N E T F L I X A N D U B E R : G E T T I N G B I G D ATA R I G H T

customers will enjoy watching. Big Data analytics is the fuel that fires the “recommendation engines” designed to serve this purpose.

At first, analysts were limited by the lack of information they had on their customers. As soon as streaming became the primary delivery method, many new data points on their customers became accessible. This new data enabled Netflix to build models to predict the perfect storm situation of customers consistently being served with movies they would enjoy.

Happy customers, after all, are far more likely to continue their subscriptions.

Another central element to Netflix’s attempt to give us films we will enjoy is tagging. The company pay people to watch movies and then tag them with elements the movies contain.

They will then suggest you watch other productions that were tagged similarly to those you enjoyed.

Netflix’s letter to shareholders in April 2015 shows their Big Data strategy was paying off. They added

4.9 million new subscribers in Q1 2015, compared to four million in the same period in 2014. In Q1 2015 alone, Netflix members streamed 10 billion hours of content. If Netflix’s Big Data strategy continues to evolve, that number is set to increase.

Uber: Disrupting car services in the sharing economy Uber is a smartphone app-based taxi booking service which connects users who need to get somewhere with drivers willing to give them a ride.

Uber’s entire business model is based on the very Big Data principle of crowdsourcing: anyone with a car who is willing to help someone get to where they want to go can offer to help get them there. This gives greater choice for those who live in areas where there is little public transport, and helps to cut the number of cars on our busy streets by pooling journeys.

Uber stores and monitors data on every journey their users take, and use it to determine demand, allocate resources and set fares. The company

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TECHNOLOGY

also carry out in-depth analysis of public transport networks in the cities they serve, so they can focus coverage in poorly served areas and provide links to buses and trains.

Uber holds a vast database of drivers in all of the cities they cover, so when a passenger asks for a ride, they can instantly match you with the most suitable drivers. The company have developed algorithms to monitor traffic conditions and journey times in real time, meaning prices can be adjusted as demand for rides changes, and traffic conditions mean journeys are likely to take longer. This encourages more drivers to get behind the wheel when they are needed – and stay at home when demand is low.

The company have applied for a patent on this method of Big Data-informed pricing, which they call “surge pricing”. This is an implementation of “dynamic pricing” – similar to that used by hotel chains and airlines to adjust price to meet demand – although rather than simply increasing prices

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at weekends or during public holidays it uses predictive modelling to estimate demand in real time.

Data also drives (pardon the pun) the company’s UberPool service. According to Uber’s blog, introducing this service became a no-brainer when their data told them the “vast majority of [Uber trips in New York] have a look-alike trip – a trip that starts near, ends near and is happening around the same time as another trip”.

Other initiatives either trialled or due to launch in the future include UberChopper, offering helicopter rides to the wealthy, Uber-Fresh for grocery deliveries and Uber Rush, a package courier service.

These are just two companies using Big Data to generate a very real advantage and disrupt their markets in incredible ways. I’ve compiled dozens more examples of Big Data in practice in my new book of the same name, in the hope that it will inspire and motivate more companies to similarly innovate and take their fields into the future.

N E T F L I X A N D U B E R : G E T T I N G B I G D ATA R I G H T

About the author This article is written by Bernard Marr, author of Big Data in Practice: How 45 Successful Companies Used Big Data Analytics to Deliver Extraordinary Results.

Bernard Marr is a leading global authority on big data in business and best-selling author on organisational performance and business success.

He regularly advises leading companies, organisations and governments across the globe, making him an acclaimed and award-winning keynote speaker, researcher, consultant and teacher. He is acknowledged by the CEO Journal as one of today’s leading business brains. Bernard has written a number of seminal books and over 200 high profile reports and articles on managing organisational performance.

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Banking on a bright future Written by Nell Walker Produced by George Tweed

Paul Johnson Aldermore’s Chief Information Officer

ALDERMORE BANK

Paul Johnson, CIO of Aldermore Bank, explains how the company has become one of Europe’s leading alternative banks, and how technology will continue to change the industry

W

hile ordinarily it would be rare at best to praise a bank for its customer-focussed personal touch, Aldermore stands out as a trusted champion of the small-and-medium enterprise.

The business began in 2009, led by CEO Phillip Monks, and supported by AnaCap Financial Partners. It provides its products and solutions to consumers as well as SMEs, including asset finance, invoice finance, commercial,

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FINANCE

residential mortgages and savings, predominately online and via its network of regional offices. This diverse selection is a breath of fresh air amongst a sea of incumbent banks, ensuring Aldermore’s status as a leading alternative.

Business Review Europe met with Paul Johnson, Chief Information Officer of Aldermore Bank, at the company’s London offices to discuss its operations and how it maintains such a positive reputation.

“As CIO, my responsibilities revolve around ensuring the technology systems that we have are sustainable, reliable, ensuring all customer data is secure and used in the right way, that we’re regulatory compliant in those areas, deliver innovation, and provide the company with more product capabilities for the customer,” Johnson says of his role at Aldermore.

He began in the Royal Navy as an electronics and computer engineer, which aided in developing

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ALDERMORE BANK

his leadership skills, before undertaking various technology jobs, leading to more project and customer-focussed roles.

“I joined GMAC, an auto finances company, as their CIO for Europe,” Johnson explains. “I moved to Lloyds Banking Group where I held two senior IT roles; however, after several years in large established organisations, I wanted a change – to build and develop something sustainable and exciting, which led to me moving to Aldermore Bank. I took the opportunity to help grow a new bank, which I couldn’t resist.”

Customer service As a bank without any branches, most of Aldermore’s business

Gemma Donnelly Aldermore Mortgage Advisor

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is conducted online, through intermediators or directly to the customer. This makes technology fundamental to everything the company does, especially regarding the interface itself and the back-end security required.

Intermediaries drive a lot of Aldermore’s mortgage products and asset finance products, making relationships with them significant.

“What’s key is the relationship

FINANCE

between Aldermore and the broker, and the broker and the customer,” says Johnson. “Once the product is originated, the relationship shifts to one that’s between the customer and us. We need to have great information going into the marketplace to show the benefits of doing business with Aldermore, and what people can expect from us.

“The fact that we don’t have any branches does mean that the channels to the customer are pretty broad – either via a basic SMS type of messenger, through electronic medium, internet channels, or mobile apps.”

Aldermore’s ongoing focus on the customer and their needs means flexibility and a dynamic approach as customers’ needs change over time.

“It wasn’t long ago that we spoke about digital marketing, which was pretty much an origination of a first point of contact interface,” Johnson explains. “Now, the customer wants their whole lifetime managed through the digital experience where they can self-manage and self-serve.”

When asked what makes the company stand out, Johnson hands the issue over to the point of view of Aldermore’s customers, stating that “other people decide why we’re different and tell us in the reviews they leave us”. The key, he says, is transparency to the customer, ensuring that what they see is what they get, and that

2009

The year that Aldermore Bank was founded

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How Aldermore put security at the centre of their hosted services with ServerChoice.

A long-term, trusted partner, ServerChoice provide Aldermore’s primary data centre hosting, with full replication of their environment at our secondary data centre.

In addition, we manage the connectivity between each site and secure Aldermore’s internet connectivity through the use of our advanced Intrusion Prevention Systems and DDoS Mitigation service.

As secure hosting specialists, ServerChoice added even more value and reassurance to Aldermore through our additional cyber security services. Aldermore now benefit from a complete monitoring solution for all their key internal and external infrastructure.

This is delivered through ServerChoice’s custom-built SIEM software, which is monitored 24/7 from our very own Security Operations Centre in the UK.

ULTRA-SECURE COLOCATION Our world-class data centres provide incredible uptime.

SECURITY INFORMATION AND EVENT MANAGEMENT (SIEM) Real-time threat visibility, powered by our 24x7x365 Security Operations Centre.

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DDOS MITIGATION Sophisticated protection filters out the bad traffic and prioritises the good, meaning your systems stay online in the event of a DDoS attack.

“As well as their reliable data centres, ServerChoice also give us peace of mind when it comes to our cyber security.

Their 24/7 Security Operations Centre and threat monitoring services are a key element in keeping us safe.”

Paul Johnson, Chief Information Officer, Aldermore Bank Plc

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ALDERMORE BANK

the rules won’t change later on.

“We let them know everything well in advance, and they can decide if it’s appropriate for them,” he explains. “We are very customer-focussed. Lots of companies say that, but as a relatively new organisation, our development is really concentrated on that direct channel, our relationships, communication into the marketplace, and making sure that what we

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promote all those benefits.

Aldermore has an entirely open ratings and review system where any customer can leave feedback.

If a bad service is given, it will be on Aldermore’s website for all to see, and this feature drives a great deal of engagement: “Transparency equals trust. If we’re transparent, they can trust us – and vice versa.”

Supplier relationships Alongside relationships with

FINANCE

customers, Aldermore’s relationships with suppliers are just as essential to its success.

“We can plan strategically what we want for the future, and the closer suppliers can get to companies like Aldermore Bank, the more they understand the customer,” says Johnson.

Aldermore chose a handful of key suppliers to build its capability through: “We haven’t got the legacy of lots of people working within the IT area of Aldermore, and therefore some of the skills that may have been relevant five, 10, or 15 years ago are less relevant now,” Johnson says.

“Where we’ve got specific intellectual property, we use trusted partners to help us develop that capability. Those might be

“We need to have great information going into the marketplace to show the benefits of doing business with Aldermore, and what people can expect from us” – Paul Johnson, Chief Information Officer of Aldermore Bank

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FINANCE

short-term, because we want to build some of that intellectual property and capability in-house, but only at the right point in time.

Most of our relationships are quite flexible, and very collaborative.”

Business development While Aldermore’s revenues and profits enjoyed a sizeable leap last year, Johnson states that this

growth has been entirely organic based upon a continued focus on what the company does best.

What has driven the company’s growth thus far is simply customers learning more about the company, which by its very nature increases levels of interest, spurring the company to ensure its products are fit for purpose.

“Our really impressive increase

David Ray Aldermore Business Development Manager

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FINANCE

in revenue and profitability has been due to continued focus on the customer,” explains Johnson. “We listen to them through the ratings and review process, which allows them to come back to us and tell us exactly what they do and don’t like. As we review that process we can ensure that what we’re providing is what they expect, and the overall brand becomes more and more known within the marketplace.”

As a mostly-digital business, any continuous improvement in the CIO and digital arena reflects directly upon that of the business in general: “There’s no point in us building something which is totally separate from the company’s behaviours and vision,” he says.

2015 The year that Aldermore Bank started trading on the London Stock Exchange

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ALDERMORE BANK

ALDERMORE’S PARTNERS Aldermore’s partners are extremely important to the business; Johnson explains who and why the relationships are so strong.

Cassiopae – “Our relationship with Cassiopae is much more about supporting the asset finance business, and helping us through the re-digitisation of the asset finance facility to enable improved customer engagement and customer experience.”

Six Degrees Group – “They’re a very engaged supplier, working closely with us to try and improve the performance and reliability of our networks and our internet access. They pretty much keep the ship afloat, making sure we maintain our ability to have internally effective operations.”

DPR Consulting – “They’ve really worked with us over the years to provide additional functionality and ability to deliver new products to our customer base, to continue to grow our mortgage book, they support us on including new product ranges, property development loans, and continue to work with us on our portfolio and expanding our product offerings.”

Newcastle Strategic Solutions (Part of Newcastle Building Society) – “This is a whole service and a trusted partner providing reliable savings products for our customers. They’re a market leader. They do the call centres, the business process elements, and they provide the technology provision itself. “

stuck in any one process and that helps us evolve our proposition and work with them on our evolution.

They are very responsive to issues we may have, and help us meet regulatory data requirements.”

NetSol Technologies - “NetSol is much more back office. They work very well with us; we have a strong relationship with them in developing capability and products within the asset finance arena. They are willing to come to us with ideas and work with us on how best to improve operational efficiency and bringing products to market quickly.”

Server Choice – “They are the ‘steady eddy’ guys.

They provide really reliable data centre capabilities for us, as well as monitoring for our infrastructure, and have worked with us to help us grow the organisation over the past five-to-six years.”

Rackspace – “This relationship is really strategic. We’re collaborating with them directly to identify new hosting opportunities, efficiencies in provisions, how we provide our infrastructure, and working closely on how we maintain and continuously review our security framework.”

Elite Telecom – “A lot of focus has been on building a proactive relationship to investigate increased opportunities to develop and deliver ITC Infotech – “ITC is a very flexible organisation. internal and external telephony facilities, and They are willing to work collaboratively and flex with work with us a lot on how we improve the a business to try and get the right results. They aren’t reliability and service to our customers.”

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FINANCE

“Transparency equals trust. If we’re transparent, they can trust us – and vice versa” – Paul Johnson

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Software to power a new generation of finance

Cassiopae, a Sopra Banking Software company, is a global leader in finance and asset management software, with 500 customer sites on 5 continents.

info@cassiopae.com www.cassiopae.com

NetSol Technologies - Partners with Aldermore Bank since 2009

www.netsoltech.com

FINANCE

Richard Taylor Aldermore’s Head of Products, Savings

Any improvement revolves around the concepts of: speed of service, quality of service, the breadth of product offered to the customer, ensuring the customer feels their data is secure, and that when they are engaging with Aldermore, there won’t be any issues regarding their personal information.

“Within the CIO realm, what does that mean? It means that we review

the technology continuously. It means we ensure that the reliability of the systems is continuously improving, the performance is continuously improving, and with some of our partners we negotiate a deal whereby as demand grows, the capability grows, and if it drops off in any area, the actual facility drops again so our cost profile goes back down. How

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ALDERMORE BANK

Alive with technology We are the UK’s leading mid-market converged technology provider, delivering business efficiency, productivity, value and people empowerment.

We ensure all our customers stay connected in an always-on world.

For more information please ring 020 7858 4935 or email connect@6dg.co.uk

www.6dg.co.uk

Six Degrees Group

cost relates to our original issues and our growth; that’s how we maintain flexibility and help the company keep reinventing itself.”

Whilst planning for the future in a technological sector is difficult – potentially treacherous, even – Aldermore Bank has a vision for the future to become a onestop shop where customers can acquire the services they need with just a click. How will it achieve that? By moving increasingly into a cloud-based infrastructure.

“I definitely see, as the world becomes more digitised, that technology will move into an on-demand type of model,” Johnson concludes. “That brings up some challenges, but it’s definitely the way things are going.

It would be foolhardy not to take advantage of some of the services offered by our partnerships. I think it’s fair to say that in the future, there will be very few services that companies have on-site; we’ll move more and more into the cloud.”

FINANCE

Number of staff working for Aldermore Bank

875

Jacques Alard Aldermore Relationship Manager w w w. a l d e r m o re . c o . u k

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RSA Scandina takes he

avia eart Written by John O’Hanlon Produced by George Tweed

RSA SCANDINAVIA

An insurance company with its roots in the 18th century is looking to social media and online retail as a model for how it interacts with its 21st century customers, while acknowledging that getting the basics right first is essential

W

hen RSA, the former Royal & Sun Alliance, restructured its global business in 2014 it had grown into something of a behemoth business with tentacles reaching all over the world. As the global financial crisis hit, the less profitable businesses became a brake on the more dynamic parts, so it was decided, under its new CEO Stephen Hester, to dispose of the businesses in emerging eastern European, Far East and Latin American countries and refocus the group on the profitable and dynamic UK, Scandinavia and Canada markets. It was an effective strategy, resulting in 473 percent growth in underwriting profit in 2015, and 221 percent growth in profits after tax.

Results of this sort couldn’t be achieved by corporate restructuring alone: the business needed to be transformed from within. Each of

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the three regional businesses has tailored its transformation to the perceived needs of its customers.

RSA Scandinavia embraces the Codan and Trygg Hansa brands that are among the top three insurers in Denmark and Norway, and Sweden respectively. The businesses in these countries have been under the leadership of Patrick Bergander since he was appointed CEO in June 2014, reporting direct to the group CEO Stephen Hester. Some six months later another key appointment, that of CIO, was filled by Pedro de Freitas, who has been with the RSA group for more than 20 years, and to whom fell a major part of the technology transformation of the business in Scandinavia that changed it from a traditional provider of insurance cover to a company that can fulfil the expectations of the generation that came of age at turn of the millennium.

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Accelerating Digital

Transformation RSA Scandinavia Speeding Digital Transformation with OutSystems Low-code Development Platform Speed. It’s at the heart of how organizations today must compete and delight their customers. From new mobile experiences to streamlined selfservice processes, the era of the “always connected customer” has fueled the necessity for accelerated and agile IT solutions that can innovate at the speed of business.

One company that has taken a leadership role in this kind of customer-captivating digital transformation is RSA Scandinavia. Along with other progressive enterprises, RSA has tackled digital transformation head on with speed and agility by using a low-code platform.

New business models are forcing companies to make disruptive changes in the way they interact with customers

by launching apps such as mobile claims processing or agent portals, for example.

But radical changes on the front-end require changes to internal processes that can no longer be done simply in increments. Tweaking legacy systems works for a little while, but in the end, tools are needed that can enable true digital transformation. Lowcode platforms can be key to addressing this problem.

The OutSystems lowcode platform offers visual development capabilities for creating enterprise-grade applications - applications that not only have exciting new UIs but also integrate existing systems. OutSystems Platform can be used both on the front-end and the back-

end, delivering an end-to-end digital transformation solution.

Innovative companies, like RSA Scandinavia, are adopting OutSystems Platform because it gives them the freedom to build complex enterprise apps with a minimum of hand-coding and a lot less effort. They have integrated and extended existing systems and created engaging experiences that help them manage multiple business processes and support thousands of users.

With OutSystems, you too can deliver engaging user experiences via mobile devices, portals and other channels—fast. You’ll also be rapidly modernizing processes and delighting customers in no time.

Learn more at - outsyste.ms/Digital_transformation

RSA SCANDINAVIA

Heart surgery The first weekend of July this year

was an epic one for the IT team, says de Freitas. It saw the switch off of the old CSC infrastructure platform and its replacement by Wipro under a seven-year deal with the Indian company to manage all of RSA’s data centres, cloud, and end-user services, plus a multi-lingual service desk for Scandinavia, based in Poland. “It’s like a heart transplant operation throughout which the blood flow has to be maintained,” he says. “We are now in hypercare mode, scrutinising every little issue in case it’s a sign of rejection. The weekend switch-over was a massive achievement, the culmination of six months preparation, but I’m glad to say it went really well.”

This was the most fundamental step of many migrations and implementations that go to make up RSA Scandinavia’s transformation programme. The Wipro deal is part of a company-wide review of its legacy IT infrastructure accumulated through decades of mergers

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and acquisition, however the Scandinavian business has mapped its own modernisation route based on the needs of its customers. “We invested in a new datacentre and new supplier but we have to move all the furniture,” he explains. “This is a massive change programme, because so many things are still being done in the old way. We have to get it right – we want it to be future proof because we don’t want to have to do it again.” The Wipro partnership with RSA Scandinavia is critical, he adds. The entire RSA mainframe stack has been migrated, and midrange systems are being migrated, together with all end-user computing, by the end of September. The service desk will follow by end of 2016.

There are several drivers for change, including the need to grasp the saving IT can offer in terms of greater efficiency, greater productivity and cost reduction.

However Pedro de Freitas identifies the key driver as the customers themselves. “Why are we doing

TECHNOLOGY

With over three decades of experience TCS has enabled insurers globally to transform their competitive positions, increase customer satisfaction and enhance their distribution channels.

TCS is the business transformation and innovation partner of choice for over a 100 insurers globally. We take great pride in our partnership with RSA Scandinavia and look forward to an exciting future together striving to achieve excellence.

RSA Scandinavia - TCS’ Partnership journey Over the last 8 years, TCS and RSA Scandinavia have collaborated on several successful initiatives, ranging from business transformation to assurance strategy definition.

TCS has leveraged its vast assurance service experience to enable process standardisation, leading in quality assurance for major transformation projects and pioneering the establishment of RSA Scandinavia’s Quality Assurance CoE. Aligned with RSA’s Sunsetting initiative, TCS is driving the legacy application decommissioning strategy by enabling the mainframe exit acceleration and providing a platform to decommission unused applications along with an enterprise data archival solution.

Knowledge and rich experience of RSA Scandinavia’s business processes and IT systems, is the cornerstone of TCS’ ability to deliver transformative value. A deep understanding is distilled from years of collaboration specifically on the legacy transformation programs where TCS delivered a “fit-for-future” modernized claims

platform (CLAN) that allows multi-channel, endto-end claims management for RSA’s Sweden business. We also transformed a Nordic level Front Office Sales application (NFOS) enabling effective inbound and outbound selling.

In the ongoing journey towards excellence, RSA Scandinavia has partnered with TCS to create a future ready foundation for RSA Scandinavia’s CRM transformation journey. The reference framework created is expected to define the contours of RSA Scandinavia’s customer engagement for the future. Furthermore TCS have been chosen as their Integration Partner, playing a key role in integrating the claims service platform with the policy administration system and building APIs that enable future proof integration solutions for B2B transactions.

Through these strategic initiatives, TCS continues to successfully merge its global expertise with the local experience, to ensure that RSA Scandinavia remains on the forefront of insurance service delivery in the Nordic region.

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RSA SCANDINAVIA

THE

COOLEST OF WAY DOING BUSINESS

At Deloitte Digital we do things a little different!

We’re not just a bunch of consultants with jeans. We provide tailored made digital solutions to our clients in the most innovative way. We don’t deliver just great work, we create experiences and deliver the coolest way of doing business.

Deloitte refers to one or more of Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu Limited, a UK private company limited by guarantee (“DTTL”), its network of member firms, and their related entities.

DTTL and each of its member firms are legally separate and independent entities. DTTL (also referred to as “Deloitte Global”) does not provide services to clients. Please see www. deloitte.com/pt/en/about for a more detailed description of DTTL and its member firms.

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© 2016. For information, contact Deloitte Consultores, S.A.

Get in touch www.deloittedigital.com

F i n Te c h

this? Just look at how customer behaviour is changing. The millennials are starting to think in terms of the technologies that define their lives – today it is mobile, and the rapid growth of IoT but they know that in five years there will be another transformation through nanotechnology, biotechnology, the rise of wearable technolgy and the concept of blockchain. If we are to stand and watch it happening and don’t do anything we will be dead. My pitch to our regional board was that we need to be transforming the core essentials of our infrastructure or we’d be building a house without foundations.”

People and attitudes A transplant is a change of heart in

more ways than one. IT is driving the change to a flexible workforce to match the flexibility we have noted in the market: the business is currently moving its calendar and e-mail systems to Microsoft Office 365, changing their working environment radically, and paving

the way for a great increase in bring-your-own-device (BYOD) approaches. “We’re fostering an any time, any place anyhow mindset that matches the expectations of the profile of the age groups we are seeing coming though our doors – whether they’re employees or customers.” Accordingly his team last year migrated from the old Lotus Notes platform to Outlook, boosting workplace engagement and productivity and facilitating the next step into Office 365.

Microsoft is also RSA’s technical partner on its CRM and general ledger replacement programmes.

Security is not compromised by cloud solutions, he assures. State of the art security is embedded in the chosen outsourced platforms, and in the margin based insurance business getting the right risk to reward balance is vital.

In 2012 he brought on board Danish company TIA technology to replace its 30 year old core insurance platform, which was no longer either flexible nor cost effective, taking up

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RSA SCANDINAVIA

Pedro de Freitas CIO

Pedro joined RSA Scandinavia Senior Executive Team in January 2015 following his appointment to CIO for RSA Scandinavia.

Previously IT&Change Director for RSA Scandinavia, Pedro has been in Sweden since 2006 and in RSA Group since 1998.

Since then Pedro has been responsible for a variety of leadership delivery roles within change and IT transformation in insurance. to 16 weeks to change a parameter due to lack of documentation and code in excess of a million lines. “Implemented across all Scandinavian business units it will allow us to get closer to our customer needs and create a good platform to grow our business. With TIA we have become much faster in the way we address and match market needs and expectations.” As an example, he says, creating a new rating factor for workers’ compensation now takes only hours as opposed to eight or nine weeks under the old system.

Serving the Now Generation The last example show how much

can be gained by doing things faster.

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Acceleration is the second key concept after that of transformation, and an enterprise application building platform was needed to deliver exceptional flexibility and usability – not to mention faster and lower cost development. For this, RSA Scandinavia chose a low-code, rapid application development platform from OutSystems to accelerate its digital transformation.

“It is our choice for the fastest and most comprehensive way to create, deploy and manage custom mobile and web applications,” says de Freitas. “All that is delivered seamlessly across all devices.”

And when it comes to developing current applications, Capgemini

TECHNOLOGY

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RSA SCANDINAVIA

Apptio and RSA: Engaging IT and the Business in Delivering RSA Scandinavia’s Transformation Apptio has been partnering with RSA on IT transformation for the past 3 years at a Group level, covering Scandinavia, UK and Canada. For the Scandinavian business, Apptio supports Pedro de Freitas, regional CIO, and Patricia Pereira, Technology Business Management (TBM) Director, in driving IT efficiency, acceleration and innovation objectives across three countries.

Outlining how RSA operates a shared services IT model across its regions, de Freitas says that the decision to partner with Apptio was made as a result of:

With cost transparency, business insights, benchmarking and planning applications, Apptio provides Pedro and his team with the facts, transparency and assurance around IT cost data. Apptio is used in the areas of infrastructure, application and licensing to drive operational management and efficiency. Apptio enables the team to have open and value-based discussions with the business, and helps prioritise competing investment decisions – something key in an environment where speed and resource agility are key to success.

As Patricia says: “Apptio is fantastic for managing the business of technology and essentially delivers transparency, efficiency and credibility by opening what was previously regarded as the black box of IT”.

For Pedro though, the key benefit of RSA Scandinavia’s partnership with Apptio is “the ability to foster the right discussions with the business, particularly regarding prioritisation and the value that a priority will take. Apptio and TBM helps bring IT and the business together which must be the holy grail of any CIO”.

About Apptio Apptio is the CIO’s business management system. We build advanced data and analytics applications that help all IT leaders understand and make informed decisions about their technology investments, capitalise on the cloud transformation and drive innovation within their organisations. We call it Technology Business Management.

Our applications help companies align technology spending to business outcomes and automate IT processes like cost transparency, benchmarking, chargeback and planning. Hundreds of customers, including more than 40 percent of the Fortune 100, choose Apptio as their business system of record for IT. For more information, please visit www.apptio.com

The user experience of the application - not only for IT but at a business and executive summary level – and the efficiency it drives The fact that Apptio uses a common taxonomy and naming convention.

Having a standard model for measuring and communicating IT costs across the Group means that everyone – in any location, and in IT or on the business side – speaks the same language when discussing IT costs Apptio’s appreciation and support of a change mindset was important to an organisation undergoing major and rapid transformation Being able to participate in the growing TBM community – which covers multiple industries and countries – that is driving standards and best practices for managing the business of IT.

SaaS Applications for Managing the Business of IT

Understand

Plan

Optimise

Transform

& Communicate IT Value

Efficiently & Accurately

IT Cost & Investment

Your IT Business

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F i n Te c h

Patricia Pereira Technology Business Management Director

Patricia has been with RSA Scandinavia since 2014 as head of IT Planning and Control, and now Technology Business Management Director.

is boosting the company’s capabilities in existing application development and maintenance, which includes business intelligence systems, integration, compliance, and payment systems.

Having these systems in place enables the company to innovate, and to make the fullest use of the technology that is coming on to the market. A great example is the way drones can now be used to collect data on claims – they are a much quicker way to gather data on an incident or event such as a forest fire or flooded area and record it photographically, much more cost effective than sending out a helicopter.

Leveraging on her experience, complemented

by Finance and Business Intelligence Masters, Patricia rolled out Apptio IT Financial Management across the Company and established a Technology Business Management practice. This has given the CIO and the IT leadership team more transparency of IT costs.

Additionally, Patricia is responsible for driving operational efficiency across the IT Business, for which she has initiated the roll-out of ServiceNow to support Demand and Portfolio Management, and now extending to other areas, which will drive more collaborative ways of working.

Turning to innovation, Deloitte

is the strategic implementation partner whose engagement with RSA Scandinavia has been pivotal to transform “business as usual” particularly in Denmark. “Deloitte is the partner for our core system transformation, a cornerstone programme in our strategy to deliver market-leading business

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RSA SCANDINAVIA

capabilities, supported by a more efficient IT organisation.

Accelerating our time to value is key in our vision and Deloitte has helped us drive the adoption of Agile ways of working and digital capabilities. Our new customer front end solution for small and medium sized businesses in Denmark draws upon its new agile delivery process and also Deloitte Digital’s capability offer,” de Freitas adds.

Another key partner is Tata Consulting Services (TCS): its effectiveness in processing claims is one of ways an insurance company is judged in the market. The legacy claims management platform had been tailored to Swedish operations and didn’t work so well with the systems used in the other Scandinavian businesses neither was it capable of supporting growth: it would have needed massive modernisation to cater for today’s market demands and support RSA’s customer agenda.

TCS was called in to provide a new claims application named CLAN

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“These tools help me as the CIO to run my technology departments as a business, tracking hardware, storage, cloud usage, applications, energy usage, cybersecurity, telecommunications, and reporting obligations”

F i n Te c h

that works with all the Swedish back end systems and manages the claims process from beginning to end, introducing automation to simplify the workflow involved.

It works with all the region’s currencies and languages, can capture the large data flows from innovative sources, and is virtually paperless. “TCS’s offshore centre of excellence from has enabled us to automate most of our regression and performance testing as well as enhancing the quality of our IT deliveries. TCS is also our strategic partner for cross country CRM implementation,” says de Freitas.

Keeping track of the business costs and benefits of the whole transformation process can’t be done by traditional accounting methods. To gain insight and transparency in the complex area of the costs and financial benefits across the process, RSA Scandinavia needed to invest in technology business management (TBM) tools, so it turned to the US-based company Apptio to

enable the assessment of IT service costs and communicate those costs to the management for planning, budgeting and forecasting purposes.

“Apptio has been integral part of our journey,” he adds. “These tools help me as the CIO to run my technology departments as a business, tracking hardware, storage, cloud usage, applications, energy usage, cybersecurity, telecommunications, and reporting obligations.”

Business led, IT enabled, and

cost-effective Here we come to the central point of how IT adds value to the business – knowing how to arrive at the cost of getting a customer on board. This, he says, creates a solid relationship between IT and the business. “The four elements I keep in my back pocket when having executive discussions are: Transform, Accelerate, Innovate and Value.

Each of these is urgent, and they are all interlinked. For example, there’s no use talking about automation if you don’t have the infrastructure

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Johan Bjurup IS Delivery Director

Johan joined RSA in November 2010 as Manager for IT Development Denmark. In 2013 he was promoted to Nordic IS Delivery Director with the end2end accountability for IT Delivery.

Johan and his technology team are responsible for all development and application management projects and activities at RSA Scandinavia Previously Johan held senior IT roles as a consultant working for large scale Swedish enterprises.

Our core insurance software gives insurers the flexibility and customer insight they need to stay relevant and succeed with their digital transformation journey – with 100% success rate. www.tiatechnology.com +45 7022 7620 tia@tia.dk

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Johan Sandberg

TECHNOLOGY

Infrastructure Management Director

Johan Sandberg joined RSA in 2015 from SBAB bank. Over the past 12 months has been streamlining Scandinavia’s ailing infra whilst sponsoring CSC change to Wipro.

Johan has 20+ years of global experience within the IT business including positions such as Development manager at a Swedish bank and Enterprise Strategy Service Manager at Microsoft.

that can handle that automation.

If you are going to use a process robot that does the tedious task of converting one type of policies to another you have to back it with infrastructure that can load more digital documents, otherwise the innovation will lose its point.”

Facebook and Amazon realise that stable infrastructure is vital: the former has changed its mantra from ‘Move Fast and Break Things’ to ‘Move Fast With Stable Infra!’ “It’s a promise to users to make new tools less buggy,” according to Mark Zuckerberg. That is a good way of describing what is happening at RSA Scandinavia. For employees

and customers alike, buggy tools are anathema – they expect their social and communications tools to work, so why not their business tools as well? Of course, Google and Amazon are only a decade old, he compares ruefully. It’s more of a challenge turning round a ship the size of a centuries old insurance company, but it has to be done, and the benchmark has to be looked for in the fastest moving and most successful businesses on the planet.

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Spicerhaart’s digi transformation pu real estate in the palm of your hand Written by Jennifer Johnson Produced by Andrew Lloyd

ital puts

nd

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SPICERHAART

Spicerhaart, the UK’s largest independent estate agency network, has recently undergone a comprehensive digital transformation. With real estate typically lagging behind other industries in the uptake of newly-developed technologies, Spicerhaart is poised to lead its competition into the 21st century

I

n the era of ecommerce, windowshopping has become a thing of the past. Consumers want to browse products and make purchases with the swipe of a finger or the click of a mouse; they want receipts sent straight to their inbox, not taking up space in their wallets. The retail industry already knows this, but the property sector has been somewhat slower in its uptake of technology.

Spicerhaart, one of the UK’s leading estate agency groups, is currently modernising the residential sales and letting process — all the way from the workings of its data centres to interactions in the customer’s home.

Historically, real estate has not utilised technology to its full

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capacity, but with the advancement of the digital age customers are increasingly demanding online interaction at all stages of the property acquisition process.

When tenants or homeowners are looking to move on, they won’t scour the neighbourhood for ‘for sale’ signs, and instead turn to property portals such as OnTheMarket and Rightmove to instantly view homes in their desired locale. Michael Barber, Spicerhaart’s Chief Information Officer, took note of shifting trends and demands in the property sector and set about blazing a tech-trail for the UK market.

Barber recalls that during the last recession many companies held back on investment — opting to

TECHNOLOGY

Michael Barber CIO

Mr Barber, from Woodbridge, Suffolk, is an experienced IT leader who has worked in CIO positions for a number of large organisations, developing and delivering innovative IT strategies which demonstrably add value by improving business efficiency, quality of service and customer experience.

His last role was at Capita where he was CIO of the Case and Records Solutions division.

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The estate agency industry is in a period of disruption and the future of traditional estate agents is under attack from new online entrants. It is a simple fact that estate agents that fail to move with the digital age will mean some not being there anymore.

Estate agents embracing the numerous benefits of Collaboration technology are solving the business challenge of offering levels of superior customer service and at the same time cutting operational cost. Research has shown that the telephone remains the number one choice on how a property buyer or seller wishes to communicate with their agent but a huge 81% wants to have a dedicated account manager. How does a traditional estate agency business offer this inexpensively and effectively when their staff are very mobile and often not in the office?

Some estate agencies are taking strides to use available technology to address these issues of allowing the buyer and seller to communicate with their agent. Spicerhaart, for example, are using features such as single number reach that is available within their chosen Cisco telephony architecture. If a client calls their agent it will ring through to the agent’s chosen device regardless of their location allowing them to react quicker to the client’s request and thus provide the service they demand.

As a business that understands that they must use technology to differentiate themselves from the online agents, Spicerhaart are now trialling Cisco Expressway and Cisco Jabber. This allows them to seamlessly extend the corporate phone system to the

agent’s Smartphone thus connecting their highly mobile workforce.

However, e-mail, text and social media quickly follow voice as the customer’s first choice of communication method. An estate agent who does not allow a customer to communicate or be responsive to these various communication channels will quickly lose ground to those businesses adopting the latest technologies.

If an estate agent is to harness the digital age to remain relevant let alone to drive their business forward they need to act now. Their approach has to go way beyond the normal attributes of punctuality, courtesy, respect, consideration and sincerity. It has to be a strategic initiative driven from the company’s board throughout the whole organisation.

For all organizations, there has never been a better time to use digital assets to find a different, better faster way of doing things. The technology is there; it’s time to put aside excuses and take advantage of digital transformation.

FLR understand that Digital transformation is a huge undertaking for businesses and our customers – often not something they can deliver alone. What we do is to help customers complete the digital journey. Spicerhaart, for example, have the infrastructure in place to allow agent to client video conferencing with Cisco Expressway, which only a couple of years ago was not technically possible.

There has never been a better time to solve some of these challenges in your business using technology as an enabler to navigate the changing world.

SPICERHAART

Paul Smith CEO

TECHNOLOGY

use aging IT systems and obsolete telephony solution across the infrastructure instead of updating whole business,” he says. “It their systems and processes. also involved introducing fullySpicerhaart was no exception. managed printers with partners However, once economic conditions Karlson UK, as well as new PCs, improved, he declares that the laptops, tablets. All of this was business was “ready to reinvest deployed across a fully managed, and drive forward for the future.” joined-up network seamlessly This reinvention didn’t merely connecting all of our businesses.” involve updating All of operating systems Spicerhaart’s 200 or purchasing branches across new machines: its five estate Barber’s vision agency brands in required a the UK are now comprehensive, fully upgraded three-part digital and outfitted Number of Employees transformation. with enhanced at Spicerhaart The first step technology. All was to design that remains is and provide an to provide tablets infrastructure platform that was fit to managers in the coming for purpose. To Barber, this meant months to enable agile working. adopting a combination of centrallyFrom a customer-facing located data centres along with the perspective, clients are likely right tools and technologies for use to observe, and reap the both in branches and in the field. benefits of, fluid in-branch “That involved delivering solutions and remote processes. such as a new IT, internet-based “The branch workers will be

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more responsive because the systems are faster,” Barber says.

“They will also get quicker access to information through agile working, using tablets to access corporate information from any place at any time.

“This overall will make the whole customer-experience seem more technology-led, as opposed to technology being an inhibitor.”

Needless to say, it is paramount that Spicerhaart employees learn how to best operate their new technologies in order to streamline customer experience as intended. Their digital transformation is not just a technical one, but a cultural one, too.

“Moving forward, we’re looking for employees to use digital tools to capture information and to let us help lead them to a better solution as opposed to just following the old tried-andtested traditional methods.

Change-management is integrated into every part of the company’s modernisation process,

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and guidance is available for anyone needing help adjusting to new, streamlined, paperless processes.

“In terms of the IT applications, they will be pretty intuitive,” Barber says. “In terms of training, we will make use of our dedicated training teams, supported by appropriate, accessible materials, both online and printed materials, as required to ensure proper adoption of the new systems.”

The second step of Spicerhaart’s digital transformation, a head-to-toe online redesign, is still inprogress. Once completed, all of the company’s websites will be delivered using new content management platforms, which will allow in-branch business users and members of the marketing team to maintain web content.

“It’s no longer an IT job to create content,” Barber explains. “The sites are more responsive. Our customers using

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“We are putting the customer at the centre and heart of everything we do”

“Spicerhaart has the transformational approach to IT and business operations that makes the most of what we do.” - Steve Todd, Director at Karlson UK

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them on mobile devices don’t get a scaled-down version of the overall functionality because they deploy seamlessly on any device.”

The company is currently also deploying tablet applications which will allow listers to publish a property from within the customer’s home during a first visit — right through to a digitally signed contract and marketing on web sites.

For its third and final act of metamorphosis, Spicerhaart will also be replacing the entirety of its core sales systems: bringing in a Microsoft Dynamics CRM-based solution to transform the way property transactions and customer relationships are managed. This means zeroing in on customers who are genuinely interested in buying, selling or renting a property.

With new, big data-based methods for gauging customer interest, the one-size-fits all marketing onslaught will be a thing of the past.

“We want to contact customers who are interested in a property transaction — moving away from

leaflet-dropping every house in every area to providing a service to customers who are genuinely interested,” Barber says. “We are putting the customer at the centre and heart of everything we do.”

Unlike many other sectors, real estate is not wholly dominated by a handful of big-name companies or brands. Independent estate agents still have a significant presence in the UK property market. However, Spicerhaart isn’t aiming to outtech its competition — instead, it wants to use technology to serve its customers in a way that seems intuitive to them.

“We are genuinely looking to transform the business using technology rather than having technology for technology’s sake,” Barber says. “This is all about ‘What do consumers in today’s market typically want?’ rather than trying to only focus on ‘What do property purchasers want?’”.

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Up for the upstr

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ream challenge

hn O’Hanlon Kiron Chavda

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Oil exploration depends on cost effective drilling and nobody does this more safely and reliably than Seadrill, a company that is leveraging the power of partnership to deliver a sustainable future for this vital industry

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eadrill is a relatively new company in a well-established industry. Founded in 2005 by the Norwegian-born oil tanker owner John Fredriksen and listed in Oslo and New York, it has grown very rapidly by acquisition to become one of the leading resources for global O&G companies, with 68 offshore drilling rigs. The company’s strategy is to maintain the youngest and most modern rigs, tailor made for its clients’ operations working in both harsh and benign environments, from tender and jack-up rigs for shallower waters to semi submersibles and drillships for deep and ultra-deep water work. Its operations are controlled from six regional offices round the world and supported by 2 technical centres based in Dubai and Houston.

There’s no avoiding the fact that with hydrocarbon prices at rock bottom, these are difficult times for upstream

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operators. Oil prices may take years to return to the previous levels but this is a cyclical business as pointed out recently by Per Wulff, CEO of Seadrill: “The upturn will come; it’s just a matter of when. We have the youngest fleet of all the major offshore drilling companies and this, coupled with best in class operation and a sustainable cost structure, will stand us in good stead for the future.”

But this will entirely depend on keeping right at the front of the pack, and finding a way to operate profitably in the real world price environment, a situation that has escalated the importance of IT in managing and improving the key drivers for offshore exploration and production: safe and efficient operations. The strategic nature of IT in the organisation was recognised when Seadrill appointed Kaveh Pourteymour as its VP and CIO in January 2015. He’s a heavyweight

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business leader who has worked as CIO of BP Global Refining and International Business, as CIO of BOC Edwards, as a partner at KPMG and for the last nine years has served as Adjunct Professor at Imperial College.

IT central to strategy

Pourteymour epitomises the trend we have followed in recent years, in which CIOs have moved from the back office to a position at the centre of the mber of business’s strategy. s, jack-up, “The ‘I’ in my job title no bmersibles longer stands for simply nder rigs Information,” he says. “My team and I are less concerned these days with IT component management and keeping the lights on’; we have competent partners to see to that. The emphasis of the ‘I’ is now more on intelligence; innovation; integration; influence – and ensuring the integrity of our systems and managing their risk, their security and their compliance!”

Like his CEO he is upbeat about

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the prospects for Seadrill in the market. “We have good utilisation of our assets, even if day rates have fallen, and we are winning new contracts even if they tend to be shorter term ones than previously.”

He sees the response to the difficult market conditions, which have become fiercely competitive by continuing to invest in the best technology to make Seadrill safer, efficient, more competitive and differentiated. One bold outcome of this strategy was the decision to create a strong IT centre of excellence in Seadrill’s new service centre in Liverpool which also houses the shared services for the business’s human resources and accounting functions.

His IT team comprises around 50 people, half of them now based on Liverpool’s waterfront and the other half embedded in the regions close to the operations. The move was an opportunity to implement his vision for the department. “Before our IT transformation agenda, it was not clear what IT does and why it costs so much. There were challenges

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Accelerating next

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around system reliability, investing in the right solutions and delivering projects on time so we needed to bring in capable and competent IT professionals to solve these.”

Fundamentally, he has built a new structure from scratch since January 2015. “I personally interviewed over a hundred people as we built the team in Liverpool. Technical ability was not enough – we were looking for leaders.” They deliberately targeted talent from a range of industries, not just O&G and as part

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of their training sent their recruits out onto the rigs to learn about life in the field. “When you are designing systems you need to understand what they are ultimately for and how they will be used. Our systems need to operate in harsh offshore environments, enable integrated operations and be user friendly.”

Building the digital platform

An O&G industry veteran himself, Kaveh Pourteymour understood the need to look at IT upside down as

it were, starting at the sharp end of the business. “Our systems need to enable our rigs to operate safely and reliably. They need to support the agility and efficiency of our supply chain. They enable our onshore back office and administrative functions to operate efficiently.

They support collaboration and the capability development of our people. Our business intelligence programme is turning our data resource into intelligence. Vital to this is are our communications

networks consisting of satellite communications and WANs connecting the rigs and the onshore offices over multiple time zones and carrying large volumes of voice, video and data.�

Letting key partners take the strain

Seadrill moved its headquarters from Norway to London in late 2012, and following that it was decided to close the former infrastructure hub at Stavanger and to move its

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“Our priority now is building a digital platform that allows Seadrill to operate these rigs very efficiently” – Kaveh Pourteymour, VP and CIO infrastructure to a cloud provider.

After a process of evaluation, it decided to opt for HP’s private cloud infrastructure, now part of Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE).

“We started moving our operations to our virtual private cloud (VPC) provider HPE in October 2014. Our IT infrastructure is now 100 percent in a hybrid private and public cloud.”

This means that from that point the IT department no longer had to be concerned with component management and keeping the lights on, he emphasises. It is now defined as an organisation that manages the IT value chain, working with its suppliers and business partners to enable business outcome through use of technology.

He instigated a process of consolidating these suppliers into a smaller, more strategic cohort. This is perhaps the real transformation

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– IT suppliers, even when called partners, are traditionally engaged under the ‘black box’ model: what he wanted was for his partners to be much more integrated with Seadrill. “We see them as extensions of our organisation participating in how we work with our business, understanding their goals and trajectory and helping them to achieve those goals.

Partnership means something really close. We proactively share strategies and plans, and their input does help us formulate these.”

Since January 2015 this process has taken place at monthly ‘town hall’ meetings open to key partners, not least HPE, where hundreds of people from the partners’ dedicated teams join the townhall over Skype for Business to hear directly from the CIO about current IT challenges.

“The town hall meetings give

them privileged insight into our business.” As well as HPE which manages 80 percent of Seadrill’s infrastructure in its VPC, BT is part of the discussion having migrated the company’s WAN network from Verizon in 2015. The two satellite providers, Harris CapRock and Rignet provide Seadrill’s vessels with reliable communications as they move around oil and gas exploration and production regions.

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At the same time he conducts performance reviews with these partners. “These communications are frank in both directions, just like the appraisals we do with our own employees. They’re an opportunity to identify what they can do better and what we can do better. When outsourcing, you are missing a big opportunity if you treat partners like black boxes. They would like to understand the vision, feel part of

the team and contribute to the bigger agenda. We wanted to open that opportunity to those partners who are dedicated to our business to feel engaged and get energised by the contributions they make to our agenda.� Effectively, it increases the size of Seadrill’s IT team many fold.

In fact, Skype for Business is now widely used as the main communications technology across Rigs and offices, cutting the time

and expense of travel and improving individual and team collaborations.

A new approach to training

The people Seadrill brought in to populate the new IT team, brought with them a lot of high level and very diverse expertise, so keen to make the best use of them in January 2016, the ISIT Academy was established.

This is a training unit that aims to continually develop the IT team’s

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capabilities and competencies.

Initially, the IT team developed their own modules based on the specific needs and circumstances of the business, something that an outside trainer would struggle to do. Already nine courses have been developed, and every member of the 50 strong IT team has completed at least two of these. “The ISIT Academy provides an important platform to develop our capabilities.

Our team have embraced their learning and development agenda with enthusiasm.” drill is To further enrich uartered the ISIT academy, ndon they are also looking to bring in outside content.

Scalable for growth

Upstream oil businesses like drillers, service providers and equipment providers used to work in silos.

Pourteymour believes the new realities presented by the low price market provides opportunities for creation of a new and more efficient integrated value chain. In its first

ten years the company grew by acquisition and that strategy will continue when market conditions allow. “Our priority now is building a digital platform that allows Seadrill to operate these rigs very efficiently.

We have been upgrading our satellite links, our applications and our IT infrastructure, and putting more of it into the HPE cloud so we’re ready to handle more rigs if we need to scale up. That is the beauty of being in the cloud – it is easy to scale the operation in a trice. In our first ten years Seadrill grew very rapidly. I am hoping that when the market returns we will return to the growth mode. The cloud allows us to expand as and when necessary – when we need it. The technology we are putting in place allows us to be able to upgrade, and add capacity as the market dictates.”

With the advancement and maturation of technologies and the market forces in the upstream business, Pourteymour believes this is this the most exciting time to be in IT in the Oil and Gas industry.

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Israel’s healthc

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Nell Walker

Craig Daniels

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Israel’s Ministry of Health has been undergoing a technological overhaul, led by CIO Shira Lev-Ami; she explains why this was necessary, and describes the challenges she has faced

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s chronic diseases evolve and take centre stage, patients live longer, and unhealthy lifestyles become a greater threat, healthcare systems have to change.

Israel, like much of the world, has had to transform its own systems in order to keep up with changes, putting pressure on the nation’s Ministry of Health.

Shira Lev-Ami, the Ministry of Health’s Chief Information Officer, has spent her five years with the organisation faced with the challenge of altering both the mindset of

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colleagues and the processes by which the ministry operates. LevAmi’s multi-disciplinary background which includes earning three masters degrees (political science, law, and business administration) led to jobs in many different corporate sectors, before she decided on a meaningful career in the public health sector.

“I started working for non-profit organisations, learning how to create philanthropic strategies,” she explains. “I wanted to create infrastructure that otherwise would not exist. It was always my hobby

Shira Lev-Ami CIO

Shira Lev-Ami is leading the national eHealth strategy definition and implementation.

She holds three masters degrees from Tel-Aviv University: Political Science, Business administration and Law. She served as an officer in a Technology Unit and as an organisational consultant in the IDF. Lev-Ami comes from a business background at the Fishman Group headquarters (where she worked on IPOs and other business transactions), and at Shaldor – the leading Israeli strategic business consulting firm.

She has experience with third-sector strategy and process at Yad-Hanadiv, one of Israel's largest philanthropic foundations, as Director of Grant-operations and strategy implementation.

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Turn the Key and Unlock the Power of Healthcare Information

MIDDLE EAST

to think ‘how can this process be swimming pools, and so on for improved?’ Eventually I applied for sanitation quality – use a pencil and a job with the government where notebook for their work.” While she I could make a difference.” was up to the challenge, managing The Ministry of Health’s outdated 300 different projects needing information systems proved an uphill to be planned and implemented battle to change for Lev-Ami. Israel’s simultaneously was daunting.

Ministry of Health involves “The necessity for around 100 business revolutionising IT was units, each with clear, but moving different processes forward quickly in a and information government setting systems. When is sometimes viewed Lev-Ami joined as an oxymoron: Number of Employees the ministry, government at Ministry Of Health almost all of those processes require units came to her, long tenders and Israel demanding their work overcoming many processes be supported by bureaucratic obstacles. It can adequate information systems. be very discouraging, and explains “It’s hard to believe that in the why a lot of younger and more year 2016, we still have core technologically-minded people processes managed manually. For don’t necessarily want to work example, the ministry’s inspectors for the government. You need – monitoring restaurants, schools, a lot of optimism and to believe

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“ I wanted to create infrastructure that otherwise would not exist. It was always my hobby to think ‘how can this process be improved?’” that there’s always a way.”

The challenge for Lev-Ami’s team is providing the best possible service to all of these units, through creating common technological platforms as the means for synergy: “If you do a good job planning ahead and building enterprise-wide solutions, re-using the common features for any additional required process becomes easy. It’s like a city architecture: design a new city well, and traffic will flow seamlessly; trying to expand a road that was built for carriages in the 18th century will prove much more difficult.

“We’re now in a better situation, but we still have a lot of work ahead of us just to make sure we’re supplying the basics.”

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The Israeli Ministry of Health, as part of the National ‘Digital Israel’ initiative, aspires to promote the Israeli healthcare system through the use of digital technologies. “We had to make a significant leap in the way we supply health services,” she says. “There’s a saying: trying to provide medical services in the 21st century using 20th century methods would require an impossible amount of doctors. The transformational part of what we’re doing is looking at the health system and the technologies to move it forward.

“As a ministry leading the transformation, we have an array of tools to utilise. We combine the use of regulatory guidance with government incentives,

The Health Ministry Uses TIBCO Computerized Systems for Improved Service in Israel’s Emergency Rooms The Health Ministry operates thousands of interfaces between various systems within its jurisdiction and with its partner organizations. To run those interfaces wisely and efficiently, the Ministry has initiated a lateral computerized project for integrating management system interfaces. The Yael Group will implement a TIBCO system that will provide an integration solution between the Ministry’s various systems, between the Ministry and the health system’s organizations, and between the Ministry and other government offices, publics bodies, and hospitals.

The aim of the project is to implement a uniform platform for managing the interfaces in

a controlled and efficient fashion between the Health Ministry and external parties, including the Ministry’s internal interfaces.

Currently, the Ministry is promoting an important TIBCO-based project that is focused on an application that enables patients waiting in emergency rooms to track the progress of the various stages of treatment via their mobile phones. This new service is designed to assist patients and their family members and help relieve the hectic management of emergency rooms. The project provides an initial indication whereby the Health Ministry is demonstrating its vision to lever the use of advanced digital solutions to provide optimal service for the citizens of Israel.

Shira Lev-Ami, the Health Ministry’s data systems manager says: The aim of the project was to improve treatment in Israel’s emergency rooms comprises part of the Heath Minister’s vision for improving the public health service.

Technological implementation is part of the broad interface computerization project, run by the Ministry’s computing unit, together with assistance from Yael Software’s integration experts. This project positions us at the cutting edge of technology and innovation and will assist us in bringing our solutions and services to the citizen, and enables us to furnish better service. Thus, we can further the health revolution which is today at the forefront of the public and national agenda in Israel.

Nachum Rozenbaum nachumr@yaelsoft.com +972-54-3183081

SAS® Health Care Analytics Assists the Israeli Ministry of health with Analytics and Big Data Solutions for a Higher Standard of Health Care.

Better Clinical Performance.

Better Care.

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MIDDLE EAST

network, which she has put into place over the past few years.

It is where all public healthcare organisations - providers and hospitals - are able to connect to one network which carries personal medical records. While it is simpler to build one database and fill it with information for all to view, for privacy reasons, it had to be designed in a way that had no central repository.

“People get medical treatment in very many places, and the challenge lies in how we make sure all of these treatments are connected, and designed to stimulate investment that crucial medical information in digital health arenas which are can’t fall between the cracks. We under-utilised. In other areas, took responsibility for providing the we’re creating technological infrastructure, not just the regulation, infrastructures ourselves, paving and succeeded in tackling the the highways for digital health continuity of care challenge. The next applications and innovation.” step is utilising the national health One of Lev-Ami’s biggest recent information exchange in a way that projects has been reinventing the enables system-wide innovation.” national health information exchange Another nationwide project has

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“The people who work for the Ministry of Health are people who want to do good. They work from the heart” been focussed on the emergency departments. Over a quarter of Israel’s population visits an ER at least once a year, as a patient or chaperone, many leaving with a bad experience. Targeting shortening waiting periods in the ER, Lev-Ami’s team is deploying a sophisticated system to improve the process.

Optimising the ER workflow, while providing patients with information on their precise location in the medical process and estimated wait times, has proved vital in improving patient experience: “We’re developing an ER app which we view as a medical version of Waze, providing transparency on real-time ER situation for patients and decision-makers alike”.

The healthcare sector is built

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around the concept of ‘do no harm’, which unfortunately goes handin-hand with ‘make no change’.

However, Lev-Ami and her team have managed to turn the Ministry of Health’s IT system on its head, which has had the added benefit of vastly increasing trust in the Ministry’s leading role among Healthcare teams, as a valued partner.

“The Ministry of Health is a crucial organ for Israeli society, focussing on providing quality and equal healthcare,” Lev-Ami concludes.

“To make a process move forward you have to be both a visionary, and very proactive. In the end, the staff working for the Ministry of Health are people who want to do good.

People here work from the heart.”

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