Ignite Lab

Of the many facets of multi-dimensional change that senior IT professionals have spent most of their careers grappling with, one theme strikes us as more fundamental than all the rest.  It isn’t to do with increased computing power, or the internet, or the breakneck growth of wireless connectivity and mobile technology – not directly, anyway.  It’s to do with IT’s move into the front line.

For years, it has been commonplace to refer to the triumvirate of Finance, HR and IT as the ‘back office’, a label that carries connotations of activities being conducted in the murky depths of the building, kept well out of the reach of the outside world.  Increasingly, though, this description has become less and less fitting until now, it is – or should be – plain wrong.  And nowhere is this more true than in IT.

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Well – the news has been out a while now.  Local authorities now have an extra layer of clarity. The general consensus seems to be that at 28% the cuts are slightly less painful than the worst expectations.  What came as a nasty surprise was that the cuts are to be front loaded.

Whatever the interpretation – it is time to act. Anybody waiting for more clarity in December will find that time will run out.

So will this make a difference to the way local authorities respond? Read on →

This is a paper that formed the basis for a presentation given by Ignite director Tim Connolly at the IBC Media Convention in Amsterdam in September 2010. 

It would be easy to start this session on a downbeat note.  If managing change around new technology and workflow were easy, we wouldn’t be talking about it this afternoon.  I could easily start with a depressing list of what often goes wrong … and I will do that in a minute, although I shall try to do it in a positive and uplifting way.  But instead let’s start with the good news.  As a race, we humans are brilliant at adapting and responding to new technology.  We do it all the time.  Look around you, look at every aspect of your life.  We travel, communicate, entertain ourselves, feed ourselves, conduct our financial affairs, wash our clothes and dishes, protect our homes, educate our children – I could go on – using technology that has at the very least been transformed many times over in our lifetime and in some cases has enabled us to do things that previous generations would only have dreamed of. Read on →

We’ve previously written about the emergence of the technology function from the back office and how IT teams are increasingly playing their rightful role in leading and enabling new business models.  Clearly, the role of the technology function must have implications for ways of working, skills and performance measures.  But is the core capability so different, whether you are looking for process efficiencies or leading the transformation to updated or new and innovative business models?

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The development of outsourcing as an option for local authority transformation is accelerating. Suffolk County Council is the most recent body to join a growing trend of local councils outsourcing the majority of their services – although the word “divestment” is being used to define a more broad based approach. This means, essentially, that the local council becomes a commissioner retaining only those elements essential to translating political direction, local needs and financial realities into the services it provisions. Read on →