cw - docs.media.bitpipe.comdocs.media.bitpipe.com/io_12x/io_120839/item_1073626/eur_0115_… · to...

CW Europe January 2015 1

HOME

EUROPEAN NEWS

EDITOR’S COMMENT

TECHNOLOGY PLAYS A BIG PART

IN FIGHTING CRIME ACROSS EUROPE

THE CYBER SECURITY OUTLOOK FOR 2015

ENTERPRISE RENT-A-CAR’S CROSS-EURO

APPROACH TO IT

EUROPE’S TECHNOLOGY

PIONEERS

STAPLES CIO WANTS FIRM TO BECOME MORE EUROPEAN

DUTCH FIRMS TAKING UP CLOUD

HCM SOFTWARE

CWCOMPUTER WEEKLY’S DIGITAL MAGAZINE FOR EUROPEAN IT LEADERS JANUARY 2015

KES

U0

1/TH

INKS

TOC

K

Technology’s growing role in keeping Europe safeTECHNOLOGY IS PLAYING AN INCREASINGLY IMPORTANT PART IN FIGHTING CRIME ACROSS THE CONTINENT


HOME

EUROPEAN NEWS

EDITOR’S COMMENT





APPROACH TO IT


PIONEERS



HCM SOFTWARE

EUROPEAN NEWS

214 million Europeans banking on mobile devices by 2018

About 214 million people in Europe will use mobile devices to do their banking by 2018. According to Forrester Research, 99 million Europeans will bank on mobiles, while 115 million will use tablet devices.

BT hires across Europe to meet broadband roll-out obligations

A committee of MPs has met BT for an update on progress in getting broadband to rural communities. BT told MPs it is hiring from across Europe to get the labour it needs to meet its obligations under the government’s Broadband Delivery UK project.

European firms’ IT outsourcing priorities starting to change

Although 60% of European businesses are satisfied with IT infrastructure service providers, their focus is switching from cost reduction to services that will help them increase sales and provide a better customer experience, according to a study by Forrester Research.

HP puts big data in the cloud and announces enhancements

On the opening day of HP Discover in Barcelona, HP punted its big data analytics platform, HP Haven OnDemand, into the cloud. The company said the move will give customers access to key components of the Haven platform.

Danske Bank latest company to take offshore IT in-house

Danske Bank is transforming its offshore IT strategy by setting up a captive centre in Bangalore, India in 2015 for 1,000 staff. The bank wants to take more control of its IT activities in the country.

EU FIRMS UNAWARE OF PROPOSED DATA PROTECTION LAW

More than half of European companies do not know about legislation planned to unify data protection laws, according to Ipswitch. The EU General Data Protection Regulation was pro-posed in 2012 and aims to apply a single set of data protection rules across the European Union to protect user’s data.

Cloud forces change at European software firms

There is a high risk of failure at Europe’s software companies as they restructure to reposition themselves in a sector transformed by new technologies such as cloud, research has revealed.

The European Parliament calls for search engine changes

The European Parliament has called on the European Commission to break down barriers to the growth of the EU’s digital single market. In a move clearly aimed at Google, MEPs emphasised the need to prevent online companies from abusing dominant positions by enforcing EU competition rules.

Dutch bank ING cuts staff in digital transformation

Dutch bank ING will cut thousands of staff in its back offices, callcentres and IT department over the next three years as it reduces its number of IT systems. The bank said it is cutting 1,700 staff and moving to simplified IT systems and automation at a cost of €200m. n

ADDITIONAL RESOURCES

› HITACHI INNOVATION FORUM: TOKYO

› ORACLE OPENWORLD 2014 COVERAGE

› VIRTUAL SERVER BACKUP GUIDE

› ACHIEVING DIVERSITY IN IT

› CISCO LIVE 2014

http://www.computerweekly.com/news/2240235770/214-million-Europeans-will-use-mobile-devices-for-banking-by-2018







http://www.computerweekly.com/news/2240235983/BT-hires-across-Europe-to-meet-broadband-roll-out-obligations









http://www.computerweekly.com/news/2240235785/European-business-satisfied-with-IT-infrastructure-outsourcing-but-priorities-are-changing









http://www.computerweekly.com/news/2240235805/HP-puts-big-data-in-the-cloud-announces-services-enhancements








http://www.computerweekly.com/news/2240235772/Danske-Bank-latest-to-take-offshore-IT-in-house







http://www.computerweekly.com/news/2240235141/EU-companies-unaware-of-proposed-data-protection-law

http://www.computerweekly.com/news/2240235524/Europes-software-companies-living-on-the-edge-as-cloud-forces-change







http://www.computerweekly.com/news/2240235514/The-European-Parliament-calls-for-search-engines-to-split-from-other-business










http://www.computerweekly.com/news/2240235324/Dutch-bank-ING-cuts-thousands-of-staff-in-digital-transformation









http://www.computerweekly.com/guides/Hitachi-Innovation-Forum-Tokyo

http://www.computerweekly.com/guides/Oracle-Openworld-2014-coverage

http://www.computerweekly.com/guides/Virtual-server-backup-guide

http://www.computerweekly.com/guides/Achieving-diversity-in-the-IT-workforce-How-women-AND-men-can-make-a-difference

http://www.computerweekly.com/guides/Cisco-Live-2014


HOME

EUROPEAN NEWS

EDITOR’S COMMENT





APPROACH TO IT


PIONEERS



HCM SOFTWARE

EDITOR’S COMMENT

Technology keeps Europe safe in physical world and cyber space

As we start another new year we look back at what technology has been playing a vital role in keeping Europe safe.

Headlines are regularly filled with threats about cyber wars and attacks which, although are impor-tant to bring to light, can sometimes overshadow the role technology plays in keeping us safe.

Technology helps to keep countries safe from a range of attacks – on land, air, sea or in cyber space – but experts say it is becoming increasingly dif-ficult for security and law enforcement agencies to do their jobs.

In a post-Snowden era, CW Europe’s security edi-tor investigates the role technology has played in fighting deadly attacks that use improvised explo-sive devices in Afghanistan.

This issue also explores technologies such as face recognition systems and image recognition systems that help to identify, track and trace crim-inals and victims. Big data analysis technologies also enable law enforcement agencies to collect intelligence from open-source information such as social media sites. This can be useful in indicating patterns and trends.

Law enforcement agencies policing cyber space in the EU are regularly the cause of heated debates over privacy and the right to spy on anyone using the internet. This issue also looks at what 2015 will hold for cyber security as a whole.

Read how the cyber security landscape will con-tinue to evolve, with attacks increasing not only in number but sophistication. And find out why just throwing more money at the problem is not the answer – spending money on the wrong cyber defences will continue to result in cyber attacks causing real damage in 2015.

A safe and happy new year to all our readers. n

Kayleigh Bateman Editor of CW Europe Special projects editor for Computer Weekly

CW Europe, 1st Floor, 3-4a Little Portland Street, London W1W 7JB

GENERAL ENQUIRIES

020 7186 1400

EDITORIAL

Editor, CW Europe; Special projects editor, Computer Weekly: Kayleigh Bateman

020 7186 1415 [email protected]

Editor in chief, Computer Weekly: Bryan Glick 020 7186 1424

[email protected]

PRODUCTION

Production editor: Claire Cormack 020 7186 1417

[email protected]

Senior sub-editor: Jason Foster 020 7186 1420

[email protected]

Senior sub-editor: Craig Harris020 7186 1416

[email protected]

Sub-editor: Ben Whisson020 7186 1478

[email protected]

TechTarget275 Grove Street, Newton, MA 02466

3-4a Little Portland Street, London W1W 7JBwww.techtarget.com

© 2014 TechTarget Inc. No part of this publication may be transmitted or reproduced In any form or by any means without written

permission from the publisher. TechTarget reprints are available through The YGS Group.

About TechTargetTechTarget publishes media for information

technology professionals. More than 100 focused websites enable quick access to a

deep store of news, advice and analysis about the technologies, products and processes

crucial to your job. Our live and virtual events give you direct access to independent expert

commentary and advice. At IT Knowledge Exchange, our social community, you

can get advice and share solutions with peers and experts.

CW


HOME

EUROPEAN NEWS

EDITOR’S COMMENT





APPROACH TO IT


PIONEERS



HCM SOFTWARE

TECHNOLOGY’S ROLE IN KEEPING EUROPE SAFE

Technology has a growing role in keep-ing countries safe from attack on land, from the air, at sea and in cyber space,

but technological innovation is just one piece of the puzzle, say European experts.

They raise concerns that, in the post-Snowden era, it is becoming more difficult for security and law enforcement agencies to do their jobs, as communication channels become encrypted by default.

And they point out that, in many instances, the defensive, intelligence and crime-fighting capabilities enabled by technology outstrip what current regulatory and legal frame-works and processes will allow. This is vividly illustrated by the role technology has played in fighting deadly attacks that use improvised explosive devices (IEDs) in Afghanistan.

DNA profiling of IED bombersTechnology was key to analysing commu-nications data, as well as enabling foreign military forces in Afghanistan to link IED attacks to individuals, chemical supply chains and other support networks.

Mobile laboratories enabled soldiers to take DNA samples at the scene of an attack and connect instantly to fully equipped laboratories in allied countries to analyse

the digitised samples. This analysis could be uploaded to DNA databases, cross-refer-enced with existing records and passed on to Afghan authorities to help arrest and pros-ecute those responsible for IED attacks.

However, the enabling technology existed long before it could be used, according to Jamie Shea, Nato’s deputy assistant secre-tary general for emerging security challenges. There were several key elements that had to be aligned first, he says. Information-sharing processes had to be set up to enable Interpol to receive and compare military data with the DNA database it maintains, and the Afghan criminal and legal system had to be updated to accept and deal with DNA evidence.

“Since the days of the Cold War, Nato has prided itself on the technological edge of the alliance – and technology is increasingly important to keeping Europe safe, but it is no good without the legal and institutional arrangements in place to make use of it. “The hardest work is typically not the technology, but the legal, administrative and de-classifi-cation arrangements necessary to be able to exploit it to the full,” says Shea.

It was only after these processes were in place that IED makers could be taken out of the battlefield and prosecuted, and

QPI

CIM

AG

ES/T

HIN

KSTO

CK

Cyber war, cyber threats and cyber attacks can dominate headlines, making it easy

to lose sight of the positive role technology plays in

keeping Europe safe. Warwick Ashford

reports

Technology forms a sizeable part of Europe’s security puzzle


HOME

EUROPEAN NEWS

EDITOR’S COMMENT





APPROACH TO IT


PIONEERS



HCM SOFTWARE

“The whole business of being able to look around the corner through intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance is key, and accordingly you are going to see all the investment going into knowledge capability, which is now becoming even more important than firepower,” he says.

“Being able to sniff out adversaries using information is likely to be the key element of defence for a long time to come,” he says. But according to the intelligence community,

it takes 100,000 times more data points to identify individuals in networks than to iden-tify a tank on the ground.

“This requires extremely powerful com-puting systems to correlate all the data and pinpoint an individual with a high level of certainty in connection with a terrorist plot, for example,” says Shea.

Crime-fighting collaborationTechnology is also playing an increasingly important role in fighting crime in Europe, but again there are both positive and negative sides, says Troels Oerting, head of Europol’s European Cyber Crime Centre, (EC3) in The Hague.

While technology has proved a boon to criminals, law enforcement officers are also tapping into its benefits. However, they face legislative obstacles similar to those that military organisations must deal with.

The most commonly used technologies are electronic communication systems that enable law enforcement officers to exchange

international authorities could identify bomb makers if they should ever turn up at a European or US airport.

With these safety requirements set to increase with the growth of air traffic in Europe, he says it is essential for military aeronautical technology to dovetail with civilian aviation legislation.

EU legal harmonisation cuts costsIn an era where a growing number of tech-nology standards and regulations are being set in the civilian world, Shea says military, security and law enforcement organisations are having to adapt their technologies more than in the past to compete for resources such as radio frequency spectrum.

“As more technologies are produced on the civilian side, particularly in cyber space, there is a growing need for the security forces to get their requirements fed into the process as early as possible and to ensure that any technologies under development are in line with existing and emerging regulations,” he says. This is also important as military organisations faced with shrinking research and development (R&D) budgets seek to exploit and adapt civilian technologies, rather than develop them from scratch.

European regulatory efforts to achieve a single market with harmonised laws and standards will also provide clarity, cut costs and improve efficiencies in developing defence technologies, says Shea.

Having a common regulatory environment that imposes just one standard – such as the proposed European data protection regula-tion – will help avoid unnecessary costs, but at the same time, Shea says there also needs to be better governance in military organisa-tions around technology development. By agreeing on a single specification for jointly developed military technology and hardware, he says military organisations can cut the cost of production, maintenance and training.

Growing importance of intelligenceHowever, Shea says that, as armed forces decrease in size and adversaries become more numerous and less visible, technology that supports and enables greater knowl-edge about those antagonists is becoming increasingly important.


“Powerful comPuting systems are needed to correlate data and PinPoint an individual with a high level of certainty in connection with a terrorist Plot”Jamie shea, nato


HOME

EUROPEAN NEWS

EDITOR’S COMMENT





APPROACH TO IT


PIONEERS



HCM SOFTWARE


technically or by other means, such as using more undercover operations to compensate:

“While it is not realistic to have legislation that prevents encryption – because you do want locks on the doors – sometimes law enforcement needs access to the keys. I have been speaking out against irreversible encryption because, while encryption is nec-essary, if the police have a court order and go to a company, they should be given access to the encryption keys so they can look at particular communications data,” he says.

Oerting says the issue needs to be opened up for public debate. Opinion is strongly divided after Edward Snowden’s revelations of mass internet surveillance by the NSA.

“Views have been polarised, but I am more concerned about how we are going to protect the four billion innocent internet users from criminals if full anonymity is allowed online, which is not found in any other part of life,” he says.

Civil liberties compromiseHe emphasises that law enforcement agencies policing cyber space in the EU do not want to spy on innocent citizens using the internet.

“We only want to have the possibility to be allowed to monitor activity carried out on the internet by suspected criminal elements and groups, based on a very limited and targeted approach, balancing the criminal offence and proportionality, just as we can in the offline world,” says Oerting.

“The scale and impact of crime is becoming so much greater, which is why police need the means to make cyber-enabled crime less attractive. In any democracy we need to make certain trade-offs and decide what we will accept as a society,” he says.

In November 2014, just days into his post as the head of UK intelligence agency GCHQ, Robert Hannigan called for an overhaul of legal tools to help security and law enforce-ment agencies counter internet-enabled extremists. He said large US technology firms had become the “command and control networks of choice” for terrorists and crimi-nals, and the only way to meet this challenge was to come up with better arrangements for facilitating lawful investigation by security and law enforcement agencies.

information across countries and borders quickly and efficiently.

“We are now able to transmit biometric and other data in seconds to help police officers in the field identify suspects and act faster,” says Oerting.

Law enforcement uses big dataThe next most commonly used technologies include face recognition systems and image recognition systems that help to identify, track and trace criminals and victims.

Data analysis is becoming important in identifying patterns or trends in crime and developing crime prevention strategies. Oerting says this is likely to increase as new datasets become available. “Big data analysis is something law enforcement organisations are likely to use more and more in future, to help protect law-abiding citizens from those who are not,” he says. “This is a useful tool in linking data across police databases, countries and cases to identify patterns that would not otherwise be apparent.”

However, he says the growing trend of companies such as Google and Facebook to encrypt internet communications by default is a double-edged sword.

“While on the one side, encryption is a good thing – because it provides more protection for the individual and reduces the risk of crime – on the other side, it makes our

work very difficult,” he says. “Because we cannot eliminate crime completely, we still need to access information online to deter-mine who is a criminal and who is not, if we have a suspicion.”

Oerting believes law enforcement will have to find a way around this impasse, either

data analysis is becoming imPortant in identifying Patterns or trends in crime and develoPing crime Prevention strategies


HOME

EUROPEAN NEWS

EDITOR’S COMMENT





APPROACH TO IT


PIONEERS



HCM SOFTWARE


Mandatory cyber crime reportingLooking ahead, Oerting believes the European Commission’s proposed directive on network and information security (NIS) will have a positive outcome for law enforcement. “If the NIS directive is adopted in its current form, we will have, for the first time in Europe, manda-tory reporting of cyber crime, which is still largely under-reported,” he says.

Oerting believes increased reporting will identify the different ways criminals steal personal data and intellectual property.

“This, in turn, will help individuals and organisations improve their cyber security, by identifying weaknesses in their systems and processes,” he says.

Oerting says richer datasets on cyber-enabled crimes will enable law enforcement officers to extend big data analysis to this type of crime, as well to identify useful links, trends and patterns.

“This will improve our capability to link crimes and identify who is behind certain types of malware, so we can target that infrastructure to have a bigger, longer-lasting impact and make it less attractive to enable cyber crime,” he says.

Technology keeps Europe safeWith the terrorist threat, Europol advisor Alan Woodward, cyber security expert and visiting professor at Surrey University, says technology is being used quite effectively to keep Europe and other regions safe.

“Technology is being used to spot people who are being radicalised, but we are still falling down when it comes to the processes that back up the technology,” he says.

This is highlighted in the latest report by the UK’s cross-party Intelligence and Security Committee (ISC), which says Facebook knew one of fusilier Lee Rigby’s killers had dis-cussed the murder with extremists.

“Facebook had closed down the account after its automatic systems had detected extremist content, but there was no feedback loop to appropriate authorities in the UK,” says Woodward.

He laments that whole area is getting bound up with the post-Snowden debate and the resulting calls for privacy and anonymity online: “Like policing, surveil-lance needs to be done with consent, but the

public needs to be made aware of the conse-quences of preventing the authorities from conducting surveillance where necessary.”

Privacy and securityHowever, Woodward believes the call for total privacy and anonymity online is being led by a vocal minority, and the silent major-ity would rather be kept safe. “Surveillance is necessary for security, provided there are appropriate legal frameworks and oversight in place – which, in the UK and much of Europe, we are very lucky that there is,” he says.

But, like Oerting and Hannigan, Woodward believes there needs to be a public debate on the issue to lend clarity on what kind of trade-off society is willing to make in the interests of security. However, in terms of legal frameworks, to ensure organisations have a responsibility to keep personal data safe, he says Europe is leading the way. “For anyone concerned about privacy, it is better to be inside the European Union than outside of it,” says Woodward.

And while seeking to drive greater privacy in Europe, the European parliament also looks set to support the greater use of tech-nology to keep the region secure.

In December 2014, the Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs adopted a resolution that calls for the new EU Security Strategy for 2015-2019 to be “easily adapt-able to evolving situations” by focusing not just on existing security threats, but also on emerging dangers.

The resolution says cyber security is one of the priority areas where a holistic EU approach is needed, which could lead to more legal frameworks for further enabling technology to keep Europe safe. n

Warwick Ashford is Computer Weekly’s security editor.This is an edited excerpt. Click here to read full article online.

“for anyone concerned about Privacy, it is better to be inside the eu than outside of it”alan woodward, euroPol advisor

http://www.computerweekly.com/feature/Technologys-growing-role-in-keeping-Europe-safe


HOME

EUROPEAN NEWS

EDITOR’S COMMENT





APPROACH TO IT


PIONEERS



HCM SOFTWARE

SECURITY

An underlying theme for the victims of major cyber attacks during 2014 was their heavy investment in IT security, regular testing programmes and long lists of accreditations. Yet these were not enough to protect them from groups of attackers and the resulting losses and fines for detected breaches.

In 2015, the cyber-security landscape will continue to evolve rapidly and attacks will increase in number and sophistication, with a wider range of threat actors than ever before. One constant, however, is that spending money on the wrong cyber defences will continue to result in cyber attacks, causing real damage. Cyber-threat actors are commonly split into three groups: nation states, cyber criminals and cyber activists or hacktivists. In 2015, these threat factors look set to continue to advance their capabilities.

Characteristically, nation states – realising that cyber attacks provide them with a cheap, effective and plausibly deniable espionage tool – are often behind the theft of proprietary or sensitive information to benefit of one of their home-grown enterprises. Cyber criminals, motivated by financial gain, have traditionally targeted companies’ customer bases, stealing personal details or credit card information to sell or use in fraud. Cyber activists, motivated by a range of factors – including personal amusement, environmental concerns, anti-capitalist sentiments, nationalism and religion – base their activities on disrupting operations or generating embarrassment.

How firms can improve their IT security strategies in 2015James Solyom and Stewart Bertram give a rundown of the top security risks firms should look out for in 2015, and explore the best defence measures

Cyber criminals, motivated by financial gain, have traditionally targeted companies’ customer bases

THIN

KSTO

CK


HOME

EUROPEAN NEWS

EDITOR’S COMMENT





APPROACH TO IT


PIONEERS



HCM SOFTWARE

Political events on the world stageGlobal political developments will continue to shape the cyber-threat environment in the coming year. Countries that had once only aspired to sophisticated cyber capabilities are now developing them, using indigenous hacktivist groups and cyber-criminal capabilities. Different hubs of cyber-criminal activity and new targets will emerge, driven by the economic disparity between rich and poor nations, and the dramatic growth of IT literacy in many of the latter. These dynamics are facilitated by new ways of communicating, such as cyber criminals’ and activists’ use of the dark web to buy and sell hacking tools and techniques, using anonymous currency such as Bitcoin.

Expect to see an increasing blurring of activity between the actors in 2015. Last year, we saw criminals operating with a degree of impunity contingent on targeting politically expedient victims, or hacktivist groups becoming involved in attacks in support of government agenda.

As sophisticated tools and techniques become more widespread, and the distinctions between the threat actors become more blurred, the long-term outlook for cyber threats is concerning. People with the intent to carry out widespread and high-impact cyber attacks were often constrained through lacking capability, but this may not remain the case much longer.

How to defend your organisationThrowing more money at the problem is not the answer. With limited resources, it is not possible to protect every asset against every threat. The key for organisations is to understand which threat actors are targeting it, what the organisation’s key assets are and how to protect them. Cyber defence needs to be intelligence-led, risk-based and prioritised – it is not a compliance exercise. n

SECURITY

global Political develoPments will continue to shaPe the cyber-threat environment in the coming year

FIVE SECURITY MISTAKES FIRMS SHOULD AVOID IN 2015

1. Failing to build cyber defences around a granular understanding of threat. Any cyber-defence programme should be intelligence-led. That includes collecting operational and strategic information that helps the organisation understand the specific nature of the threat. It may be necessary to look up and down the supply chain, as vulnerabilities in subcontractors or suppliers often affect the organisation and vice-versa – attackers will target the weakest link.2. Over-focusing on prevention and not paying enough attention to detection and response. Organisations need to accept that breaches are inevitable and develop and test response plans, differentiating between different types of attacks to highlight the important ones.3. Treating cyber security as an IT issue rather than a business risk. Many organisations accept that cyber security is a business risk, rather than an IT-specific issue, but not many act on this by integrating cyber security risk management with wider business-risk management processes.4. Failing to identify and protect the organisation’s most important assets. Organisations need to focus budgets on prioritising protection. Many focus excessively on ensuring organisation-wide compliance to standards, without effectively protecting their most important assets.5. Lacking the technical defences to deal with advanced persistent threats. Throughout 2015, a group of capable actors will target those critical assets across a wide range of organisations.


HOME

EUROPEAN NEWS

EDITOR’S COMMENT





APPROACH TO IT


PIONEERS



HCM SOFTWARE

INTERVIEW

E nterprise Rent-A-Car European IT director Jeff King is not the kind of individual who shies away from a challenge. After overcoming the odds to rise from the firm’s shop floor to an executive position at head office in the US, King has spent the past two years directing IT across Enterprise’s European business.

The executive has set in place key partnerships to help the organisation make the most of technology. Those partnerships cover internal IT professionals across Europe and external arrangements with third-party providers. He has already put strong technical foundations in place, yet there are more tests to come. “We’re growing so fast that it pre-sents a lot of challenges,” he says.

Michigan-born King moved to St Louis after leaving university and joined Enterprise Rent-A-Car in a temporary role 22 years ago. He started working on the shop floor, deal-ing with customer car rentals. After moving to head office, and moving around a series of IT and business-related positions, King was approached about a job in Europe in 2012.

Enterprise Rent-A-Car has grown significantly during King’s two years in situ and is now present in most European nations, often via partnership agreements with estab-lished local rental firms. Most of these providers use their own IT systems but there also needs to be some level of integration, especially with invoicing, billing and reservations.

“Our IT team is consultative,” says King, suggesting the firm uses its operational scale to help support European operations. That consultative process continues and King says his attention will focus on two key areas in the next six to 12 months: cross-European project management and balanced service relationships.

Cross-region IT approach key to car hire firm’s European journeyEnterprise Rent-A-Car European IT director Jeff King tells Mark Samuels about his focus on cross-European project management and balanced service relationships

King: “My vision is we reach a point where, rather than being

confined to their own areas, the team can share the IT workload

of the European business evenly and consistently”


HOME

EUROPEAN NEWS

EDITOR’S COMMENT





APPROACH TO IT


PIONEERS



HCM SOFTWARE

Cross-European project managementAs well as its UK office, Enterprise’s European IT department has teams in Spain, France and Germany. King says the individual offices have often operated as separate silos. He is keen to find ways to promote closer ties between the teams and create a single Euro-pean IT organisation.

“My vision is we reach a point where, rather than being confined to their own areas of work in their own regions, the team can share the IT workload of the European business evenly and consistently,” he says. His move towards this aim has been assisted by the completion of a pan-European IT cost analysis tool – the development of which repre-sented the first cross-region project.

King says the initiative, which started in the summer of 2014, involved key IT profes-sionals from each European base. The team completed its collaborative development work in the cloud, using the .Net development framework and agile methodologies. The project has been a success, offering some important pointers for future developments.

Balanced service relationshipsService provision has been another key area of IT management for King, who says his approach to sourcing has altered during his two years in Europe. “I was keen to hand over the reins as much as possible at first and get end-to-end service in terms of development, implementation and support,” he says. “Then I started to come back a little and think about how we could stay engaged internally. My current thinking is that we need a balanced approach of in-house and external provision.”

King says finding the right balance requires a focus on the end goals the business wishes to achieve and an awareness of how these objec-tives might be fulfilled. “There are lots of opportunities to use outside service providers when it comes to infrastructure,” he says. “If we go to an external service provider, it makes sense to be as clear as possible about what you want to be managed and why.”

Looking to the futureKing also has an eye on future developments. He and his team are exploring develop-ments in telematics and mobile, and he suggests an innovative combination of technol-ogy in these areas could help create significant changes in car rentals.

At a basic level, data from in-car telematics systems can be used to keep a real-time feed of how far a particular rental car has travelled and how much fuel has been used. Smartphones, meanwhile, can be used to help expedite the creation of car-sharing mod-els in individual businesses.

“We keep pushing in these areas and we come together as a business to brainstorm our ideas,” he says. “Car rental will look very different five years from now, because of things like telematics, mobile and even the self-driving car. We have to consider all these developments. But we don’t look at advances in technology with fear. We always think about how we can use changes in technology to our advantage and how we can gain a competitive advantage in the marketplace.”

King continues to embrace each new challenge with enthusiasm. And it is unlikely the American’s sense of adventure will dip any time soon. “I don’t think my sense of enjoy-ment will ever run out,” he says. “Everything is still really fascinating.” n

INTERVIEW

“car rental will look very different five years from now, because of things like telematics, mobile and even the self-driving car”

This is an edited excerpt. Click here to read the full interview online.

http://www.computerweekly.com/news/2240234618/CIO-interview-Enterprise-Rent-A-Car-European-IT-director-Jeff-King


HOME

EUROPEAN NEWS

EDITOR’S COMMENT





APPROACH TO IT


PIONEERS



HCM SOFTWARE

TECHNOLOGY HUBS

The European technology industry continues to evolve rapidly as we begin 2015. On a recent trip to Hanover, David Cameron suggested the UK and Germany are leading the next digital revolution in Europe. Both countries are affected by similar technology sector trends, so what are the key themes?

One hot topic is the internet of things (IoT) or, as it is known in Germany, Industry 4.0. The interconnection of computing devices via both mobile and internet infrastructure offers technology companies a whole new set of opportunities.

In coming years, interconnected technology will continue to find its way into every aspect of life, with examples such as mobile phones used to control central heating sys-tems, cars reporting on the performance of their drivers to insurance companies, fridges telling their owners to pick up more milk and specialised sensors monitoring elderly people in their homes. There are many intriguing possibilities; the trick will be guessing which ones will build valuable and sustainable business models.

The move to cloud computing is also accelerating, albeit at slightly different rates, with Germany – for once – lagging behind the UK.

Decentralised technology hubsUnsurprisingly, there are few differences between the UK and Germany when it comes to major technology trends. But how do the two compare in where these major technology developments are happening? Is the technology industry centred around the capitals of London and Berlin, or are we seeing other regions stepping into the limelight?

In the UK, it’s certainly true that London’s technology scene has skyrocketed since 2010. An estimated 200 technology startups were based in London in 2010. In 2014, this rose to more than 3,000 fledgling technology groups, with nearly 20 London-based com-panies listed on the London Stock Exchange and, in one quarter, $1bn (£629m) made its way into various technology-based venture funds.

Increased government support is in part driving this growth, with the UK government investing £50m in Tech City, which has also attracted large US companies including Amazon, Google and Twitter. London clearly is a technology hotspot, but are any other areas of the UK attracting technology-based entrepreneurs?

Manchester is certainly up there. The city that invented the first stored-program com-puter is home to more than 6,000 technology-related companies, employing some

WAV

EBRE

AK

MED

IA/T

HIN

KSTO

CKEurope’s technology pioneers

The UK and Germany are experiencing similar technology advances. Stephen Georgiadis reports


HOME

EUROPEAN NEWS

EDITOR’S COMMENT





APPROACH TO IT


PIONEERS



HCM SOFTWARE

TECHNOLOGY HUBS

100,000 staff. With the largest student population in Europe, Manchester benefits from a pool of labour and is fast becoming one of the hotspots for technology startups.

Manchester benefits from cheaper rent, access to plentiful power and international links via the airport, all of which create a nurturing environment for technology start-ups. This trend has developed over recent years, and with the recent establishment and growth of MediaCityUK, it’s clear that Manchester is also rapidly becoming a major media hub in the UK.

So the UK has a technology and media focus around its two biggest cities, London and Manchester; how does Germany compare?

Silicon AlleeBerlin, which has a thriving technology scene, has also joined the silicon family, nicknamed “Silicon Allee”. A recent study by consultancy firm McKinsey estimated that Berlin tech-nology startups could generate as many as 100,000 jobs by 2020 – vital for a city with the highest unemployment rate in the country. With companies such as Google, Mozilla and Microsoft moving to Berlin, the city has proved its attraction to tech firms of varying sizes.

Another example is Rocket Internet, the incubator of fast-growth companies, which has recently floated to much fanfare, and at a huge price. Germany aspires to bringing world-dominating technology to market in the same way as Silicon Valley and the venture funds of the San Francisco Bay.

However, technology hubs in Germany are not limited to major cities. The famous Rhine-Main-Neckar (RMN) IT cluster, located in south-west Germany, is one of the most important ICT locations worldwide – often referenced as “the Silicon Valley of Europe”. Apart from universities, many software companies – including SAP, Software AG and T-Systems – are based in the region. In 2010, the RMN area was home to 50% of the top 100 global software companies – clearly a significant hub for technology in Germany.

While the RMN area is known for ICT, Dresden is renowned for being the country’s main technology research area. With around 300 high-tech companies – including Airbus A380 manufacturer EADS – the area provides excellent economic and scientific infrastructure. The Technical University of Dresden, which serves as a state-of-the-art training facility for young professionals, also provides new businesses with an abundance of highly skilled and motivated workers, making Dresden a perfect technology hub.

Munich represents an important centre for technology in Germany, home to major companies such as Siemens AG. However, it was not always so. In the 1990s, the area lacked technological innovation. As a result, the Bavarian state government provided the High-Tech-Offensive Bayern, which sought to invest €2.9bn into R&D in the region. This has allowed Munich’s technology scene to thrive, with 30,000 IT companies such as Adobe, Fujitsu and IBM using Munich as a European base.

UK provincial cities forging aheadWith active technology hubs located in Berlin, RMN, Dresden and Munich, Germany appears to have a less centralised technology scene when compared with the UK. But there are signs the UK is beginning to change in this respect. Manchester’s technol-ogy economy has demonstrated enormous growth in recent years and there is evidence of a slow rise in the technology scene across the likes of Sheffield, Leeds, Newcastle, Scotland and Brighton.

With London’s property prices already reaching prohibitive levels, many technology companies are now considering other locations in the UK. Examples such as Sheffield-based dotforge, which attracts and nurtures technology startups around the world, and DYN, a Brighton-based email delivery and traffic management service provider, demon-strate that the technology sector may be beginning to disperse outside the capital. n

Stephen Georgiadis is managing director at international investment bank Altium.


HOME

EUROPEAN NEWS

EDITOR’S COMMENT





APPROACH TO IT


PIONEERS



HCM SOFTWARE

INTERVIEW

Office supplier Staples focuses on becoming more European

Office supplies retailer Staples is undertaking major IT projects in Europe to improve e-commerce capabilities and the consolidation of back-end functionality in all its 16 markets.

Leading these initiatives is Dave Ubachs, formerly UK CIO at Procter & Gamble and most recently IT chief at market research firm Ipsos. Ubachs, who joined Staples in September 2013, says his aim is to help further an IT transformation that was already taking place shortly before he arrived.

“We are working on providing a bigger assortment to our customers online. Given that our e-commerce platform is so important and we are in a very competitive market, the other key area of focus is how to make the online experience significantly better,” says Ubachs.

“Also, we are looking at how we can become more European and, later on, how we can become more global. Staples in Europe has been growing through acquisitions and, while it has been very successful in understanding customers locally online and offline, there are always opportunities to bring best practices from one country to another.”

Improving the online experienceStaples is one of the largest e-commerce players in the world, but it is reshaping its strategy and acting like technology companies such as Amazon rather than traditional high street businesses. In addition to an innovation centre in California, the company recently launched a new development base in Seattle, which will act as a hub for innovation and new digital initiatives. It will allow the firm to work on activities such as enhancing search, personalisation and other technical areas that are relevant to retail.

However, the challenge in Europe in those areas is vast. Staples’ e-commerce platform serves 16 countries and has around half a million products on offer, so improving search and personalisation are high on the list of priorities for the IT team.

Ubachs says that, if the business can display products that are more relevant by personalising the website, customers will have a better online experience. But he says personalisation is easier said than done. “In a region like Europe, personalisation is an interesting challenge because what the English might call a sticky note might not have the same meaning to the French. So, besides a strong search mechanism to give people the right product, we also need to think about the local culture, local use and local habits to be able to point them in the right direction,” he says.

Keeping e-commerce in-houseTo improve the e-commerce toolset that has been built over the years, Ubachs looked to the company’s US opera-tions. It found a platform developed in-house by business unit Quill that would be the most appropriate system to deploy, rather than buying an off-the-shelf alternative.

Most sales elements of the e-commerce platform have already been migrated to the new setup. The

CIO Dave Ubachs tells Angelica Mari how Staples is tailoring its technology to a European market and explains why the firm moved to an SAP system in one go

Ubachs: “We need to think

about the local culture, local use and local

habits”


HOME

EUROPEAN NEWS

EDITOR’S COMMENT





APPROACH TO IT


PIONEERS



HCM SOFTWARE

roll-out started about a year ago, with the largest markets, including the UK, Italy, Spain, Germany and France, being migrated before smaller regions such as the Netherlands and Scandinavian countries.

Given that Staples generates a great deal of information about its customers, data analytics also plays a key role in the company’s IT operations.

“We need some very powerful machines to crunch that data and prepare the experience for different customer segments. You can do personalisation to the nth degree, or you can do what we do in our smaller markets, where we have several customer segments or profiles and if you are one of those, this is what you see,” says Ubachs.

Standardising ERP platformsBesides improving the front-end technology, Ubachs is leading a Europe-wide SAP deployment, which replaces a collection of 18 disparate enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems in various countries.

“Staples has been acquiring companies throughout the years, and all these companies had unique customers and unique insights and they were all brought into the party. What we had never done before was fully integrated and made sure that our different processes were harmonised across the markets,” he says.

Staples Europe decided to move all the transactional processes over to SAP in one go, adopting a “big bang” approach that many CIOs tend to avoid.

“When you make a choice about the deployment strategy, you need to choose whether you want to do it module by module, building interfaces between the new and the old, or go in and do all the modules at once,” says Ubachs.

“The benefit of doing it all at once is that you don’t invest a lot in the old, but it may mean that it takes longer because you do so much work in each and every country.”

Work on the “European design” of the full ERP implementation has just been completed and the team is about to start the building phase, with the first roll-out planned for the first quarter of 2015, with a large market being migrated once every four or five months.

You could be forgiven for thinking Staples would have got a better deal by picking SAP’s e-commerce platform as well as the ERP, rather than going for an in-house alternative for the former, but Ubachs says the buying decisions were separate.

“Given the kind of business we are in, having the right kind of technology platform for online business was the very first thing we needed to tackle,” he says.

Working in a European wayUbachs is also looking to use his experience from running IT organisations across Europe to bring a similar approach to his department of 250 staff, 50 of whom are based in the company’s European headquarters in the Netherlands.

He says the consolidation of platforms across the region means a lot of IT staff who had a local focus now have a broader scope and might work on projects concerning the larger markets or the whole region. “The key change that I am trying to bring is that we want to work in a European manner. Going forward, whenever we think about a solution, we consider whether it will also work in, say, five other markets that have the same dynamic,” says Ubachs.

“If we have people who are good in certain technologies, why not have them covering application support or development for all the other markets that use the same technology? The location is a lot less important to me than the fact people have a European mindset and that they work together,” he adds. n

INTERVIEW

“having the right kind of technology Platform for online business was the very first thing we needed to tackle”dave ubachs, cio


HOME

EUROPEAN NEWS

EDITOR’S COMMENT





APPROACH TO IT


PIONEERS



HCM SOFTWARE

HR SOFTWARE

T he use of pure-play human capital management (HCM) software is not yet com-mon in the Netherlands. Many organisations use the human resources (HR) mod-ules of large software packages such as Oracle’s, while a few buy specific software for their HCM.

More than half of all Dutch organisations install their HR systems locally, according to fig-ures from the Dutch research firm Keala. Yet companies do not seem hesitant in outsourcing their HCM software. Almost a quarter of the companies Keala surveyed said their HR system runs in the cloud, and yet another 25% said their HR system is outsourced through hosting or sourcing to third parties.

In addition, there are striking differences between sectors. Dutch governmental organisa-tions seem wary of the cloud, whereas software as a service (SaaS) is the most common form for HR software in the healthcare sector.

“Many solutions are traditionally installed on-premise with government organisations,” says Keala Consultancy director Ruud Aleards. “The organisations that use HR from the cloud are mostly small and medium-sized enterprises [SMEs]. That makes sense as they only pay for what they use and do not have to invest in expensive hardware and software.”

Credit insurance company Atradius uses Oracle Fusion for its HR processes. The company has more than 160 offices in 50 countries and 3,300 employees worldwide. About six years ago, the company implemented PeopleSoft and, when Oracle bought PeopleSoft, Atradius had to choose whether to upgrade or switch.

Atradius group HR director Fons van der Hall says: “We implemented PeopleSoft very plain vanilla. We were a functionally organised business at the time, making it relatively easy to deploy one HCM system. We could implement uniform HR practices and policies, so we needed little customisation.”

ROBE

RT C

HU

RCH

ILL/

THIN

KSTO

CK

Dutch organisations gradually take up cloud HCM software

While organisations in the Netherlands tend to use the traditional HR modules of the large software packages, some

diversity is emerging. Kim Loohuis reports


HOME

EUROPEAN NEWS

EDITOR’S COMMENT





APPROACH TO IT


PIONEERS



HCM SOFTWARE

HR SOFTWARE

The choice to migrate to Oracle Fusion lay in the fact it offered a cloud system, leaving the company’s IT department with few IT concerns – such as updates – to worry about. “We also found Fusion friendlier and more intuitive than PeopleSoft,” says van der Hall. Because the application runs in the cloud, it is easy for the company’s 3,300 employees to maintain and manage their own information through a portal.

Local players not an optionAtradius also looked at other possibilities for HCM software. It emphatically did not look at local players, given the size of the organisation and the geographical spread. The choice finally fell to Oracle because Atradius was already running several of the supplier’s applica-tions. “There was another supplier we looked at, but it was very focused on the US and could not offer the language features that we’d like to see,” says van der Hall.

At this time, the credit insurer was on the verge of going live with the application. The first phase of implementation was completed in December 2014. “In this first part we mirrored the functionality we already had with PeopleSoft – core HR and goal management, perfor-mance and business intelligence. In 2015 we continue with phase two, in which we look at talent management and compensation man-agement. Those two things are definitely on my wish list,” says van der Hall.

Unambiguous processThe HCM software has different influences on the HR process, according to van der Hall. “On the one hand, it forces our HR depart-ments worldwide to work in a consistent way. What is also very important, as we are a financial institution, is that we can easily demonstrate what we did and how we did it. This allows us to more easily meet all com-pliance and regulatory requirements.”

Another advantage for Atradius is Fusion’s ability to generate worldwide reports. For example, the organisation receives an unam-biguous way for looking at the performance rating. “That also means we can benchmark ourselves and compare. From a cost per-spective, you get a good understanding of what is happening,” says van der Hall. And the self-service component is a big advantage, because no professional HR capacity is needed for the things that employees can do them-selves. “We can then use that capacity elsewhere,” adds van der Hall.

A system to support HR processesThe Rhenus Group is a transport and logistics company with more than 24,000 employees and global business operations at more than 390 business sites. It has a strong regional presence in the Netherlands, with more than 32 locations. The company recognises profes-sional and personal development helps achieve the business goals.

“We started in 2012 with e-HCM,” says Rhenus corporate HR manager Anjo Meijer.“Previously, we had a personnel information system, but that was only suitable for HR

professionals and payroll. Employees could not retrieve any information from the system, to check the status of an expense report for example.

“We wanted to take the next step towards a system that supported our HR processes and where we would have decentralised information available. The goal was a system to support our processes, employees and professionals.”

“we wanted to take the next steP towards a system that suPPorted our hr Processes and where we would have decentralised information available” anJo meiJer, rhenus


HOME

EUROPEAN NEWS

EDITOR’S COMMENT





APPROACH TO IT


PIONEERS



HCM SOFTWARE

SaaS the cheaper optionThe logistics and transport company asked for quotations from the three major HCM soft-ware suppliers in the Netherlands: Raet, Afas and ADP. Ultimately, it chose Raet: “Both the price and the flexibility of the software appealed to us,” says Meijer. The system Rhenus used to work with was also from Raet, which led it to hope the migration would be easier than to an application from another supplier. “In retrospect, I do not know whether we were better off than we would have been with other software. It is, and remains, a migration,” says Meijer.

Rhenus opted for the SaaS version of the HCM software. This choice was motivated by the future. “We didn’t want to have the software on-premise, because that would mean we would also need someone available to manage and maintain it,” says Meijer. SaaS also offers the convenience that the application can be accessed from any location. This is especially a major advantage for the self-service element. “Employees can retrieve information on leave, expenses, salaries and working conditions from any location they wish,” Meijer says.

Declining error ratesAt the start of the project, Rhenus established a number of objectives. The company wanted to optimise communication and collaboration between employees, managers and HR profes-sionals. It wanted HR processes to be more efficient and transparent. It also wanted to save time and costs and for the SaaS system to contribute to what it saw as its position as an innovative and professional employer. For now the system is only used in the Netherlands for the 1,100 employees in that country. The goal is to eventually roll out the application through-out Europe, but the link to the payroll system and the different tax laws in European countries make that difficult.

To Meijer, a big advantage of the system is the decrease in the error rate in its systems. “Previously, when an employee moved house, they had to send a letter with their new address details, which then had to be retyped. Now the input takes place at the source, namely the employee. The probability of errors in the process is reduced and the paper flow decreased in the HR process,” says Meijer.

The next stepRhenus has made great strides over the past three years and would like to go further, says Meijer: “Three years ago we were still using absence slips that we would store in physical files. We don’t do that any more. In the beginning, people had to learn to trust the system and some of them kept shadow administrations in Excel, but that’s no longer an issue.

“The next step is rolling out the flexible benefits module and, after that, we want to do recruitment through e-HCM.” That will take about another three years, but Meijer realises e-HCM is never done. “There are always new developments. That makes it so much fun.” n

HR SOFTWARE

“the Probability of errors in the Process is reduced and the PaPer flow decreased in the hr Process”anJo meiJer, rhenus

KID

DY

026

5/TH

INKS

TOC

K

cw - docs.media.bitpipe.comdocs.media.bitpipe.com/io_12x/io_120839/item_1073626/eur_0115_… · to...

Documents