Royal Borough of Greenwich CIO Kevin Gibbs video interview – Vendor ecosystems, CRM and the people side of digital transformation

Royal Borough of Greenwich CIO Kevin Gibbs said his focus over the coming year will be on the people and cultural side of digital transformation rather than the technical IT.

The Deputy Director of Corporate Resources told CIO UK contributor Scott Carey at the 2017 CIO 100 celebration reception that his focus was to enable users to be productive with the local authority’s technology.

“I think as we do digital transformation – the technology is changing so quickly – it’s very easy to get the technology right and get the people side wrong,” Gibbs said. “So I think the real challenge for me this year is around not IT problems but problems with IT; the ability for the users to be actually able to use the technology that we put in place to be effective with that.”

Gibbs also discussed the city-as-a-platform agenda being pushed byLeeds City Council Chief Digital and Information Officer Dylan Roberts, explaining the idea of moving beyond the boundaries of your own organisation.

Describing CRM implementation as one of the big transformational changes in the Royal Borough of Greenwich in East London, Gibbs said that he was looking to create a single platform where citizens can interact with the council.

Gibbs also called on the IT vendor community to think less about sales and instead have a greater appreciation of the challenges CIOs face.

“The vendor community sometimes aren’t adapting to what we are trying to do,” Gibbs said. “They are very much into sales rather than thinking about how they interact in the ecosystem.”