CIO 100: NZME

NZME (NEW ZEALAND Media and Entertainment), is the brand unifying radio, digital, e-commerce and print brands of APN NZ, The Radio Network and GrabOne.

Its businesses include TRN radio stations NewstalkZB, RadioSport, The Hits, ZM, Flava, Hauraki, Mix 98.2, Coast; APN NZ publishing businesses such as The New Zealand Herald, regional and community newspapers; and Educational Media.

“We have successfully completed the transition of our separate business units into our new premises at NZME Central,” says Nick Kumarich, interim CIO, on NZME’s move to the new corporate headquarters before the year-end.

The building on Victoria Street in Auckland was designed to meet the needs of the converged media structure.

Kumarich says the move was the number one priority of the ICT group in the past year. “We needed to have all hands on deck to complete the transition in an incredibly tight time frame while ensuring continuance of BAU and minimal business disruption.

“The next 12 months are key in establishing the future direction for NZME,” says Kumarich who took over the CIO role from Vaughan Walker, who is on medical leave.

Kumarich says major business technology projects this year will be on the content management system (CRM), sales transformation, digital foundry and core infrastructure.

The CMS covers the New Zealand Herald website, “the first major overhaul for some time”, explains Kumarich.

“The CRM and sales transformation are focused on driving a single, consolidated view of the customer across the NZME landscape.”

NZME has also commenced on a “data journey”, says Kumarich, and this brings its own set of challenges. “The NZME audience ecosystem is complex, in addition to the challenges of integrating three separate companies and consolidating their individual components.

“Now that we have co-located, we need to work on the new way of doing technology for NZME.”

The roles and responsibilities in the new NZME business model need to be defined, says Kumarich. “From this, we can design the best structure to meet our collective goals and plans for Technology and then to meet the wider needs of the business.”

“This will further help us to drive the cultural changes that we need to bring the three IT organisations into one NZME Technology function.”