Centrica operates the British Gas and Scottish Gas energy supply utilities in the UK as well as operations in the US. It supplies electricity and gas and is the UK’s largest energy provider. Listed on the London Stock Exchange Centrica has a market capitalisation of £15 billion as of December 2011. IT Leader:David Bickerton, Group CIO In role since: seven years Reporting line: Reports to Chief Financial officer, Nick Luff Board level seat:No IT estate and or number of log on accounts under the control of the IT leader:Centrica has over 40,000 email accounts, 10,700 laptops and 17,800 desktops in our UK business Level of the workforce that relies on technology to carry out their tasks: Close to 100 per cent,  everyone registered in SAP HR has a login account IT staff currently employed:1690 permanent staff, 844 contractors IT management team and reporting structure: Centrica has CIOs in each Business Unit, in addition to head of IS Lean Centrica, SAP Competency Centrica and IS Shared Services who all report to the CIO Primary technology platforms at the organisation: SAP and ERP – in addition to intranet. Our trading system in Openlink Endur Primary technology suppliers: HP. Fujitsu, Cable and Wireless, Vodafone, Cognizant, SAP and Microsoft – to name a few Significant strategic technology deals been struck in the last 12 months:Over the last 12 months we have struck significant group wide-deals with HP and Fujitsu, and a deal with Microsoft at the end of 2010. Strategic aim of the CIO and IT operations for the next financial year: To underpin ambitious growth targets and make a valuable contribution to our business performance, the four strategic themes we have set as our ambition are:Industrialisation – Increasingly repeatable and standardised methods of delivering IS services to improve service quality and speed whilst reducing cost and riskIntegration – Common ways of working that enable integration, exploit economies of scale and share capabilityIntelligence – Exploit our information to enhance decision making, retain and manage it to reduce risk and harness the value for new revenue streamsInnovation – Leading the way in new methods and adoption of technology to enable competitive distinction Technologies considered by the leader to offer their organisation potential:Virtualisation platforms, mobile access gateways and the introduction of private clouds. In addition to smart technologies to support the roll out of smart metering How do you see technology transforming your organisation in the near future?We need technology that is as agile as our business enabling the provision of flexible solutions and business insight through improved intelligence.