Circle is one of the largest groups of housing associations in the UK. It provides affordable housing and related services in England, mainly in London, the South East, East Anglia and Birmingham.The group was formed as Circle Anglia when Circle 33 Housing Group and Anglia Housing Group merged. Circle owns and manages more than 63,500 homes, including supported and sheltered housing, for more than 200,000 people across the UK, and employs over 2,200 staff. When did you start your current role?March 2009 Have you completed an MBA?No Order the following sources of advice/information by value to you:1.    Analyst2.    In-house3.    Consultant4.    Peer Group5.    Vendor Technology strategy and spending What is the major transformational IT project that has been recently completed, or is underway at your organisation?The delivery of an IT strategy to support the Group's 10 year repairs and maintenance services programme for its' 200,000 customers across 65,00 properties. All previousy disparate technologies and associated processes were standardised, delivering consistent data formats to all external contractors to support business obejctives. All legacy systems were decomissioned, making savings and reducing risk. What impact will it/does it have on the organisation?The ability to deliver improved services to our customers, thus enhancing customer satisfaction with our repairs and maintenence services. Better performance reporting both on our Group services and those provided by our contractor partners will support the delivery of savings in excess of £120 million which will be reinvested to enhance the life chances of our customers. . What new strategic technology deals has your organisation struck and with whom?We have an strategic agreement with Dell for the supply of laptops and tablet devices to support our Agile working transformation. The key deliverables of this programme are: • Identify and introduce solutions to enhance the way in which we interact with our customers out in the field;• Identify and introduce solutions to encourage agile ways of working to support the Group’s office strategy;• To identify the cultural impact of these changes to staff and customers and to support the organisation in adapting to new ways of working;• To make Circle Housing a better place to work. It is anticipated that the business benefits over the next 12 months will include:Reduced operational cost; Increased former tenant arrears collection; Decreased bad debt provision: Increased number of payers using Direct Debit: Decreased transactional cost to process rent payments Name your strategic technology suppliers?Microsoft, Dell, Claranet. IT operational spend compared to the revenue or company turnover as a percentage?4% What is the strategic aim of the CIO and IT operations for the next financial year?To deliver IT capability and services that will support the delivery of the Group's business plan. To deliver maximum value to the Group, supporting and enabling business outcomes. We will adopt an industry standard approach for systems and technology that will reduce costs and allow IT staff to deliver added value. Whilst enhancing IT operations stability and control, we will deliver capability for the following strategic objectices: mulit channel access; enhanced infrastructure to support new ways of working; collaborative working (SharePoint); CRM (Microsoft Dynamics); Business Intelligence: Access and Security; Unified Communications. Transformation achievements Would you describe the CIO role as a transformation leader in your organisation?Yes. The CIO role has a strong focus on strategy, client service and maximising resources. Technology is a core componet of the Group's transformation programmes and improvement in cusotmer service. Describe the transformations you have led / been involved in, how did they transform operations, customer experience or the organisation?I have developed an enterrpise systems strategy to deliver improved customer service, enhanced collaboration and better decision making through business intelligence, whilst delivering services at a recued cost, projected at £1.5m per annum. I developed a technology and mobile strategy to reduce the number of contact centres, with costs savings in excess of £300k per year, the removal of legacy systems, the reductiopn of risk and the implementation of disaster recovery and business continuity capability.I was responsible for the implementation of a new Alarm Receiving Platform for our telecare organisation, providing life critical systems to over 100,000 customers. The system is fully resiliant across two data centres and is recognised by the sector's independant regulator as being best in class. Beyond technology, can you describe a business transformation programme that you own or contribute to?The Group's talent and leadership programme. The IT team are leading on aligning with the talent, reward and coaching programmes. The IT team approach to staff development, career progression and talent management is recognised as best practise and IT services are established within the context of the wider staff lifecycle. IT were recognsed as being leaders in supporting the Group's "Customers and People at the Heart" programme, transforming the way we deliver both internal and external customer services. What key technologies are being considered to enable transformation?Office 365 to align our infrastructure platform with our chosen Cloud provider and move towards a hybrid Cloud and on premise model. Commoditised services will allow the Group to operate with greater agility and at a more flexible cost. SharePoint, MS Dynamics and MS BizTalk will allow improved responsiveness to business requirements, better customer service through more capable and automated systems, reduced run costs and improved document management and collaboration through opening up and integrating systems and data. What percentage of your applications / infrastructure is run from the Cloud?Currently approximately 15%, but this is planned to increase significantly over the next 3 years. How is the use by employees of their own technology, use of mobiles and social networking impacting operations, customer experiences or the organisation at present?Employees increasingly wish to use their own devices and this is actively supported by my team and appropriate services offered. We are seeing increased demand from our external customers for accessing their information and transactiing online via mobile devices. This is being supported by our multi-channel access strategy, making it much easier for our customers to communicate with us through a range of media, including social networking. Do you have a plan in place for how to deal with shadow IT and BYOD. How do you influence and engage executives, place the right controls around employee choice and engage with the organisation on this issue?This has been in place for over 12 months. I recognsied early on the demand that was going to come for BYOD and we actively support it. We have developed the appropriate usage policies and carried out an extensive analysis of the required technology controls, resulting in the deployment of Good Technology to provide the necessary security and enable our employees to work in the way that they wish. Where do you seek transformational inspiration from?Typically from outside of the housing sector, looking at large corporations who have a reputation for innovation. For example, Microsoft and their ways of working to inform thinking about agility and effective use of office estate. Organisations who can also demonstrate the business benefit brought in by the effective automation and standardisation of processes. The CIO role in the business Who do you report to?CFO Do you have a seat on the board?No How often do you meet with the CEO?Twice yearly Does your organisation have a digital leader and what is the difference in their responsibilities to yours?No What percentage of IT budget do you control and what percentage of IT budget does your digital peer hold?I hold 100% of the IT budget. The IT department How many staff make up the IT team?(What is the split between in-house/outsourced staff)95 in total, 5 of whom are contractors/ Describe the CIO’s management team, do you have direct reports that develop the relationship and services between the business and IT?I have 5 direct reports – Customer Services, Infrastructure, Business Applications, Security & Governance and Learning. We have developed a stakeholder map covering all parts of the Group to identify the most effective way to engage with our customers and understand their requirements, so that we may offer the necessary services through our service catalogue. And how many log-in accounts do you issue across you organisation?3,000 What is the primary technology platform? ( for example ERP, Website, trading system)Currently Housing/Asset Management and Financial systems. Over the next 3 years we will move to an integrated ERP platform.