Based in Milton Keynes and established in 1969, the Open University is a distance learning and research university founded by Royal Charter. Despite the majority of the OU's undergraduate based off-campus, there are a number of full-time postgraduate research students based on the 48-hectare campus where more than 1,000 members of academic and research staff, and more than 2,500 administrative, operational and support staff are based. The OU has more than 250,000 students enrolled, with just over 30,000 under the age of 25 and more than 50,000 overseas students – making it one of the world's largest universities. A former BGL Group IT director, CIO David Matthewman was interviewed about his role at the Open University by CIO magazine in 2011. When did you start your current role?August 2010 Have you completed an MBA?No Order the following sources of advice/information by value to you:1. In-house2. Peer group3. Consultant4. Vendors5. Analyst Technology strategy and spending What is the major transformational IT project that has been recently completed, or is underway at your organisation?The replacement of all core business systems What impact will it/does it have on the organisation?Significantly improve the organisations ability to ability to respond to student needs and market change and provide colleagues with the tools to enable them to be effective in their roles. What new strategic technology deals has your organisation struck and with whom?Most recent technology deals are Microsoft for Unified Communications, Oracle for SOA and Gamma for telephony services Name your strategic technology suppliers?Microsoft, HP & Oracle What is the IT budget?£30m in 13/14 FY What is the strategic aim of the CIO and IT operations for the next financial year?To complete the transformation of key business systems. Transformation achievements Would you describe the CIO role as a transformation leader in your organisation?Yes Beyond technology, can you describe a business transformation programme that you own or contribute to?I've established a Business Performance Improvement function which is solving problems previously considered intractable, delivering huge return on investment (3,247% last full year) and at the same time earning an excellent reputation with my internal business partners. I would recommend every CIO creates this function to allow them to offer non-technology solutions too. This function is truly transforming the performance of the business areas it works with. What key technologies are being considered to enable transformation?further use of – Service Oriented Architecture, linked data, virtualisation. What percentage of your applications / infrastructure is run from the Cloud?5% today but include key services for students and specific business functions including busines development. 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?A significant number of colleagues use their own devices and personal computers to access the university's services through safe portals. Many of them have a full suite of services that enables very effective remote working using their own systems. 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?We have a well developed risk management methodology which we use to engage the University's leadership team in IT controls and to help them gauge the investments required. Our approach is to put robust controls around key business systems that must be tightly controlled and to increasingly provide safe windows on to other systems that can be used regardless of device and location. We support a huge range of roles in the University from contact centre teams through to world class researchers considering next generation Internet and Security technolgies and we provide appropriate environments for all of these needs and the very wide range of technolgoies in use. Where do you seek transformational inspiration from?I am extremely fortunate to be a part of a high quality leadership team, have frequent contact with thought leaders and researchers in diverse fields including business, education, technology and even space science! These internal influencers are hugely inspiring and there are many innovation and transformational parallels across the many OU disciplines. I'm also well connected with peers outside of the sector and a frquent TED lecture also helps to keep me on my toes. The CIO role in the business Do you report to?CEO and COO Do you have a seat on the board?Yes How often do you meet with the CEO?Monthly Does your organisation have a digital leader and what is the difference in their responsibilities to yours?There are a number of digital leaders and I am engaged with them heavily. They include marketing, comms and learning and tea hing leads What percentage of IT budget do you control and what percentage of IT budget does your digital peer hold?100% The IT department How many staff make up the IT team?(What is the split between in-house/outsourced staff)320 in house including 50 contractors Describe the CIO’s management team, do you have direct reports that develop the relationship and services between the business and IT?Direct reports are: Programme Director, Development Director, Infrastructure Director, Service Delivery Director and Head of Business Performance Improvement. Each Director manages the reltionship with  a set of Internal Business partners and the CIO holds the reltionship with the executive team members. What is the primary technology platform? ( for example ERP, Website, trading system)Student and Curriculum Information System – Master record system for registration through to graduation.