focus_on_informatics

of things, but we did it in pieces. Until now, we never stepped back and looked at the whole. By selecting a multisourcing strategy we are forcing our three partners to work as one ecosystem, as one delivery engine, not three delivery engines.

“Furthermore, the work that we have done from 2000 to 2006 in terms of consolidation, rationalisation and standardisation will serve us well as we go into the next phase.”

What has Mr Matula, at the top of the technology tree in one of the world’s largest companies, left to achieve? “If we can deliver to the business, improve the function and take the business into the top quartile and build a sustainable ecosystem internally and externally, well, that’s a journey that is going to take us the next three to four years. There will be plenty of opportunities in that time to deliver and to be proud of and to help Shell get to that next level,” he says.

CopyrightThe Financial Times Limited 2009

Glossary

CIO (Chief Information Officer) – (главный) директор по информацион-

ным технологиям (сотрудник корпорации, исполнитель высшего ранга, отвечающий за приобретение и внедрение новых технологий, управлениеинформационными ресурсами)

ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) – планирование бизнес-ресурсов

agility – ловкость, быстрота

anticipated benefits – ожидаемые преимущества

application – зд. прикладная задача

consistent – последовательный, непротиворечивый

core and essential – самое важное, сердцевина, суть

corporate planning assignment – задание по планированию деятель-

ности корпорации

divisional level – уровень производственного отделения, филиала

embark – начинать, вступать (в дело)

federated entities – объединенные организмы

firewall – брандмауэр (система (аппаратная или программная) или комбинация систем, образующая в целях защиты границу между двумя или более сетями, предохраняя от несанкционированного попадания в сеть или предупреждая выход из неё пакетов данных)

have (smth) left to achieve – еще не достигнуто, еще предстоит достичь

human dimension – человеческое изменение

juggle – жонглировать

leverage – усиливать (с помощью рычагов)

make headway – делать успехи, преуспевать

MBA – магистр делового администрирования

outsourcing – привлечение внешних ресурсов (передача стороннему подрядчику некоторыхбизнес-функций или частей бизнес-процесса предприятия c целью повысить производительность труда и снизить себестоимость продукции преимущественно за счет более дешёвой рабочей силы у подрядчика)

multisourcing strategy – привлечение множества сторонних подрядчиков одновременно

Quantitative Business Analysis – количественныеметоды вбизнесе

quotation marks – кавычки

refining (oil refining)– перегонка (нефти)

resilience – упругость, гибкость, устойчивость

SAP (Systems, Applications, and Products in Data Processing) – компа-

ния-производитель программного обеспечения для бизнеса, анализа рынка и поставок

scarcity of resources – нехватка ресурсов

set the scene – создавать условия

sprawling – расползающийся, разваливающийся

streamline – упрощать, модернизировать, рационализировать sustainable ecosystem – экологическирациональная экосистема toll – пошлина, плата

trading floor – биржевой, торговый, операционныйзал underpin – поддерживать, подкреплять

utility – полезность, практичность

Exercises:

1.Without referring back to the article, do you remember in what context the following companies were mentioned. Have you heard about thembefore?

a.SAP

b.EDS

c.AT&T

2.Match the adjectives from the left-hand column with the nouns from the right-hand column:

federated	ecosystem
competitive	competition
intense	benefits
sustainable	value
anticipated	entities

3. Whichof the statements are true? Correct the falseones:

1)The petrochemicals giant Shell decided to outsource its network and telecommunications, hosting andstorage as early as eight years ago.

2)Mr. Alan Matula has been working for theShell company since 2006.

3)Mr. Matula graduated from two universities, and was awarded a degree in Science as well as a degree in Business Administration.

4)If the company is willing to succeed, Mr. Matula believes, it has to outsource infrastructure and applications, while concentrating its resources on the most critical issues.

5)The Shell group consists of the following business classes: Upstream, Downstream andTrading.

6)Mr. Matula first functioned as CIO of Shell Chemicals in North America, then as CIO of Shell Chemicals around the world, and eventually became the Chief Information Officer ofthe whole Shell Group.

4. Answer thequestions:

1)What was Shell’s vision of the problem of reorganizing its IT infrastructure in 2001? Whatwas their decision in 2009?

2)How will the three service providers share IT management responsibilities?

3)Why was thechallenge in IT strategy necessary for the company?

4)Why is it difficult for a modern company to differentiate between “commodity-oriented” IT services and the business essentials?

5)What reasons does Alan Matula have for being optimistic about the future benefits of Shell’s multisourcing strategy? Why is IT outsourcing a big challenge for thecompany?

5. The title ofthe textNever start IT initiatives for the sake of ITimplies:

1)There is huge demand for IT, and technology has become core and essential to any global business.

2)The business itself should be your main priority, while technology is intended to support the business modelyou are creating.

3)A large company should always outsource its information technology infrastructure.

6. Topics for discussion:

1)Enumerate the core challenges that the Shell group faced during the transformation process and speak about possible ways tosolve them.

2)What responsibilities does the position of CIO include? In what indus-

tries is it vital for a company to have a CIO?

Text 30. AddingIntelligence tothe IT Service Arrangement

By John Lutz, general manager of IBM’s managed business process ser-

vices

There is currently no appetite for huge IT transformation projects where everything is paid for up-front and benefits are delivered over time. Instead, the focus is on continuous improvement, where businesses pay for services as they deliver value.

In effect, IT service providers are becoming intimately integrated with clients as business changes patterns.

The historical approach to “quality of service” measurements in an IT services contract focused on improving the number of transactions per second, or network connections per second and the like– terms that were fairly obscure to mostbusiness people.

Today, service providers are engaging with clients on the basis of bringing down the cost and improving the quality of business transactions.

Once there was a clear dichotomy about how business leaders viewed IT services. On the one hand there were basic services; on the other, there was a desire for high-level consulting services, where specialists theorised about the ideal state for some set of business processes. It turns out that neither of these approaches works particularly wellin isolation.

The first wave of outsourcing was very focused on the basics; moving a client’s operations to the service provider. An activity such as providing servers, simply moved across and the process didn’t change; it was just new people doing it in a different location – sometimes even the same people.

But economies of scale can be realised when providers identify the optimal way of doing that sort of straightforward IT work, industrialising processes to ensure they meet a wide variety of uses and can be done in a very reliable way.

The same is true for some low-level process work. Providing HR services might involve managing employee data – such as keeping staff home address details up to date. There is nothing magic about how a company does this, but typically they create their own systems and standards.

But within the HR function there may be activities such as recruitment, which tend to be customised. Here, there is a substantial opportunity for game-changing improvements, using process expertise, innovation and analytics to unleashcompelling business improvements.

For example, in procurement, the inclusion of powerful analytic tools can pay dividends. Software modules, delivered as part of an integrated service, can help clients spot records that have near matches, and then determine where parts of a purchase order have been paid more than once.

Clearly that has enormous benefit for the client, but it is also a different way to think about the IT services – is this service with software, software as a service, or something else entirely? The old services models cannot encapsulate this type of approach.

Furthermore, we are only looking at the tip of the iceberg when it comes to software’s potential to add intelligence to the service arrangement. We think there is enormous potential in the work around the intelligent infrastructure from power grids, to healthcaresystems and traffic managementsystems.

Take, for example, traffic congestion: to operate a smart road system requires basic functionality, such as being able to recognise vehicles and understand where they are. In isolation, knowing that a vehicle has moved is useful information, but if you can analyse enough vehicles at one time you can build a more sophisticated model of traffic flows and develop real insight about how to ease congestion.

If you can collate and analyse enough data, you can derive real intelligence. This applies to the panoply of business transactions. The potential is enormous.

Being able to do that is going to challenge IT service providers. Providers will have to draw upon some high-level consulting expertise to examine processes, and it helps to have research teams that can work on innovative technology that might be applied.

The final piece of the puzzle is software. This is the thing that will allow businesses to apply that analysis to their systems and start making improvements.

In this new model of service delivery, the key is to be able rapidly to optimise low-level functions and then apply this transformational service on top, without having to createcustomised versions for each engagement.

To do that, service providers need to be able to call on a global pool of process expertise – this is globalisation not predicated on the unsustainable fallacy of labour arbitrage benefits, but of delivering expertise wherever and whenever the customer requires it.

Not all service providers will be able to thrive in this new world. Some are too strongly welded to the break-fix world of hardware service; others lack the research or consulting expertise. But for those business leaders that find truly capable partners, the benefits will be enormous.

CopyrightThe Financial Times Limited 2009

Glossary

change patterns – изменить стиль, следовать новым тенденциям

collate – критически рассматривать, сопоставлять, располагать в нужном порядке

compelling – неотразимый, непреодолимый

customized versions – версии, разработанные по условиям заказчика

dichotomy – лог. дихотомия (последовательное деление целого на две части или на два противопоставляемых друг другу подкласса и т. п.)

draw upon – черпать, заимствовать, использовать

economies of scale – экономия от масштаба, эффект масштаба (снижение среднихзатрат по мере увеличения объема выпуска)

encapsulate – информ. инкапсулировать, вмещать в себя

engagement – зд. дело, случай

fallacy – ошибка, заблуждение

have near matches –почти совпадать

intimately integrated – объединены на глубинном уровне, тесно связаны воедино

labour arbitrage – экономия на оплате труда (за счет перенесения производства в страны с более дешевой рабочей силой)

low-level functions – низкоуровневые функции

obscure – непонятный, невразумительный

panoply – богатство, великолепие, роскошь

pay up-front – платить вперед (авансом)

pool – зд. общий фонд, объединенныйрезерв, общий котел

power grid – электроэнергетическая система, электрическая сеть

predicated (on) – основанный (на)

procurement – закупка, приобретение, снабжение service arrangement – механизм оказания услуг set of processes –матем. множествопроцессов

software module – модуль (системы) программного обеспечения, программныймодуль

spot records – отслеживать данные, материалы, документы thrive – процветать

traffic congestion– дорожная (транспортная) пробка unleash – давать волю, высвобождать unsustainable – неустойчивый

welded – связанный, соединенный, спаянный

Exercises:

1.What do the following terms from the article mean? Give their definitions in English:

1)economies of scale

2)traffic congestion

3)labour arbitrage

2. Whichof the statements are true? Correct the falseones:

1)Businesses have to pay for IT services first and expect benefits later.

2)It is impossible to combine basic, straightforward IT work with highlevel intelligent approach to service arrangements.

3)Many companies invent their own ways of managing employee data.

4)Software’s potential to add intelligence to the service arrangement is huge.

5)Apart from developing innovative technology, the key to transforming the very model of service delivery is creating the necessary software

to apply this analysis to business systems and start making improvements.

3. Answer thequestions:

1)What measurement tools did companies use to employ in order to assess the effectiveness of IT services? How has this approach changed lately?

2)Which IT services were the first to be outsourced by companies: highlevel or low-level?

3)What examples does the text give of combining a low-level and a high-level approach to IT services in business?

4)What is the author’s view on the prospects of applying IT to business transactions and other problem social areas?

5)What challenges for IT service providers does the new integrated approach to IT imply?

4. Expand the statement:

IT service providers are becoming intimately integrated with clients as business changes patterns.

5. Giveexamples of:

1)basic IT services provided to a business

2)consulting services for businesses

6. Describe a possible way of easing a traffic congestion with the help of IT.

Text 31. The First IT-literatePresident

Part 1