Transfield Services hands CIO wider remit

Transfield Services is handing its chief information officer a wider remit that includes financial shared services, becoming the third ASX-listed firm to combine IT responsibilities with services in the past two months.

The construction and maintenance firm announced organisational changes today that included giving CIO, Stephen Phillips, "additional responsibility for business processes which service the operations".

"Initially, this includes Financial Shared Services, however the scope will expand," Transfield said in a statement. (pdf)

A Transfield Services spokesperson has been contacted for comment.

Other ASX-listed firms have gone down similar paths this year, including Boral and Mirvac.

Transfield indicated that expansion of the CIO's remit would come as it deployed an "upgraded technology platform" across the business under Project Quantum.

The project involves the rollout of SAP ECC6 enterprise resource planning (ERP) and SAP customer relationship management (CRM) software to all Transfield entities.

Transfield said today that the project was "on time and budget" with the build phase to be completed in FY13, coinciding with a drop-off in capital expenditure required for the project.

ERP spending reached $25.6 million in the six months to December 31, 2012. Another $25.8 million will be spent in the remaining six months of the financial year, putting total yearly capital expenditure on the project at $51.4 million for FY13.

This is expected to drop back substantially in FY14, where a total of $10 million in capital expenditure is expected for the ERP system. (pdf)