Queensland Urban Utilities plots IT breakaway

Meyers inherited a draft ICT strategy when she joined Queensland Urban Utilities in March this year. She is currently spearheading a redraft of that strategy.

Strategic changes over the past six to nine months - including the decision to move to continue outsourcing commodity ICT services, and the Separation Program - needed to be woven into the existing strategy document.

"We're currently in the position at the moment of redrafting our ICT strategy," Meyers says.

"Really what I've tried to encapsulate in that strategy and the underpinning business plan is the need for us to mature up our ICT services internally.

"Getting the right organisation structure in place, appropriate governance, the right policy framework, and improving maturity so that by the time we're engaging with the managed provider, we'll be working in alignment with the better practices of ITIL, PRINCE2".

The existing ICT team is "reasonably lean", given most functions are currently provided by Brisbane City Council, although Meyers says she has some internal help desk staff.

"My team will very much still retain the skills of strategy, architecture, business analysis, testing, policy, governance," she says.

Managed world

Queensland Urban Utilities is hoping to name a primary managed services provider in the coming months, after which it can begin the process of 'lift-and-shift'.

It's likely that the provider will be asked to manage a multi-sourced environment that allows Queensland Urban Utilities to take advantage of various as-a-service products.

Meyers expects to see process efficiency benefits from establishing more direct control over Queensland Urban Utilities' ICT environment and from contracts negotiated with flexible terms.

"What we're looking at in terms of vendors is really being able to flex our cost model based on efficiencies, so if we need to ramp up a project and consume more services we can do that, if we need to scale down to a more baseline level of services we can do that as well," she says.

"It puts a lot more control in our hands in that space.

Future transformation

Once the 'lift-and-shift' is complete, there are plans to explore consolidation of systems, such as database technologies and ERP.

The company's use of three database technologies could be consolidated to one, "reducing our costs in that space", Meyers says.

"There's certainly a desire to re-look at a lot of these systems in due course."

She sees the post-June 2013 timeframe as a chance to "really get our ducks all lined up to get on with transformation".

"We'll have an orderly approach to either replacing systems or upgrading those systems that we decide will stay in our environment," she says.