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Colin is responsible for IT and he is understandably very proud to have developed sophisticated systems that support the rapidly changing needs of the business. With his two sons now married and in good jobs, Colin focuses his efforts on ensuring that his thorough awareness of technology and his deep understanding of the business help his colleagues to continue to take the business forward. After all, Colin is due to retire soon and his plans need a good pension in place.

Colin’s frustration is that few of his colleagues appreciate or understand just how complex and critical the work of his department is. Colin feels he has a better understanding than most of key business issues, after all he is expected to keep the wheels of industry spinning through the provision of secure and reliable systems. Just ask the marketing team to work with 99.999% uptime!

Colin has enough complications in his work life without the introduction of technologies that do not conform to his love of open systems or new applications that do not integrate with his existing computer systems. But he knows only too well that the behaviour of new generations (such as Jenny) and old (such as Anne) are changing the face of the business.

Colin and the rest of his team find themselves at the forefront of these changes and the unwitting pioneers of new services as sales and marketing drive new customer initiatives.

Like all of us, Colin has his favourite suppliers who have the legs and longevity to be trusted to deliver painlessly and with minimal risk. This often means he chooses to work with a single vendor over the long-term. However, the imperative for change creates tensions and pressures in the IT team as it is simply not possible to quickly meet all these expectations from a single source. How the team wishes that all customers would be like Gary and choose to serve themselves-it would make life in IT very simple indeed.

Colin does not look for long drawn out implementations nor projects that create risk. His work life is about standards, operational stability and happy users.

How numero can help Colin

The key to supporting Colin is to enable best-of-breed solutions to be introduced seamlessly in support of the changing preferences of customers and the needs of the business; Colin will not compromise the stability, performance or security of his core infrastructure.

Some of the ways numero solutions help Colin include the:

• Provision of best-of-breed solutions that seamlessly integrate with (rather than replacing) existing systems
• Adherence to open, modular solutions that conform to IT standards allowing solutions and skills to be mixed and matched
• Reduction of risk by developing the business solution through an iterative and collaborative approach
• Provision of in-house scoping, design and integration services to prevent additional pressures on an already overstretched IT team
• Transference of skills to the IT team either during or after the implementation process – to ensure they remain in full control
• Implementation of a modular solution that enables customer service initiatives to be implemented incrementally in an evolutionary style
• Delivery of fast-to-implement technology templates to reduce project lifecycles and risk and take advantage of industry developed expertise.