EDITOR’S NOTE
W
elcome to the latest edition of
Intelligent CIO Europe. On this
month’s cover we feature John
Court, Chief Information Officer at haulage
giant, Eddie Stobart. The company has
long been iconic in the UK and it is also
extremely well-known across Europe. But like
many businesses, it has evolved to meet the
changing needs of its customers and the
evolution of Information Technology is part
of this process. In our story, we look at Eddie
Stobart’s deployment of a Boomi solution to
bring far greater speed, efficiency and agility
to its supply chain and partner network.
“For a business with the growth and
ambition of Eddie Stobart, we needed
a better approach to integration that
would bring more speed and agility to
our business,” John Court told us. “We
needed a platform that was flexible so we
could support our customers’ preferences
and constraints for integrating and
communicating among our different
systems. As an always-on business, high
availability was critical to us, but it had to be
cost-effective.” For more details, including
comments from Vince Sparks, Director of IT
at Eddie Stobart, turn to page 58.
In this month’s ‘Trending’, we look at a
survey from UKCloud which reveals why
www.intelligentcio.com
public sector organisations are turning to
multi-cloud. The survey reports the results of
300 plus senior public sector IT professionals
and business leaders and reveals the
challenges around cloud adoption.
Alex Hilton, Chief Executive at the Cloud
Industry Forum, told us: “We have been
monitoring the adoption of cloud-based
services across the UK for the past 10 years.
We have seen unprecedented change take
place in that time, with many companies
now realising the potential of cloud
services helping them fulfil their Digital
Transformation goals. These journeys
may have started a long time ago, but
they are far from over: rapidly evolving
business challenges mean that diversity
and collaboration are necessary to move
forward. A cloud-led strategy must be at the
heart of any Digital Transformation.” You
can find out more about the results of the
survey on page 25.
In this edition’s ‘CIO Opinion’, we look at
how CIOs are earning the trust of CEOs and
board members by combining their technical
expertise with business awareness and
strategic thinking.
advisors to CEOs and are helping to shape
their organisations’ growth strategies. He
says: “This change in mindset is leading
companies to turn to IT to not just solve
system errors and implement operational
improvements, but to leverage technology in
ways that support new corporate initiatives
and help generate new revenue streams –
and at the heart of such transformation lies
the CIO.”
As usual, we have all your favourite features
and a comprehensive news roundup from
across the region. You can also read daily
news updates on our website at www.
intelligentcio.com/eu/
And please don’t forget if you would like
to get in touch, please email me at
[email protected]
I’d like to wish you a good month ahead and
please enjoy the read!
Alix Pressley
Editor
Phil Richards, CSO at Ivanti, argues that
CIOs have established themselves as trusted
INTELLIGENTCIO
7