• Home
• Top 20
• Rank 1–100
• Vertical Markets
• Judging Criteria
• Archive

63. Centrica

• Head of IT: David Bickerton, Group CIO
• Industry: Utilities
• Website: www.centrica.co.uk

Centrica operates the British Gas and Scottish Gas energy supply utilities in the UK as well as operations in the US. It supplies electricity and gas and is the UK’s largest energy provider. Listed on the London Stock Exchange Centrica has a market capitalisation of £15 billion as of December 2011.

IT Leader: David Bickerton, Group CIO

In role since: seven years

Reporting line: Reports to Chief Financial officer, Nick Luff

Board level seat: No

IT estate and or number of log on accounts under the control of the IT leader: Centrica has over 40,000 email accounts, 10,700 laptops and 17,800 desktops in our UK business

Level of the workforce that relies on technology to carry out their tasks: Close to 100 per cent,  everyone registered in SAP HR has a login account

IT staff currently employed: 1690 permanent staff, 844 contractors

IT management team and reporting structure: Centrica has CIOs in each Business Unit, in addition to head of IS Lean Centrica, SAP Competency Centrica and IS Shared Services who all report to the CIO

Primary technology platforms at the organisation: SAP and ERP - in addition to intranet. Our trading system in Openlink Endur

Primary technology suppliers: HP. Fujitsu, Cable and Wireless, Vodafone, Cognizant, SAP and Microsoft - to name a few

Significant strategic technology deals been struck in the last 12 months: Over the last 12 months we have struck significant group wide-deals with HP and Fujitsu, and a deal with Microsoft at the end of 2010.

Strategic aim of the CIO and IT operations for the next financial year: To underpin ambitious growth targets and make a valuable contribution to our business performance, the four strategic themes we have set as our ambition are:
Industrialisation - Increasingly repeatable and standardised methods of delivering IS services to improve service quality and speed whilst reducing cost and risk
Integration - Common ways of working that enable integration, exploit economies of scale and share capability
Intelligence - Exploit our information to enhance decision making, retain and manage it to reduce risk and harness the value for new revenue streams
Innovation - Leading the way in new methods and adoption of technology to enable competitive distinction

Technologies considered by the leader to offer their organisation potential: Virtualisation platforms, mobile access gateways and the introduction of private clouds. In addition to smart technologies to support the roll out of smart metering

How do you see technology transforming your organisation in the near future? We need technology that is as agile as our business enabling the provision of flexible solutions and business insight through improved intelligence.

Send to a friend

Email this article to a friend or colleague:

Recipient's name *

Recipient's email *

Your name *

Captcha *

PLEASE NOTE: Your name is used only to let the recipient know who sent the story, and in case of transmission error. Both your name and the recipient's name and address will not be used for any other purpose.