Christine Ashton has one of the most senior IT jobs with
energy giant BP, yet she jokingly refers to herself as “chief
stirrer”. In fact, that is an apt description for the role of
“bridger” between business and IT that she has been promoting since
co-founding the BCS Business-IT Interface Specialist Group in
1999.
“Bridgers do not just liaise between business and IT,” Ashton
said. “They are like entrepreneurs, creating added value.”
Indeed, the Business-IT Interface Specialist Group said, “Bridgers
have a role in helping businesses understand how IT fits and
supports strategy – including new opportunities, helping to build
business strategy with systems embedded, and developing IT strategy
to deliver maximum benefit.”
Bridgers need perspective beyond any particular application or
technology, the group said. They need organisational and people
skills to break down barriers between IT and business and help
educate business about IT and vice versa. This means having the
confidence of both sides.
Ashton is the practical embodiment of this. She has an MSc in
electronics and computing and is both a chartered chemist and a
chartered engineer.
“I got into IT in the water industry, developing reports for
works managers from vast quantities of data held in databases,”
said Ashton. “Later I was head of business systems at Cable &
Wireless, delivering systems from a commercial perspective and
based in the business.”
She joined BP in 2001 and is currently chief information
manager, strategy and integration, for BP Refining and Marketing.
The organisation, which covers refining, services for marine and
air industries, and the BP Connect retail outlets, has 75,000
staff. Its IT section is responsible for 35,000 PC users
worldwide.
IT is a central function at BP. Ashton said this has helped
ensure corporate standards and best practice are followed. It has
also helped Ashton and her team focus on the business.
“Some organisations have a single department that develops,
manages and runs applications and infrastructure,” she said.
“Separating operations from development and planning gives
operational economies of scale. It also allows the business
development side of IT to stay close to the business, focusing on
meeting its needs with information strategies to make it
successful, while the operations professionals can become focused
on running world-class operations and communications.”
Even so, business processes and systems could be standardised
across company divisions. Ashton said, “It is sometimes assumed
that different ways of doing business need different systems. But
when you boil things down and make them simple, it might just be,
for example, that one unit needs data about its product faster
because of the way it distributes it.
“Having a good, clear architecture enables you to switch on the
more sophisticated data acquisition facilities that a unit needs,
while the core systems are the same as for other business units’
processes.
“So we still gather user requirements, but we look to develop
the solution using a set of preferred central applications. We can
still be entrepreneurial, but we build things in such a way that
they can be delivered using common infrastructures and datacentres,
bringing economies of scale.”
This means different types of bridging are needed. “In the early
days of the BCS group we saw the hybrid manager as a single
combination of skills, but actually a range of different hybrid
combinations is needed,” Ashton said.