The globally managed IT model pioneered at UK gas firm
BOC is being
adopted by parent company Linde.
The German industrial conglomerate, which took over BOC last
September in a deal worth £8.2bn, will abandon its regional IT
structure in favour of a best practice global model that was
implemented by BOC six years ago.
Analysts said the decision highlighted the increasingly
important role played by IT in mergers, and showed that taking
smart IT decisons could set firms apart.
"This is really good news for the IT staff. It shows the merger
took IT into consideration," said Neil Ward-Dutton, research
director at analyst firm Macehiter Ward-Dutton.
"Since IT is sometimes regarded as a cost centre, IT staff at an
acquired company can often be at risk of losing their job, but in
this case BOC's IT is a key differentiator."
Jon Fundrey, BOC's finance director of global functions, said
that, before the merger, Linde's business model had been regional,
but it was now adopting a hybrid model that retained some regional
aspects but had a global IT function.
The value of BOC's global IT operation was benchmarked by
analyst company Gartner and, more recently, by UK IT performance
measurement company H2Index. This measurement highlighted the
performance of BOC's UK-based datacentre, which supports SAP
applications in more than 30 countries.
"When we set it up about six years ago, the business case was
based on cost and efficiency, compared with the number of
datacentres we were then supporting around the world," Fundrey
said.
"Several times over the years we have had to undertake a
restructuring of IT based on centralised support and selective
outsourcing."
BOC said it performed a "deep dive" analysis of its datacentre
performance using Gartner's benchmarking services, which praised
its performance.
To assess whether there was further room for improvement, BOC
used H2Index's more flexible measures of IT performance and
compared them with a large, consumer goods multinational about
twice the size of BOC.
"Despite the economies of scale enjoyed by the larger firm, we
found we measured up," said Fundrey.
"We have been global for a number of years, but Linde is at the
start of a learning curve in terms of how to manage a global IT
operation. We will be sharing best practice."
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