Welcome to B & M Bulletin, produced specifically for IT specialists. In this issue:
• Contracting trends
• Tech View: Cloud computing
• Specialist Profile: Eddy Hoogendijk, Project Manager
• Real People, Real Skills: Matt Jones
• B & M SkillSource
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Contracting Trends
Jerry Smart, MD of B & M Europe, looks at where the growth is coming from in ICT contracting
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“There are several types of cloud…”
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The consensus is that the recovery in ICT contracting is certainly on the way, but it seems that it is not consistent across all markets or regions.
B & M’s Business Director Ed Hopper was recently interviewed for an article entitled, ‘IT contractors bear brunt of downturn’ in the Institute of Engineering and Technology magazine, ET. Ed observed, “Our business, traditionally, has been split 50/50 across the UK on one hand, and continental Europe on the other. The UK market has been much more adversely affected by the slowdown than the EU marketplace which has remained reasonably stable throughout the downturn.”
Although the economy has seen some contractors move into permanent salaried roles for the time-being at least, the ET article comments that “already many are actually biding their time, waiting to return to the contract environment where they can again start to negotiate higher fees. Seasoned IT contractors know that they work within a market that wanes and thrives on a cyclical basis, and this element of assured change, variety - and unpredictability - is one of the qualities that attracts them to the freelance life - that and the fact that when times are good they can command high rates”.
The article also looked at where ICT contract opportunities are tending to arise. Ed Hopper explained
B & M’s viewpoint: “Where skills are available in-house, it is true to say that clients prefer to use their own permanent staff to undertake the core work, with contractors providing backfill BAU support. This is both to enable the client to retain the skills in-house once the project is completed (and contractors would have left for new assignments elsewhere), and also because in-house staff already have a high level of site-specific knowledge which is often required to implement new systems related to the project. This enables the in-house staff to be productive more quickly than new externals.”
Whether you are seeking opportunities in the UK and Eire or Continental Europe, B & M can help.
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Hey, you, get off of my (Private) Cloud
Cloud computing has been a buzzword in the industry for a couple of years now. Paul Smith, Technical Manager at B & M Europe, looks at different types of cloud and what they deliver
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The term Cloud Computing has now been around for some time. However, as with a lot of technologies in the ICT sector, it can be hard to understand what it is and how it is actually of use in business.
There are several types of cloud: private (or internal); public (or external) and hybrid clouds. Although they are built differently, they all share the same purpose of delivering a facility as a service: it could be Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS); Platform as a Service (PaaS) or Software as a Service (SaaS).
What is actually being delivered are, in fact, network-based computing resources hosting a set of solutions for an end-user. Services based on cloud resources that people may be familiar with include:
- Amazon Web Services
- MessageLabs (Email screening and Web Proxy)
- Social media (such as Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook)
- Google App Engine
- Heroku
- .NET Solution Stacks (now AppFabric)
Services such as Microsoft’s Azure environment and IBM’s Internal or Smart Analytics Cloud are examples of companies releasing commercial solutions to support ‘Cloud Enterprises’. Some cloud offerings are designed to support clouds on hardware resources that are not ‘on-premise’. The Azure platform, for example, is run from Microsoft datacentres, whereas IBM’s solution is designed to create clouds in System Z complexes, hosted on-site or in a datacentre local to the user.
With the IBM offering, System Z servers can run z/OS (supporting Tivoli, RACF and DB2), LAMP (Linux/Apache/MySQL/PHP) Stacks or Linux/WebSphere/DB2 implementations, which are becoming increasingly popular as a means of supporting eCommerce.
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Specialist Profile
This month, we profile programme manager and change management specialist, Eddy Hoogendijk
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Eddy Hoogendijk is currently on a one-year contract at a large public sector organisation in Europe, where he is managing a change programme.
His original brief in 2009 was to lead application of the Managing Successful Programmes (MSP) best practice model, managed by the UK’s Office of Government Commerce, for the organisation’s strategic programmes. However, as Eddy explains, this has now grown. “My original role has expanded to providing guidance on the whole of the organisation’s portfolio of change. The programme is about more than managing a programme: it’s about a change in culture and about taking ownership for change across the business”.
Eddy believes that using an external contractor with his skills delivers the maximum benefit to the public body, giving them access to expertise and skills that are not found internally, without having to create, define and fill a new full-time role.
He explains that for major change programmes such as this one, a medium-term approach tends to deliver the best results. “I like to work for an organisation for some time, to ensure that I can really deliver added value. What I like most is guiding the organisation as well as the individual key stakeholders, helping them to discover where they want to go - their vision – and showing how to achieve this step by step. Increasing professionalism in change management means that every part of the organisation needs to be involved: the operational units, finance, HR, legal, quality, communication - and above all organisational governance. And with so many different nationalities and cultures, this particular programme is an interesting and exciting exercise”.
So what trends does Eddy Hoogendijk see for programme & project management in the future? “I expect that the need for independent certifications will continue and expand. The popularity of PRINCE2, IPMA and PMI for project management has grown strongly and I expect that MSP will see a similar level of recognition in the market in the coming years. MSP helps organisations to realise their corporate objectives and I anticipate that some recent developments by the OGC will support increased recognition in the market for best practices related to maturity of handling change; management of risk and portfolio management”. Eddy is looking forward to these developments and plans to gain new certifications from the Association of Project Managers connected with change in behaviour of individuals, teams and organisations.
Eddy concluded by saying, “My relationships with my key contact, Seamus Hayes, and other people from
B & M have always been pleasant and constructive. Seamus and I see each other regularly to discuss the progress of the assignment – which is different to many technical consultants I have seen, even those closer to where I work. B & M was particularly helpful in setting up the contract in the first place and taking care of payment details.”
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Real People, Real Skills
This month, we profile B & M's Human Resources Manager, Matt Jones
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Matt Jones joined B & M in 2008 having worked in human resources and recruitment for several years. Matt's main duties at B & M include managing the HR team, planning and implementing strategies to source specialists and dealing with all internal human resources issues.
Matt's first position in the industry was at Manpower where he worked as a recruitment consultant for over three years. He progressed from ad hoc recruitment in a town centre branch to running Manpower's newly-won Hewlett Packard contract, working on site at HP's Reading and Bracknell premises.
Matt then moved to a more HR focused role, working for a small IT software company. His primary task was to implement the company's HR structure and to grow the company from 30 staff to over 100, which he successfully achieved. Matt dealt with all aspects of HR including ultimately making himself redundant when his work with the company was completed! Matt also managed several newly formed departments on an interim basis including a team of 20 telesales graduates.
He took up a new challenge, managing a recruitment team within a private healthcare company, dealing primarily with a new diagnostics project in the West Midlands. The project quickly grew to over 200 medical and administrative staff, at which time Matt's focus changed from recruitment to employee development, including working on several training modules.
Matt spends his spare time immersing himself in any sport he can find, whether it be watching or taking part - captaining his local football and pool teams and supporting Reading FC.
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B & M SkillSource
expertise for enterprise systems
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B & M SkillSource is a professional service that delivers experienced specialists for short or long term contract work on projects for large-system enterprise platforms. B & M's skilled specialists bring new or additional skills, knowledge and expertise to enterprises for projects which typically include:
- Communications projects such as network planning, product installation and support, network performance and connectivity
- Data management including database administration, database design and storage management
- Capacity management and systems performance
- Operating systems management including change management, product installation and transaction processing
- Systems and network security including planning, design, implementation and administration
We apply stringent best practice standards across all our services, which ensure that they are consistently of the highest quality. For more information, please contact. people@bmeurope.com
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