Meet the CIO: Edith Cowan University

With a career spanning major public sector and tertiary organisations, the CIO of Edith Cowan University Elizabeth Wilson prefer suppliers that bring innovation and new ideas.

What is a recent example of a project undertaken with a reseller or integrator? 

We have a partnership with Oakton [owned by Dimension Data], who do our enterprise architecture work. We have limited resources and having a team of highly paid enterprise architects is not a sustainable position for the university. Initially there was a huge amount of work, but now there just needs to be fine-tuning as we go along so building up a big internal team is unnecessary.

When do you tend to engage partners?

There are some areas where I may want to get external input. People who work in an organisation in an area like ICT may not always be aware of possibilities. So I expect partners to bring innovation, new thoughts and new ways of doing things. I am buying highly specialised capability to provide input on innovation and how things may be done differently from experience outside the organisation. We have an expectation of our partners of what else they can bring to the table that is defined in the tender process. 

What does a partner need to do to impress you?

Responsiveness would be one thing. We are transitioning our internal data centres out to a hybrid cloud managed as infrastructure-as-a-service by Atos. We have struck some complex technology issues during the transition. As a CIO I expect there are going to be technology issues with a large project of this nature, however, it’s how our partner in Atos responds and works with us to resolve those issues that is important to me.

What do partners do that annoys you?

It’s about their ability to engage in a conversation that is not a selling conversation, and not just looking for an opportunity that fits their product and services. I am focused on business outcomes and I want my partners to sell to me on this basis, not bits of technology that might or might not achieve that outcome.  

Something that really annoys me is the use of LinkedIn as a selling tool. I am not interested in cold-call approaches where the vendor is looking to apply their solution with no understanding of my environment. The university is not interested in technology solutions per se, but in solutions that will resolve business issues or support business efficiencies and new business models.

Do you expect to use partners more in the future?

Definitely, yes. We are looking at commoditising as much as possible so our attention can be diverted to adding real value to the university. To achieve this we will look at partners to manage our platforms wherever it makes sense and focus internally on the application of the platforms in ways that support our teaching, learning and research activities.  

RESUME

Jan 2012 – present  CIO, Edith Cowan University

Jul 2011 – Dec 2011  Information Management and Technology director, VicRoads

Sept 2008 – July 2011  Project director, VicRoads

Sep 2007 – Sep 2008  PMO manager, Yarra City Council

2006 – 2007  Program manager, BlueScope Steel

Oct 2005 – Aug 2006  Director, iBis Project Resources

 May 1996 – Sep 2006  Business systems manager, Serco Asia Pacific