Global thinking
Cap Gemini Ernst & Young’s chief technologist forges IT strategy worldwide
Pushing a global technology consulting strategy involves a lot of travel time. “I don’t even have an office,” jokes John Parkinson, vice president and the chief technologist at IT consulting company Cap Gemini Ernst & Young’s Americas Region. As a member of the company’s strategy and technology leadership team, he sets the direction for the company’s portfolio of technology consulting offerings.
Parkinson started writing code in college back in 1969. “I discovered computing as a way of life, and I’ve been at it ever since,” he says. “I’m lucky to have a job that lined up with what I’ve been interested in.”
Now he is playing a major role in setting the agenda for the portfolio of technology services CGE&Y offers globally. The consultancy offers IT services in more than 30 countries, advising business clients on strategy, management and technology issues, software development, and outsourcing services. Parkinson’s job responsibilities make a frenetic list that includes technology innovation, working with early adopter clients, and defining career and competency models for CGE&Y’s technology consultants.
“My role is equipping the consulting practice with the right knowledge, tools, and support needed to serve clients,” Parkinson says. “How do we provide services to them so they can use technology to run their businesses better?”
Parkinson’s responsibilities expand beyond traditional CTO functions of managing and directing company technology assets. He says he evaluates trends and creates strategy designed to solve clients’ problems. “I try to survey what is accessible and what is coming in the technology space and translate that into points of view,” he says.
He has labored to develop and implement systems for CRM, ERP, and wireless networking systems. He has also overseen outsourcing services for network operations, desktop management, and such business processes as billing and facilities management.
In recent years, CGE&Y’s clients have come from a variety of industries, including energy and utilities, financial services, health care, high-tech, life sciences, manufacturing, telecommunications, and transportation. “We can’t be everything to everyone, so we try to build an agenda that groups will invest in so we serve them globally,” Parkinson says. “There’s no point in every region investing in everything.”
For example, CGE&Y has focused on wireless. “We developed relationships in Scandinavia, where things tend to be tried out first,” Parkinson says. “We dedicated some investment funds and technology in the region, so our center for [wireless] expertise is in Scandinavia, and we are in a close working relationship with [Espoo, Finland-based] Nokia.”
With tough economic times placing more demands on enterprise IT budgets, Parkinson and other similarly situated IT strategists are under pressure to deliver effective services, says Tim Bajarin, president and analyst at research and consulting company Creative Strategies in Campbell, Calif.
“They are in an ever more important role going forward because enterprises are clamping down on IT costs, but they still want to go after the most effective solutions,” Bajarin says. “They have to deliver the best of both worlds.” Parkinson says the tough economic climate has forced some changes in formulating technology strategy. “The ROI models we used in the late 1980s [don’t work now],” he says. “You can’t do [a technology implementation for an enterprise client] in two or three years now. You have to find ways to do it much more quickly. We need to go to market with value propositions that give payback in one or two quarters.”
