AGENDA ITEM: C2
MEETING:
RSSB Board Meeting
DATE:
02 July 2015
SUBJECT:
Information & Technology Strategy - Enabling the RSSB delivery priorities
2015-2017
SPONSOR:
AUTHOR:
Chris Fenton
Eileen Pevreall
1.
Purpose of the paper
1.1
The purpose of this paper is:

To provide a top level outline of work planned on internal and external IT systems to
future enable RSSB and the industry.
2.
Background
2.1
RSSB has historically invested in IT across separate functional areas of the organisation,
this has meant that getting the best value for money and leveraging IT in a holistic way
for business and industry benefit has not been fully achieved. IT activity has not been
clearly linked to the business strategy and thus how it plays a role in enabling/delivering
to the industry has not been measurable.
2.2
There remain significant opportunities, particularly across our licensing and support
contracts and reducing the number of systems/suppliers in use, to reduce both the risk
and the costs associated with running numerous disparate systems. For example whilst
evaluating the strategy we have been reviewing support and consultancy contracts which
have resulted in a saving of 100k so far this year.
2.3
Due to previous investment in the IT infrastructure it is stable and secure but systems are
weak operationally. There are legacy elements that need to be upgraded or replaced and
opportunities to apply more up to date thinking and new technologies to deliver
operational efficiencies and more value to our members and the industry.
2.4
In addition there is an opportunity with the way in which RSSB develops industry systems
to align this more effectively to the investment in existing and future systems undertaken
by its stakeholder groups.
3.
Priorities
The priorities for IT for 2015–2017 are to:

Externally - Develop modern platforms for industry e.g. SMIS+

Internally - Deliver efficient systems to support and improve internal operational
processes

Infrastructure - Establish and maintain an efficient infrastructure.
4.
Market factors
4.1
Benchmarking
When deciding on what we do and how we go about this, it is important we ensure the
business remains in line with what is happening in the external market where
possible/relevant. The market trends as defined by Gartner for the next few years focus
on the growth in the use of devices/mobility, business corporate apps, big data, hybrid
cloud services and business information.
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4.2
Relevance to RSSB
In terms of these market trends there are varying degrees of priority across the changing
IT landscape but all have future relevance to RSSB. The key areas of focus most relevant
are:
5.

BI/Analytics - business and industry measurement/insights

Infrastructure/Cloud/Legacy modernisation – simplification/business process mgt

ERP – integrated resource, financial and project management

Mobile - mobile productivity/access to anything from anywhere anytime

Digital - opportunities in both digital business and the digital workplace

Security – RSSB and industry systems

Networking voice and Communication/BYOD

Customer Relationship Management/Experience – CRM, Content, Online

Industry Specific Applications/Data – SMIS+, R2, Toolkits, Learning

Talent Management – upskilling, project management and focus on business delivery
priorities.
Approach
This strategy describes our aim to move from an operational IT function to transforming
our organisation through IT that enables RSSB to undertake its role. RSSB has to go on a
transformation journey to ‘catch up’.
The sections below provide more detail on the three priority areas (external, internal and
infrastructure).
6.
External Industry Business Systems
RSSB providing up to date and relevant systems and solutions to the industry
6.1
Industry Specific Applications/Data (SMIS+, R2, CIRAS, Tools)
With the provision of existing industry systems including SMIS, Close Call, CIRAS, RSL,
Ravers, Online portals and various toolkits; RSSB has been successful in providing
solutions that centralise the collection of data and thus provide insight to RSSB and
knowledge to members to support day to day working. However we are ready to move
on to more modern versions of these systems.
Upgrading
Our models for delivery will change to more hosted/data centre type COTS solutions that
offer more opportunity to expand and integrate. The future activity and investment
across these products will mean that the solutions will be easier to access, more
configurable by user type and from a data perspective it will be easier to push and pull
data between these and other industry systems.
The plan is to upgrade and integrate our data sources more effectively, removing
redundant technology and silo applications, reducing complexity and cost, wherever
possible and sharing access to the data with our members.
We would look to simplify so we can offer solutions which our members find easy to
access and that complement their own ways of working/systems.
Output
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The output from these more modern solutions will also enable RSSB to create more
sophisticated ways of modelling the data providing greater industry benefit.
The sharing and hosting of data requires common standards around data ownership.
These elements will be fully considered when specifying and implementing major change
or new business systems.
We will also be encouraging and participating in/facilitating the involvement of industry
groups in the delivery of information governance and integration principles, including
those directly involved in setting the future strategy of these, for example; The Future
Railway portfolio teams, CIO Forum, Network Rail, TOC’s and FOC’s, to assist in ensuring
where possible integrated ways of working are front of mind.
6.2
Digital
RSSB will look to define an organisation-level vision and plan for digital, integrating our
digital offer to demonstrate the wealth of information that RSSB develops and offers.
Websites and intranets will develop to provide an information base that is easy for
members to use, shifting from being information sources, to providing practical solutions.
Our digital offer will ensure that RSSB retain their place in the market by remaining
relevant. We will look to ensure the RSSB digital presence can be found across its four
priority areas and that it is seen as the first port of call/expert body in its field.
We will maximise strategic online partnerships to support knowledge dissemination
across the industry.
We will develop metrics, including member satisfaction and engagement levels, which
will inform the RSSB on the quality of the digital content and identify new content,
product and service opportunities.
7.
Internal Business Systems
Operational efficiencies through legacy system modernisation and enterprise
applications
To gain maximum internal efficiencies to free up time, the business must be encouraged
to standardise and to re-engineer common business processes. The plan is that we can
then utilise cloud based systems to assist with business process management that enable
and join up activities more efficiently; covering resource planning, financial management,
collaboration, project and document management. The requirement is to provide a
flexible office environment with high levels of standardisation which is easy to support
and can promote remote working. The service provision to staff and members must be
flexible, robust, secure and able to respond to changing work patterns and service
provision. The business systems provided will enable office, home and mobile working
solutions.
7.1
ERP - Integrated financial & resource management tools
The organisation has changed considerably and the way in which we undertake our
finance processes has been streamlined and simplified.
Our users find the current systems challenging and time consuming. In addition they have
significant overheads in terms of hosting and support costs both externally and internally.
They have not been upgraded for some time so there is a significant amount of manual
effort. Business and management information is difficult to obtain and not of the
required level.
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AGENDA ITEM: C2
The proposal would be to invest in a Finance solution that reduces operational overhead
and integrates with a CRM and Enterprise Resource Planning system. Our resource
planning is currently done using combinations of individual excel spreadsheets, project
tools and standalone time sheeting. Integrated tools would enable us to manage
resources and projects in a more centralised way.
7.2
Customer Relationship Management/Experience (CRM)
In the results from our last member survey, stakeholders said they would like RSSB to
focus more strongly on industry objectives; improve the way it engages with the industry
and publicises its work; do more to communicate the breadth and depth of its role to
stakeholders; do more tailored communications to ensure relevance; be more open
about the projects it is currently working on.
To do this effectively RSSB needs the right tools to support its engagement. The proposal
is for RSSB to build the foundations for the future but implement a simple Contacts
management toolset that can later be integrated/is extensible.
Building on its customer centric culture RSSB will look to align our activity more
effectively with customer intent. By getting further insight into our members through
CRM and understanding their intention for engaging we will be able to understand where
we can bring together the best of our cross-group expertise to bring value-add
propositions to our members.
Building a single view of our member activity will result in RSSB being both more
operationally efficient and able to serve members more effectively, providing a more
seamless experience through tailored communications and solutions.
7.3
Embedding Knowledge Management (KM)
The organisation as a research and innovation hub and a creator of large amounts of
content and data for the industry has a disparate approach to how its shares knowledge.
Through using technology to manage content assets and tacit knowledge it can start to
leverage this and prevent re-inventing/duplication of effort.
We would look to take a “One RSSB” approach to sharing knowledge, making key
documents, research output, employee expertise (talent grids), project materials and
client outputs easily searchable across the organisation, creating benefit for both RSSB
and the industry. Future phases would be to effectively integrate this content with our
proposed CRM system in order that we get a single view of our customer activity.
7.4
Enterprise Content Management (ECM)
As a producer of rich content, RSSB will seek to leverage this more effectively. To
structure and store this in order that it may be easily kept up to date, repurposed and
tailored to member need. The plan will be that the knowledge output from RSSB is
delivered to its stakeholders effectively and in the right structure whether that be Online,
Apps, Events, Publications, Training etc.
Through increasing the visibility of our output we will have the opportunity to seek to
position and promote RSSB, influence and engage the non-member community, reinforce
member benefits and increase customer choice (relevance).
Disseminating information effectively not just to support our members but to build the
brand and demonstrate the relevance and value of RSSB.
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8.
Infrastructure
8.1
Migration to the Cloud
The business currently has a significant part of its back office systems hosted onsite.
Moving as much of the ecosystem to the Cloud enables scalability and external data/file
access and sharing. Our plan would be to upgrade our platforms and at the same time
move them to the Microsoft Cloud. This will provide greater functionality and staff and
members will not need to think about how they go about accessing different systems as
they will be fully integrated. Providing stability and potential heavy investment in
infrastructure in the future.
8.2
Networking, Voice & Communication
We will look to extend the use of Skype for Business and the use of audio and video
conferencing to create efficiencies in terms of meetings and webinar type activity.
We will investigate the use of BYOD (Bring your own device) for smartphones and tablets
in line with our work anywhere approach.
Across both of these we will be looking to create cost efficiencies.
9.
Investment and Governance
9.1
Annual funding for IT including the cost of industry systems sits at £4.3m plus 650k of
suggested capex (reviewed through individual project business cases). Going forward all
activities will be linked to the delivery priorities at RSSB and across the industry. We will
where possible look to create savings to reinvest and deliver better. We would look to
demonstrate the financial benefits of these investments. For example, providing ERP
solutions may require investment in technology but enable savings in operational
business services. NB: Top level IT activity mapping by business priority in Annex A.
9.2
The investment process will use good governance arrangements. The remit and
relationship of established boards will provide the framework for governance of projects.
SLT will seek to ensure that only IT investments which support the recommendations
agreed in this strategy gain approval. We will be actively seeking and will encourage and
facilitate the involvement of professional groups in the delivery of this strategy as well as
internal stakeholders in order to maximise the shared knowledge within and external to
the business. We will continue to build our body of expert knowledge with the industry to
deliver the highest benefits. We will provide management information related to an
agreed delivery schedule. NB: Annex B - High level delivery timeline.
10.
Talent Management
10.1
We will look to assess the skills needed in RSSB to support the new digital technologies,
processes and environment (i.e., collaborative, with high levels of ambiguity and constant
change and align these to the priorities going forward.
10.2
We will have a focus on skills sharing, learning from the industry in its wider context and
training staff where appropriate. Where we bring in external skills through service
providers, we will be looking to build internal knowledge and skills across the
technologies and infrastructure needed.
10.3
In a competitive landscape our aim will be to maintain and provide staff opportunities,
underpin cross functional working, motivate and inspire staff, provide continuous
learning and increase organisational agility.
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11.
Resourcing and Project Management
To facilitate a changing organisation it is fundamental that we have the right skills
focussed on the core priorities and that the team support business development
effectively. This will be facilitated through:
11.1
Project Management - Action Plan and Work Programmes
IT will be creating a Project Management Office (PMO) for the first time and the activities
contained in this strategy will be gathered into a portfolio with separate work
programmes cross referenced both to this document and relevant delivery priority plans.
The work programme will be reviewed and progress monitored on a regular basis by the
IT Director, SLT and relevant project groups to ensure projects are delivered on time and
budget, are resource planned effectively and deliver agreed business outcomes.
11.2
Aligning Project Activity to Business Outcomes
Resource allocation across Operations and Project staff is assigned on the basis of
Business As Usual with the remaining resource unassigned for strategic development
project work. On project activity we will ensure there is clarity around the resource
allocated and the outcomes we wish to deliver. Our activity will be outcomes focussed by
reducing where possible focus on BAU and redirecting it to value add as a priority.
11.3
Support Provision and creating cost savings by consolidating and reviewing unused
services.
We will undertake streamlining internal and external support provision, as part of our
ongoing activities to simplify services where possible we will look at consolidating
wherever we can.
11.4
Being less risk averse where possible
In order that we remain agile it is important that we align activity with acceptable risk.
We will be looking at any opportunities we may have to save costs through accepting
more risk using structured and agile project management principles when appropriate
and by project size.
12.
Recommendations
The board is requested to:

NOTE the priorities detailed in this report as a basis for future discussions regarding
RSSB investment
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Annex A – IT Activity Aligned to Business Goal
IT Strategic Initiative
Strategic Business
Goal
Innovation
Standards
Safety
Knowledge
Key Value Proposition
Strategic Plan Initiative
Deliverable
Industry Specific
applications
Enabler
ERP/BI
Enabler
Cloud
Enabler
CRM
Deliverable
Industry Specific
applications
Deliverable
Requirements
Management
Database(RMD) >
Enterprise Content
Management(ECM)
Enabler
ERP/BI
Enabler
Cloud
Enabler
CRM
Deliverable
Industry Specific
applications
Deliverable
E Learning & Tools
Deliverable
Digital
Enabler
ERP/BI
Enabler
Cloud
Enabler
CRM
Enabler
ERP/BI
Enabler
Cloud
Enabler
CRM
Deliverable
Digital
RSSB Board Meeting Final: 02 July 2015
Description
Key Primes
Working as part of the
Information Portfolio group to
define Information System
Architecture map
Resource, Financial Mgt,
Programme planning and Skills
management
Office365 - Sharepoint
collaboration, intranet knowledge mgt. Mobility
Equip teams with effective
stakeholder tools
Working as part of the
Information Portfolio group to
define data standards/data
frameworks.
RTS, Digital Railway
Improving vehicle information
and maintenance planning
R2
Content Management,
repurpose, engage members
Digital landscape
Operational efficiencies.
Programme/Priority
Management/Measuring outputs
Operational efficiencies.
Effective member engagement
Member insight, tailored industry
engagement
RTS, Digital Railway
Expert body - Dissemination of
content/knowledge
Resource, Financial Mgt,
Programme planning and Skills
management
Office365 - SharePoint
collaboration, intranet knowledge mgt. Mobility
Equip teams with effective
stakeholder tools
SMIS+
Modelling/Analytics
CIRAS
Health & Wellbeing,
Risk incident reporting - NIR/Rail
Notices
Risk assessment management
tools and guidance
Strong online presence/offer.
Campaign/Event management
solutions
Resource, Financial Mgt,
Programme planning and Skills
management
Office365 - SharePoint
collaboration, intranet knowledge mgt. Mobility
Equip teams with effective
stakeholder tools
Resource, Financial and
Programme planning, Skills
management
Office365 - SharePoint
collaboration, intranet knowledge mgt. Mobility
Equip teams with effective
stakeholder tools
Further develop online presence,
leveraging body of knowledge in
one portal.
Content Management,
repurpose, engage members
Operational efficiencies.
Programme/Priority
Management/measuring outputs
Operational efficiencies.
Effective member engagement
Member insight, tailored industry
engagement
Meeting industry’s safety data
and risk business intelligence
requirements
Meeting industry’s safety data
and risk business intelligence
requirements
Increased member
engagement/satisfaction
Operational efficiencies.
Programme/Priority
Management/measuring outputs
Operational efficiencies.
Effective member engagement
Member insight, tailored industry
engagement
Operational efficiencies. Priority
management
Operational efficiencies.
Effective member engagement
Member insight, tailored industry
engagement
Strengthen brand . Engage
members, Revenue generation
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Annex B – High Level Delivery Timeline
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