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TAOISEACH ANNOUNCES €1M FUNDING FOR FIRST PHASE OF IVI CONSORTIUM COMPETENCE CENTRE

3rd June 2009

The Taoiseach, Brian Cowen T.D. today announced details of a €1m investment by Enterprise Ireland in the first phase of the Innovation Value Institute Consortium Competence Centre at NUI Maynooth.

IVIC3 is the seventh industry consortium to receive research funding through the joint Enterprise Ireland and IDA Ireland supported “Competence Centre Initiative”.

The research funding announced today by the Taoiseach will enable companies with common research needs in the area of IT services and IT innovation to find solutions to shared problems in areas like “Green Computing”.

The IVIC3 consortium is comprised of over 40 private and public sector organisations including Intel, Microsoft, SAP, ENZO, Xilinx, BP, The Boston Consulting Group, ESB, Ernst & Young, Aviva, Compugen, Chevron and Airtricity.

NUI-Maynooth, University of Limerick and NUI-Galway will collaborate on the initial research phase with over 40 companies, including world leaders in the IT sector. The call to research institutes to host the Competence Centre closes on 19th June and a Technology Leader will be appointed to the host institute to co-ordinate the research strands before the end of the year. When formally established the Competence Centre will have the capacity to grow and it is likely that other companies, particularly SMEs, will join.

Making the announcement the Taoiseach said,

“The roll-out of the industry-led Competence Centre Programme is a key commitment in the Government’s Framework for Economic Renewal Building Ireland’s Smart Economy. Strategic research partnerships between industry and academia can drive innovation, create high quality employment and deliver a competitive advantage to Irish industry. I welcome the contribution that this initiative will make to the development of a unified and validated approach for managing IT and IT-innovation, including in the area of green computing.

The announcement comes on the same day that the Innovation Value Institute (IVI) announced the European launch of its first product - the IT Capability Maturity Framework (IT-CMF). The IT-CMF provides, for the first time, a concise management roadmap to optimise business value derived from IT investments, allowing organisations to measure the value delivered by IT and reducing the complexity of choices for Chief Information Officers (CIO). Over 120 companies across Europe and the US have engaged with the IT-CMF since its inception two years ago.

Prof. John Hughes, President of NUI Maynooth, said, “NUI Maynooth is very proud of the role we have played in the development of the IT-CMF. It stands apart from all other proposed solutions because of its development by such a diverse consortium of the world’s leading organisations. At every stage of development, the IT-CMF was tested in the real world with one of IVI’s partners.”

The main issue CIOs face in today’s economic climate is trying to demonstrate real bottom line value from IT spend amid tight IT budgets. While optimising ITs value is a top priority for business, there is currently no integrated, standardised framework for making and evaluating investment decisions strategically from a holistic perspective at the corporate level.

The IT-CMF addresses this fundamental problem through an integrated framework to help the CIO manage the complexities and tradeoffs required to continuously evolve the IT capability in an organisation while delivering measurable value. The IT-CMF enhances the CIO’s role at the boardroom level by transforming IT’s delivered results into tangible value that is understood and agreed upon by both business and IT.

“IT must establish credibility before it takes a leadership position at the boardroom level,” said Martin Curley, Professor of Technology and Business at NUI Maynooth and Global Director IT Innovation at Intel. “Companies invest significant amounts of money in IT, but without a way to measure and maximise the return from these investments, their IT organisations cannot move from cost centres to value centres. Ideally we want to see IT on the balance sheet as a real asset.”

In total the IT-CMF identifies 36 core processes which cover all activities in an IT department. It then uses its framework to provide an assessment of an IT organisation’s “maturity” – on a scale of 1 to 5 which is benchmarked against industry standards and best practices. It also identifies areas where companies can improve their IT maturity and drive greater value from their IT investments. Ongoing assessment allows participants certify their improvements by rising higher in the maturity scale and this will also be matched by real savings and revenue generation on their financial accounts.

Fabrice Lock, Director of Innovation at Axa Technology said, “The IT-CMF has greatly improved Axa’s efficiencies in setting up new IT systems. Overall we have reduced server set-up working time by 96%”.

Peter O’ Shea, ESB’s Chief Information Officer commented “Using the Benefits Assessment module of the IT-CMF has created a solid foundation for our evolving benefits management processes. Given our continuing investment in IT to support the smart economy, this assessment module has given us an objective assessment of our current benefits management capability and identified key next steps in improving that capability and thus our return on key investments.”

Intel Chief Financial Officer Stacy Smith said, “No organisation can survive without IT investment today. Yet for so many years we have been shooting in the dark with these investments. Companies have had no way to verify that their IT dollars were being spent most efficiently, in ways that bring real value to the business. This unique partnership brings together leading companies to solve structural problems in the IT industry and profession by sharing collective knowledge”.

A number of core processes have now been tested by leading organisations including BP, Chevron, SAP, Northrop Grumman, ESB and Intel. Each participating organisation has reported significant benefits in the optimisation of IT and the overall business.

ENDS 3rd June 2009

NUI Maynooth - IVI Europe Launch

Stacy Smith, Chief Financial Officer, Intel, Jim O'Hara, General Manager, Intel Ireland, An Taoiseach, Brian Cowen, TD, Professor John Hughes, President NUI Maynooth.