SAPinsider Technology Executive Forum Issue 1 2021

technology leaders to know the capacity of their team and to not be overly focused on the number of people in the business unit. “These people are really very good; they enjoy being public servants and that is their motivation,” he says with pride and apprecia- tion for the Nottinghamshire County Council team’s capabilities. Davies adds that many in the technology team have the skills large corporations — which the city of Nottingham is home to a number of — are keen to hire. Finance Operations Local authorities collect taxation (but not in the threatening way of the Sheriff of Nottingham of Robin Hood legend); manage a host of physical assets; pay for and deliver key services in care, edu- cation, and utilities; as well as provide employment and local funding. As a result, the finance system of a local authority is an essential piece of the local government infrastructure. In 2011 Nottinghamshire County Council selected SAP as the core platform for finance management across the council. In 2017 the authority selected third-party provider Rimini Street to provide maintenance and support to the SAP platform. Davies says the deal with Rimini Street Nottinghamshire, over 700,000 citizens rely on these services, making local government comparable to a large organization in terms of staffing which, in the case of Nottinghamshire, includes 6,000 employees. In response to the changing nature of society in the digital age, Nottinghamshire County Council embarked on an organizational redesign to improve the services and efficiency of its council. As with any organization in a vertical market, Nottinghamshire needed to reduce silos and ensure it operated in a more cohesive way, and in doing so, utilize the latest technologies and working methods to achieve its remit. “My role is to try to use information and commu- nications technology (ICT) to help the organization change,” Davies says. “Digital for an organization like this is a mindset and a methodology. It requires looking at things differently, and for me, it is about whether you have a joined-up approach.” As the organization changes, so too must the oper- ational makeup of technology, which led to Davies joining Nottinghamshire County Council in January 2020. “Nottinghamshire had done some restructur- ing at the top tier of the organization, and my role is to bring ICT together under one leader with a new target operating model (TOM),” he says. “My first port of call was to understand how the team worked, document that, and see if the way they worked still made sense for the needs of the organization.” According to Davies, “a good team with a good culture will get anything done” when it comes to delivering what the organization needs. Davies intro- duced a new TOM and a new structure consisting of three elements: 1. Core: Responsible for technology delivery; 2. Customer: Responsible for the service desk; and 3. Control: Responsible for ensuring that governance is in place. As part of this structure, Nottinghamshire County Council has introduced DevOps and Agile methods with staff members being trained in areas such as product ownership. “We are therefore permeating the agile methodology into more projects,” Davies says. The restructuring of the technology team led to full-time employees dropping from 170 to 149, but Davies says it is more important for business Mark Davies, Head of ICT, Nottinghamshire County Council SAPinsiderOnline.com 44