Total transformation makes IT deliver: COO

15.11.2006
A former financial services industry chief operating officer has waved the flag for more rapid changes to IT infrastructure above smaller, incremental change, saying only the former will deliver real business processes benefits.

For nearly three years Sean Cash was the COO of the ANZ Mortgage Group where his responsibilities included governance of IT projects and implementation of business initiatives.

Speaking at this year's Gartner Symposium ITxpo in Sydney, Cash said organizations have to grapple with how to look at IT change, either incremental or transformational.

"We've always built a new system or put a new front end on [an old system]," Cash said. "The big prize is to do this in a transformational manner [and] jump out of the traditional way of doing things. The financial organization that does that will make a huge killing in revenue."

While conceding there are no "sacred cows" when it comes to IT change, Cash said at ANZ "we threw everything out and started again".

"You can't design around weak spots," he said. "We have no limitations [so] let's embrace technology. That becomes a management decision."