Steve Capper, CIO at engineering and building specialist SNC-Lavalin, took an uncommon path to the highest. Now he’s reached the IT management pinnacle, he’s eager to create a long-lasting influence for the enterprise and the brand new expertise he’s bringing by way of in his personal division.
Capper started working for engineering and improvement big Arup as a trainee aged 16, having left college with no {qualifications}. Over the following 20 years, he labored in a spread of roles, taking over extra obligations, till he finally headed up the know-how staff: “I began within the print room and, after 23 years, left Arup as the pinnacle of IT globally.”
He subsequently labored for building firm Skanska, design specialist AECOM – the place he labored in Dubai and Los Angeles – earlier than changing into international CIO with Royal BAM Group within the Netherlands in late 2017. He joined SNC-Lavalin in February 2020.
“I took my alternatives,” says Capper, reflecting on his profession. “I by no means set out from college pondering I used to be going to be a CIO. However I did a whole lot of onerous work to get to the place I’m immediately. I’ve put within the hours. I confirmed individuals I might do it, and that’s how I progressed and moved from the again workplace in Leeds to working IT for enormous corporations around the globe.”
Bringing every part collectively
Through the previous two years, Capper has centered on bringing disparate individuals and methods collectively to create a single IT organisation at SNC-Lavalin. As a part of this course of, he’s diminished the corporate’s core datacentres from 16 down to 3 within the UK, Canada, and the US.
Capper says information administration is a giant problem for his organisation. The corporate collects an enormous quantity of data when staff work on tasks. Nonetheless, whereas as a lot as 80% of this information isn’t touched once more after six months, it additionally must be stored as a document of the completely different work the agency has produced for purchasers.
“Clearly, we’d use a few of our information at some stage, however a whole lot of it’s fairly static, so it doesn’t lend itself to being stored within the cloud,” he says. “Pushing every part into the cloud could be costly.”
In addition to price, the corporate wants to contemplate information sovereignty. For this mix of causes, Capper says non-public cloud is a greater resolution to the enterprise’ information storage problem than public provision.
“We’ve bought information sovereignty to take into consideration as a result of now we have nuclear work and delicate work for governments around the globe,” he says. “We’d like to verify we all know the place that information is and that it’s protected. As a substitute, now we have managed providers, however in our datacentres. So, we pay a specialist participant, Artistic ITC, for a non-public cloud.”
Software consolidation is one other precedence space. SNC-Lavalin consists of a spread of organisations which have been introduced collectively over time. The outcome, says Capper, is a mess of enterprise useful resource planning (ERP) methods. His staff is working a three-year programme to consolidate enterprise ERP right into a single occasion from Oracle within the cloud.
Making a single model of the reality
To help cross-business collaboration, Capper has additionally applied VMware’s Horizon digital desktop infrastructure (VDI) to create a trusted supply of information for the corporate’s design and engineering professionals.
“We use that know-how closely as a result of now we have design centres around the globe and we ship a whole lot of work to locations like India, however they should collaborate in actual time with individuals within the US or in Canada or the UK,” he says.
“It’s high-end compute as a result of the fashions are completely large. However we’re discovering large efficiencies as a result of we’re not having to pull and drop drawings the world over, which take hours to repeat. All the pieces’s simply hosted in a central place.”
Capper says the shift to VMware VDI has supported a giant shift in working strategies. Somewhat than storing after which engaged on information domestically, staff across the globe can collaborate on the definitive model of fashions and designs. This single model of the reality additionally ensures computing sources are used successfully.
“The standard route was that everyone had a giant meaty machine below their desk. They linked in to their native workplace and server. However the issue was that we couldn’t have individuals working in several places of work on the identical time on the identical mannequin, since you couldn’t work throughout the community,” he says.
“Somewhat than individuals copying fashions, every part is now simply going into one central system. VDI has additionally pushed large efficiencies when it comes to IT prices as a result of for every particular person we used to have to purchase a high-end pc. A few of these computer systems can price as much as £20,000, after which they sit below an individual’s desk they usually’re solely leveraged by that particular person, which is loopy.”
Embracing new approaches
Capper says the enterprise now advantages from a joined-up, cost-effective approach of working. Somewhat than having to spend massive on servers and high-end computer systems for each workplace, the corporate can provision know-how because it’s required.
“It doesn’t matter what system individuals are utilizing,” he says. “We don’t really must at all times purchase fancy computer systems anymore. We might use Chromebooks if we needed to. The facility is within the supercomputer within the datacentre that’s hosted on VMware. All of the processing takes place centrally. All the info is saved within the non-public cloud throughout three datacentres.”
In addition to Horizon VDI, SNC-Lavalin additionally makes use of VMware’s virtualisation know-how vSphere, its vSan hyperconverged infrastructure software program, its safety platform NSX, and its multicloud service vRealize.
“There’s numerous buzzwords that come out of the IT business, however I believe simply working smarter and doing issues extra effectively goes to be the large factor subsequent yr”
Steve Capper, SNC-Lavalin
Capper says his IT staff will use this suite of know-how and a spread of different methods to deal with making certain the enterprise advantages from data and perception.
“We’ve been speaking about information as the brand new oil for years,” he says. “There’s numerous buzzwords that come out of the IT business, however I believe simply working smarter and doing issues extra effectively goes to be the large factor subsequent yr.”
Capper says one other precedence for 2023 is to proceed honing inside functionality, together with rising variety throughout the IT staff. “It’s one thing that we are attempting desperately to do. One factor we’ve finished lately is taken our assist desk from 15% feminine to 30% within the final six months, so we’re getting there,” he says.
“Making an attempt to encourage individuals into know-how is kind of onerous. The advantage of working for a corporation like ours is that we’ve bought so many issues we’re doing – we’re taking a look at networking, safety, ERP, storage methods, and options for VDI. There’s much more work for individuals to get entangled in. We’ve constructed a coaching academy as effectively, as we’re eager to develop graduates and to assist individuals work in groups.”
Main from the entrance
Though he fulfils a world function, Capper makes as a lot time for his staff as potential. He runs town-hall conferences for the entire division each month the place he provides individuals the liberty to ask difficult questions.
“I’ll reply each single factor they ask, whether or not it’s, ‘Can now we have a wage rise?’ or ‘Why are we utilizing that exact know-how?’” he says. “I attempt to be open. We’ve an inside HR survey within the firm and we get a few of the highest scores as a result of the staff really feel that we’re clear. I’ll fortunately stroll them by way of the IT finances line by line simply to clarify the way it works.”
Capper stories to the corporate’s head of threat and main tasks. His obligations fluctuate significantly from everyday and canopy a spread of actions, comparable to cyber safety, service supply, or fascinated by easy methods to assist enterprise progress by way of the applying of recent applied sciences. To this finish, he interacts commonly with distributors to see how the organisation can take advantage of their new capabilities.
“It may be a massively diversified day,” he says. “I’ve a staff of 800 and I’ve a administration staff and their job is to get the most effective out of their groups as effectively. So, they take a whole lot of strain off me – and it provides me extra time with our enterprise colleagues to debate how we will use know-how to assist them.”
For up-and-coming IT expertise, Capper has easy recommendation: “Simply seize each alternative with each fingers. For me, being profitable in IT and enterprise doesn’t must at all times be about getting educational {qualifications} – you might want to have one thing about you, and customary sense goes a good distance.”
Producing new efficiencies
Capper says digital transformation at SNC-Lavalin will proceed at tempo. In addition to VMware’s instruments, the corporate makes use of about 5,000 items of software program for areas comparable to heavy engineering and enterprise data modelling from suppliers comparable to Bentley Methods, Autodesk and Esri.
“There are large adjustments we’re making in the meanwhile,” he says. “These tasks can take as much as 12 to 18 months. What I’m aiming for is to attempt to have a single world the place we will leverage our information for different tasks and different wants that we’d not have considered.”
Capper recognises that the broader macro-economic and geopolitical atmosphere will influence the decision-making processes all enterprise leaders take throughout the subsequent few years. Nonetheless, his broader goal is to deal with producing efficiencies for the enterprise and to create a single and cohesive know-how atmosphere.
“Individuals speak about digital transformation lots, however we’ve been concerned in that work for years. I don’t suppose utilizing know-how to alter what you are promoting is a brand new method. What we’re making an attempt to do is to work smarter, leverage our information and drive efficiencies the place potential,” he says.
“In 18 months’ time, I’d prefer to see that we’re almost over the road with a few of our larger initiatives, comparable to consolidating ERP, as that may drive large advantages for the corporate.”
