The McCue Interview: British Energy CIO, Ian Campbell

One of the trends Campbell is monitoring these days is the change in the way people work and, in particular, the role of collaboration technology in this.

"Collaboration is a big one for us. It's a huge productivity saving. If we were five people and I sent out a document to four people and everyone sent back their version plus one to everyone else you've suddenly got 16 versions of the same document. How do you control that? Collaboration puts it in one place. What will happen in the future as collaboration and other tools come on board is we will filter and will pool what we want. Over the next couple of years that will make our lives easier."

Aware of the danger of email overload, Campbell has introduced a series of 'email-free Fridays' in the IT department.

"You try not to send emails to each other but go and see them or talk to them and spend time with them. And although we know it will never eliminate email at the moment it actually helps to spend time with people."

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Security in the nuclear industry is obviously paramount but Campbell says there has been a shift over the last two years from an impenetrable "ring of steel" to a more layered approach in terms of IT - not least because British Energy CEO Bill Coley wanted to change the total lockdown policy that existed in 2005.

"Our CEO is very IT-literate and… felt it was too constraining and so what we had to do is liberate it but in a safe, controlled way. It's about making it usable for the staff. This ring of steel approach made it impossible for anyone to do anything. It took us longer and was more costly."

Other recently implemented IT projects on Campbell's watch include upgrades from Windows NT to XP and on Oracle ERP products; single sign-on to cut the 60 per cent of helpdesk calls that were password resets; and a telecoms overhaul to quality of service that has increased bandwidth and potentially enabled the implementation of voice over IP.

Over the next couple of years the biggest overall investment programme is a new platform for the power station outage systems, which plan every element of service maintenance. Meanwhile the trading side is working to bring together a number of disparate systems and data onto an integrated platform.

All of which keeps Campbell busy during the day. Outside of work his big passion is sailing - last year he won a non-stop race around Ireland in a 72-foot boat.

"On the weekends I get down to the coast. It's a break from IT. When you're in a competition with loads of other boats you're worried about what the next sail change is not whether you're going to upgrade to XP. It's the best thing to really take your mind off it and there's no way you can even worry about your BlackBerry," he says.

More than most, Campbell is aware of the pressures his fellow CIOs feel through his role as chairman of the corporate IT user group Tif.

He adds: "Budgets and getting value for money out of our services is what every CIO talks about. It's not just about protection of budget but how you maximise what you get out of it."