Critical Analysis of Centrica's CIO Strategy in Information Systems

This report provides a critical analysis of Centrica's Management Information Systems (MIS), focusing on the strategies and initiatives of its Chief Information Officer (CIO). The analysis begins with an overview of Centrica and its IT technologies, followed by a detailed examination of themes discussed by the CIO, including partnerships with Microsoft and SAP, digital challenges, and the company's approach to data management. The report identifies missing values, such as the implementation of artificial intelligence and machine learning, and recommends strategies for the future, including customer experience, flexibility, and the electrification of transport. The report highlights Centrica's digital transformation journey, emphasizing the importance of technology, business procedures, and employee training. The analysis draws from interviews, industry reports, and academic literature to provide a comprehensive understanding of Centrica's MIS and its future direction.

Running head: MANAGEMENT OF INFORMATION SYSTEMS
MANAGEMENT OF INFORMATION SYSTEMS
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

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Introduction to IT at Centrica:
In this essay the interview of Mike Young, CEO of Centrica is selected and thus all
the themes discussed by the CEO is analysed in detail. Furthermore, a brief overview of
Centrica is presented and the missed out themes by the CEO for company’s management
information system. Also, the recommendations about strategies and direction for the future
of company that the CEO should pursue is presented in brief. The Centrica innovations is the
global group of innovations that frequently partners with the start-ups for investment and
assistance for energy transformations, mobility of electrics, home services and industrial
markets. Centrica helps those organizations with new technological ideas and helps to the
organizations to do more customer centric business (ComputerWeekly.com 2020). The
current IT technologies of Centrica includes distributed Energy and Storage with modern AI
powered intelligence, creating smart homes that is able to digitize the seamless service and
experience and making energy efficient systems for industries and businesses.
Theme Sections:
Now, the themes and sections that are discussed by Mike Young can be segregated in
three main divisions namely pursuing the assistance of Microsoft CEO, being an Audience to
McDermott and the digital challenges of Centrica.
In the Meeting with Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella the Centrica is assured to put in a strategic
initiative for performing in the sector of utilities. Mike Young have already gathered a team
as a data science specialist that developing intelligent algorithms that helps Centrica to not
only manage the huge dataset of over 23 million customers but also provides the company to
earn in whole new different way by a spin-off known as Io-Tahoe (Centrica Plc. 2020).
Young also outlined that Centrica already formed an important strategic partnership with the
Microsoft CEO in which significant topics were discussed and deals were made which will

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help Centrica in the long run (Laudon and Laudon 2016). The most exciting part of the
meeting as mentioned by Young is that the partnership with Microsoft which means that the
company can move at a higher speed than earlier years, can take more part in risky and
innovative projects and most important can learn the benefits of cloud computing that will
help to accelerate changes and thus to approach new customers markets.
The software providers of Centrica are SAP and the story is related to SAP. The CIO of
Centrica says that they have a strategic partnership with Bill McDermott and it will generally
take two years to take the systems of Centrica on board and then move them to Hana
(Paroutis 2016). The challenges are explained and the challenges are faced with the backend
systems of Centrica (Amuna, Al Shobaki & Naser 2017). The CIO of the company says that
they have 23 million customers and they have eight Enterprise resource Planning systems in
United Kingdom. He also says that Centrica runs two of the largest platforms of SAP. It is the
similar system that is utilised by Microsoft and Apple. It is a system that is based on batch-
fed and 24 hours behind the real time.
After the meeting with McDermott, Centrica has agreed to migrate to a back end that is
digital and it is based n SAP Hana in order to overcome the boundary of batch processing.
The CIO of the company says that they have moved their financial ERP system from SAP
legacy to SAP Hana and it means that the data is updated every second (Kauflin 2017).
The procurement team of the company has been moved into another product of SAP that is
known as Ariba while the Company WorkDay gives Centrica the HR. The CIO of the
company says that they have put a layer of API and utilised machine learning in order to
trawl through the batch systems and then repair the data in the systems of back-end (Noe et
al. 2017). According to the CIO of Centrica, these measures have enables the company in

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order to speed up the time of processing from limit of 24 hours in the system of batch to an
hour.
From the perspective of enterprise software, the service of field is another area of the
business that requires addressing says the CIO of Centrica. The 50,000 field engineers of
Centrica utilise a patchwork quilt of 11 various systems but in the next two years Centrica
will be utilising a management of field that is based on cloud.
The CIO of Centrica Young has turned out transformations those are digital across a number
of Enterprises and it is not so easy. The CIO of Centrica says that there are three things to do
and says that the right technology for the right outputs of data should be utilised, the second
is the proper business procedure in most efficient manner and the third is the people (Arora
2020). He also says that if the people are not well trained then the company will be in trouble
and this issue is very hard to address.
The CIO of the Company Young also adds that some of the employees get it and they adapt
very quickly and become the agents those are digital, some of the employees requires training
and time to adapt and some of the employees get it.
In order to help the employees at Centrica, Microsoft Office 365 is utilised as a stack of
collaboration, Young also adds that email and Skype are not only use but Microsoft project is
also utilised. The transformation those are digital is sometimes described to be a journey. The
CIO of the Company says that there are three level of Maturity at Centrica.
At the primary level, Centrica executes sessions of lunchtime and it is utilised to assist people
understand the meaning of digital to Centrica. Young, the CIO of the Company says that the
next step in sophistication those are digital is assisting people to do their activities via
initiatives those are digital. Centrica has about 600 digital champions transversely their
business. At its highest level, Centrica has recruited a leadership that is digital and it can be

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parachuted in across the Company in order to examine various opportunities in the
transformation those are digital.
Missing Values:
Centrica is a company that deals with sustainability of energy and it provides other
companies technological solutions. The company have heard about artificial intelligence
from Microsoft and their teams are working on data science. Developing the ability of
machine learning and it will transform the ways that the company interact with the customers.
The values that are missing in the company is Artificial intelligence and the company should
implement artificial intelligence in its business so that they can interact properly with the
customers and they should also implement machine learning and collaborate with SAP. SAP
will help the company to back end systems. Centrica Company has some problems with their
backend systems and the SAP platform will help the company to overcome this issue of back
end systems. Centrica is also having some issues with batch processing and on collaborating
with SAP the company will migrate to digital back end that is based on SAP (Bolutiwi,
2019). The Company also need to migrate its ERP to SAP so that the financial ERP operates
properly and the data will be updated every second. The field service of the Company also
requires to be addressed and the field engineers of the company are working on it in order to
fix the issue of field service. Digital transformation is also required in the company it will
help the organization to be fully digital and the employees will also be digital. The CIO of the
company says that the company should use right technology, should have a proper business
procedure and the employee of the company should be good so that the company is fully
transformed to digital (Paroutis 2016). The employees must adapt to the digitization quickly
and it will be easier for the company to operate its business by providing proper solutions to
other organizations. The CIO also thinks that the employees of the Company should become

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digital agents so that the company can overcome the challenges those are digital and help the
company in its business.
Future direction:
Centrica is a company that provides technological solutions to other companies and
provides sustainable energy to the various businesses. The challenges of the company include
performance of the business and resilience of the business. The future of the company is
Artificial intelligence and machine learning. The company should implement artificial
intelligence and machine learning in its operations so that it can operate its business properly
and can interact with its customers. Artificial intelligence and machine learning is the future
of the company and it can provide sustainable energy with the help of machine learning and
artificial intelligence. The future of the company is also automation and it is working to make
the homes smart that is smart homes. The Centrica Company helps to start the energy
revolution at home with the help of artificial intelligence and machine learning (Bolutiwi
2019). The Centrica Company is working on traditional market roles and the convergence of
the sectors such as ride hailing applications of taxi. It is also working on the rising
significance of new platforms such as the open banking and maximizing the personalization
of the customers. The Centrica Company has a big future in its market of energy that includes
decarbonisation and decentralisation. It also works on digitization and the convergence of the
sectors that is the design of the future market and it has to offer for the system wide solutions
that cover the whole economy consisting of electrification of transport and heat. The main
future direction of the Company is customer experience. The expectations of the customers
are rising day by day and the utilities rank low as compared to several other markets.
Flexibility is yet another future of the company and the electrification of transport (Paroutis
2016). It increases the importance of storage, flexible generation of DSR and management of
network that are active. The electrification of transport drives the transition from the products

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that are based on petroleum to EVs. The new technology and the demand for more customers
those are sophisticated offering is driving the transformation. The future of the company is
excellent and in future it will able to provide excellent technological solutions and sustainable
energy to its customers.

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References:
Amuna, Y. M. A., Al Shobaki, M. J., & Naser, S. S. A. (2017). The Role of Knowledge-
Based Computerized Management Information Systems in the Administrative Decision-
Making Process.
Arora, V., 2020. A Balanced Scorecard Framework for Measuring Sustainability
Performance of Business Organizations. In Handbook of Research on Interdisciplinary
Approaches to Decision Making for Sustainable Supply Chains (pp. 140-163). IGI Global.
Bolutiwi, M., 2019. An Empirical Investigation into the Challenges and Failures of Large-
Scale Complex Information Technology Projects (Doctoral dissertation, UCL (University
College London)).
Centrica Plc. (2020). Home. [online] Available at: https://www.centrica.com/ [Accessed 16
Jan. 2020].
ComputerWeekly.com. (2020). CIO interview: Mike Young, Centrica. [online] Available at:
https://www.computerweekly.com/news/252443243/CIO-interview-Mike-Young-Centrica
[Accessed 16 Jan. 2020].
Kauflin, J., 2017. The world’s most sustainable companies 2017. Forbes,(online) Available
at:< https://www. forbes. com/sites/jeffkauflin/2017/01/17/theworlds-most-sustainable-
companies-2017.
Laudon, K.C. and Laudon, J.P., 2016. Management information system. Pearson Education
India.
Noe, R.A., Hollenbeck, J.R., Gerhart, B. and Wright, P.M., 2017. Human resource
management: Gaining a competitive advantage. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill Education.
Paroutis, S., 2016. Centrica: Strategizing in a multi-utility. SAGE Publications Ltd.