3 CIO look at the challenges of Covid-19 and (de)containment
The health crisis linked to Covid-19 has put CIO on the "front line" of continuity planning. Widespread use of teleworking, strengthening of infrastructures and security, development or adjustment of new digital services, reorganization of IT project priorities, new working methods... This unprecedented period condenses the challenges for CIO ! In this article, find the highlights of the round table organized with 3 CIO from different sectors: Healthcare, Logistics, Accounting.
- What are the main challenges faced by CIO ?
- How is their own management affected?
- What impact will this have on their projects?
- How is teleworking managed?
To replay the Round Table :
Speakers:
In Extenso with Stéphane JULLIEN: CIO - Chief Information Officer
CHRU Nancy / GHT Sud Lorraine with Jean-Christophe Calvo: Head of the Territorial Department of Digital Transformation and Biomedical Engineering
Chronopost with Antonio DE FARIA: CIO of BioLogistic and Director of Governance and Programs at CIO of Chronopost
The IT challenges of moving to containment
When the government announced the closure of schools on March 12, 2020, it sounded the alarm for CIO to mobilize around business continuity plans:
- organize the transition to teleworking for employees who can continue working from home
- strengthen security and beef up network and VPN infrastructures
- deploy or create new digital services to ensure business continuity
... And all in record time. The three CIO have been working hard to ensure that their facilities can continue to operate from March 18, the date on which they went into lockdown.
HEALTH - CHRU de Nancy
"We had to be reactive to support doctors and secretaries in setting up teleconsultations. In addition, we deployed 14,000 TEAMS licenses to work "remotely"! Of course, CIO had to support the project: training in appointment scheduling, equipment, etc."
👉 Generalization of "remote working" to limit risks for healthcare and non-healthcare staff
👉 270 teleconsultation procedures in 2019 vs. 8,000 teleconsultation procedures in just 1.5 months in early 2020!
LOGISTICS - Chronopost
"We were lucky enough to have put the telecommuting system to the test in 2019 with the "flex office" and the Paris transport strikes. The confinement generalized to the 900 head office employees a usage that was already in place. "
"We had to find solutions to distribution problems linked to health regulations. In particular, how do you set up proof of distribution when contact is no longer possible? "
👉 900 employees switched to teleworking
👉 Implementation of a "Photo - confirm" project for proof of hand delivery in place of signature.
ACCOUNTING EXPERTISE - In Extenso
"To integrate the new situation in our business, we had launched a mobile computing initiative well before the confinement. As a result, 5,200 people started teleworking on their own. The only 'difficulty' was that 3 of the 225 branches had fixed workstations...".
"The major challenge was to incorporate the new rules of the Finance and Social Acts, such as short-time working, into our business applications. Reactivity proved decisive to continue producing our customers' pay slips. "
👉 5,200 employees switched to teleworking
👉 New rules integrated into IS to produce 210,000 monthly customer pay slips
Project management and governance bodies
Projects are a predominant activity for IT departments. They have obviously been impacted. Gone are the days of informal project discussions over the coffee machine: project management and governance have to be adjusted "remotely".
Impacts on projects and their governance for the Nancy CHRU
"The reduction in MCO activity due to the reorientation of care capacities freed up capacity for projects. This period offered the opportunity to close subjects and get a head start on experiments such as artificial intelligence. "
"We've been able to make our governance bodies more compact. We've saved up to 30% time compared with face-to-face meetings. "
👉 Teaching, a 50-person steering body is possible by teleconference
👉 Projects have benefited from a booster effect thanks to new margins for manoeuvre
Impact on Chronopost projects and governance
"We have reviewed the prioritization of our projects to integrate the constraints brought about by COVID. But our activity has been maintained and adjusted, with, for example, the transposition of daily meetings to remote teams. "
"We were also able to maintain our governance bodies, notably the quarterly strategic project launch decision instance, which was conducted by teleconference with the expected deliverables. "
👉 Generalization of the "photo-confirm" project to the entire driver fleet in just a few weeks
👉 Unexpected feedback: governance bodies, steering committee, strategy committee, even with more than 20 participants, ran perfectly in "teleconference" mode.
Impacts on projects and their governance for In Extenso
"Some of our projects are driven by dates set by legal constraints. We have no choice - we have to deliver on time, and containment has helped. We have also put projects requiring physical interaction, notably infrastructure, on stand-by. "
"One of the new uses of Project Monitor is to monitor the crisis in project mode, making it compulsory for a project to be declared in the application in order to exist within the company. "
👉 Project production maintained. Productivity down by around 10% due to telecommuting constraints
👉 In Extenso's CEO Antoine de Riedmatten directly managed crisis management in project mode at Project Monitor to consolidate all actions.
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What impact will the crisis have on the rest of the business?
What are the main lessons to be learned from this period? Has the role of CIO changed?
What's next for CHRU Nancy
"The discipline we've acquired in terms of meeting times and duration, as well as our demonstration of the effectiveness of teleworking, will lead us to rethink our practices.
Regarding the role of CIO, a survey showed that the tools introduced were recognized as a plus. But the real heroes of the period remain the caregivers. "
What's next for Chronopost
"This period has shown that telecommuting works. We will probably reconsider its place in our organization. The targeted 30-minute meetings have been a real plus that we need to capitalize on.
The resilience of CIO was highlighted, both in terms of the implementation of new tools and Chronopost's ability to cope with the surge in business. But it is above all the drivers who have been on the front line who deserve praise. "
What's next for In Extenso
"My position on teleworking is more nuanced. Particularly on the loss of efficiency due to the loss of "live" exchanges, which slows down interactions.
Secondly, the way we look at CIO has clearly changed. Feedback from associates is very positive, and they have understood the need to invest in technical debt, for example. We need to take advantage of this, as criticism is more common at CIO. The trust we've gained will serve us well in the future. It's also the people "on the front line", for example in social activities, who should be saluted for their work during this period of high exposure. "
Questions and answers addressed during the webinar
Does this have an impact on your department's budgets?
In Extenso: Not in the short term. On the other hand, I'm anticipating some worries for FY2022.
Chronopost: no impact on our budgets in the short term. No impact on 2021
CHRU Nancy: the financial question is not on the agenda. In fact, we have new resources.
How did you address the issue of IT security?
CHRU Nancy: we had to reinforce security and deal with alerts. Hackers attempted malicious actions, which we countered.
Chronopost: this is a constant theme in our business. It's a leitmotiv both before and after this crisis. No unsecured workstation can access the information system.
Did you need to adjust the ecosystem (suppliers, partners, etc.) to address the challenges issues raised by Covid 19?
CHRU Nancy: We just staggered the meetings for the first three weeks, then transformed the physical meeting into a virtual one. Apart from that, we didn't make any particular adjustments, apart from speeding up meetings and making them more efficient.
How did you manage to buy so many Teams licenses so quickly?
CHRU Nancy: We're on a national market called CAIH, with a framework agreement with Microsoft available to all public health establishments. Through this contract, we were able to add the number of additional licenses
How did customers send you their accounting documents?
In Extenso: we have a dematerialized tool called "Inexweb", where the customer deposits his document in a safe coupled with an OCR that pushes it directly into his accounting system. This represents a flow of over 1.3 million documents/month.
With COVID, patients are deprived of all contact with their loved ones. Have you set up visios/webconferences? Do you have any feedback on this subject?
CHRU Nancy: We have deployed tablets (donated to us) equipped with video solutions (skype, whatsapp, etc.) to enable virtual visits. Feedback has been very positive from both patients and caregivers, who are delighted to be able to exchange ideas.
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Many thanks to our round table speakers