CIO OF THE YEAR
Claire Rawlins ASIA PACIFIC
Australian CIO takes pride in “creating an environment where people can
accomplish and deliver outstanding business outcomes.”
It’s not easy to cover a country as large as Australia with a state-of-the-art broad- band network, but NBN Co is up to the
task. NBN Co was created in 2009, and its
purpose is to deliver Australia’s first national
wholesale-only, open-access broadband
network to all Australians. The company’s goal
is to connect 93 percent of homes, schools,
and workplaces with optical fibre (fibre to
the premises, or FTTP), providing high-speed
broadband services to Australians in urban
centers and regional towns. The remaining
7 percent will be connected to the national
broadband network via a combination of fixed
wireless and satellite technologies.
“Oracle is critical to our business strategy,”
says Claire Rawlins, CIO of NBN Co and winner
of the Oracle Excellence Award for CIO of the
Year, Asia Pacific. “As a low-cost wholesale
broadband provider that needs to quickly
deploy a complete set of integrated applica-
tions, NBN Co is highly reliant on the broad
suite of products delivered by Oracle. Its solu-
tions align with our ‘Best of Suite’ product
strategy and support our goal.”
NBN Co has implemented a complete
portfolio of Oracle applications that run the
company, from enterprise resource plan-
ning solutions to those for billing, supply
chain management, and more. “Oracle
plays a major part across much of our appli-
cation portfolio,” says Rawlins. “Oracle
E-Business Suite is the heart of our busi-
ness and commercial systems, with Oracle
Communications Billing and Revenue
Management providing our billing platform.
And we’re finding that the cloud-based Oracle
CRM On Demand solution provides us with
the necessary flexibility and speed of imple-
mentation to meet our changing business
needs.” Rawlins adds that in terms of total
cost of ownership, Oracle is a strong fit for
NBN Co for a number of reasons, including
“the preintegrated nature of the solutions,
their scalability, and the broad availability of
people with experience in the products—both
people from Oracle and from its partners.”
NBN Co’s choice of and success with
Oracle solutions reflects Rawlins’ strong
belief in “simplifying” the technology.
Rawlins also reinforces the importance of
end-to-end process alignment, underpinned
by clear metrics management as a best prac-
tice. “Constantly measure results, in real time
when possible,” she advises fellow CIOs, “as
meaningful business intelligence and ana-
lytics are invaluable.” Partnering is also high
on the agenda at NBN Co, where retail service
providers play an important role. “I passion-
ately believe in win-win solutions; anything
else is unsustainable,” Rawlins says.
Asia Pacific, 2011
WINNER SPECS
Name: Claire Rawlins
Job title: CIO
Company: NBN Co
Location: Sydney, Australia
Award: Oracle Excellence
Award for CIO of the Year,
ROBER T EDWARDS
JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2012 ORACLE.COM/ORACLEMAGAZINE
