Where Innovation Meets Outsourcing: A Conversation With Bob Worrall, CIO, Sun Microsystems

Since its seminal “The Network Is the Computer” days in the early 1980s to its current resurgence, Sun Microsystems has been one of the tech industry’s foremost innovators. With
its history of thought-leading solutions, Sun has also been a leader in enterprise computing. Among the company’s recent innovations are a mobile data center in a shipping container called Project Blackbox and the environmentally friendly Eco Innovation Initiative.

With more than 25 years in the tech industry, Sun CIO Bob Worrall has enjoyed a front row seat to the ongoing innovation. Sun and Worrall rely heavily on CSC’s industry knowledge and expertise to help drive advancements within Sun’s IT environment as part of a close partnership that includes outsourcing support as well as collaboration on go-to-market initiatives.

In 2005, Sun signed a comprehensive global IT applications manage¬ment agreement with CSC that included a swift transfer of resources to offshore locations. Earlier this year, Sun extended the relationship to include support of a massive business reengineering effort. Worrall recently talked about how the partnership has helped Sun stay ahead of the pack.

CSC World: What are some of the key benefits Sun has gained by outsourcing to CSC?

Worrall: First and foremost, our No. 1 objective when we entered into the agreement was to save costs, and we’ve certainly achieved that. Second on our list of priorities was to improve the flexibility of the IT response here inside the company. By that, I mean being able to dial-up and dial-down to bring on additional resources as business dictates, and we’ve achieved that as well. We’ve been fortunate in the contract we have with CSC that we also have a lot of different levers we can pull.

CSC World: Can you provide an example of this improved flexibility?

Worrall: Sun’s business model is perhaps not as predictable as some of CSC’s traditional clients, especially those in the federal space. Over the years, we’ve required lots of quick turnaround on projects. It’s not unusual for us to get funding approval for a new project halfway into the fiscal year and for the business to require us to start working on the project within weeks. So that speed is certainly part of what’s needed inside the company.

What CSC has helped us achieve is to be able to turn that crank more quickly in a number of projects from CRM to other areas where we’ve been faced with a new business requirement. We’ve been able to turn to CSC and have them staff up that initiative relatively quickly to complete the initiative on time and on budget, then, as needed, to ramp down again. So that flexibility has been very important to us and continues to be going forward.

CSC World: What about the go-to-market objectives that are part of the partnership?

Worrall: Our partnership also allows us to jointly pursue some interesting market opportunities. Whether it be potential opportunities in the financial services space or other markets CSC plays into, or conversely, leveraging some of Sun’s new technologies in existing accounts, CSC has the dedicated staff to drive these opportunities very well. Likewise, Sun has the staff to identify and drive these initiatives as well. I think we’re in a good position to chase some interesting things in the market.

CSC World: Do you have a good example of this?

Worrall: Sun has spent 10-plus years deploying, operating and supporting a thin client desktop environment internally. CSC recognized the power and potential of the thin client solution and invested quite a few resources on the CSC side to take the thin client solution and improve on it by wrapping around a lot of practices that deal with some of the security requirements in the federal space. The result is a very secure desktop model for federal government agencies that require additional security. Taking that to market has been very successful and promises to continue being very successful.

Outside of that, there has been some interest on CSC’s part in some of our emerging technologies, be it Project Blackbox or some of the energy-efficient technologies we’re selling. CSC is taking those back to some of their installed base and saying to CIOs who are trying to save money and reduce space in data centers, “Sun has a new inter¬esting technology that you need to take a look at.”

CSC World: What innovations has the partnership brought to Sun’s IT environment?

Worrall: Thinking back to some of our original hopes and desires for the relationship and the contract, there are some things that have really come to fruition. One is best practices. I think one of the innovations that CSC has brought to the table very successfully has been the process focus and some of their intellectual property around service management. How to manage a globally diverse workforce, with the India connection, for example. At the same time, managing to meet all of our service level requirements.

One example of that is our quarter-end and year-end close processes. Before the outsourcing, those were always a pretty anxious time for the IT staff. But what CSC was able to do was to leverage best practices from across their customer installed base, as well as the coverage model that their global workforce brings to the table. CSC was really able to get us through the quarter-end and year-end processing with fewer concerns, escalations and issues than we had ever seen before. The best practices that they’ve brought to the table really made that happen.

CSC also provides a lot of out-of-the-box thinking in terms of how to address and support a true 24x7 multinational company and its requirements in these very critical times.

CSC World: Do you think the similarities between Sun and CSC’s corporate cultures have contributed to the success of this relationship?

Worrall: Yes and no. Actually, I don’t think the corporate cultures are as similar as we might
suggest. CSC comes from a fairly traditional environment. I think the people who came from CSC to the Sun account were surprised at the culture that we have here. But I actually think that less than their similarity, their dissimilarity is a benefit.

What I mean by that is we at Sun have a flexible work environment and the fact that people are allowed to bring their dogs to work, that sort of thing, was a bit of a shock to some CSC people. But on the contrary, what CSC brought to the table was the proven rigor, discipline and process focus that isn’t always a strength of ours. So I think it’s in their dissimilarities actually that those teams have brought the best of the best. Sun brings with it this very innovative culture, very willing to take risks and try new things and move quickly. Whereas CSC, on the other hand, brings this proven track record of process and quality, as well as industry focus. So marrying those two has really paid off.

CSC World: Can you talk about some of the interesting technologies Sun is developing?

Worrall: There are a few interesting technologies that CSC at large ought to keep an eye on. One is certainly the identity management space.

Sun continues to be a leader in that area and we are doing a lot in the go-to-market space with identity management. More recently is the movement to eco-friendly computing. Our new server line is certainly the most eco-friendly on the planet and has been recognized by the power provider here in California with the first energy rebates ever provided to computer hardware. So we’re pretty excited about that.

Also, Project Blackbox is a pretty typical Sun product. Sort of out of the box, if you pardon the pun, by moving compute power into a sealed shipping container that can run virtually anywhere on the planet. We’re getting a lot of interest from companies who have the unenviable task of having to deploy high-end compute servers to very difficult locations around the world as well as more tradi¬tional customers who have run out of traditional data center space. So there are a number of interesting technologies Sun is developing that can be applied in a variety of ways to address some of CSC’s customers’ pressing needs.

So there are a number of interesting technologies Sun is developing that can be applied in a variety of ways to address some of CSC’s customers’ pressing needs.