London, UK: 11 December, 2013 – Chief Information Officers (CIOs) across the UK are seen as the anticipated source for creating competitive advantages through generating new ways to communicate with customers and employees (69%) and understanding and improving the customer experience (67%). This is according to data released today by SunGard Availability Services, the pioneer and leading provider of Information Availability services.

The study of 550 C-level and senior business decision makers, from organisations with more than 250 employees across the UK, France, Sweden and Ireland highlights the rise in business confidence as organisational mind-set shifts in an attempt to drive new revenue opportunities, with technology and the CIO seen as the catalyst for this change.

In a context where 97% of UK businesses believe aligning their initiatives with the IT department’s capability will yield some form of competitive advantage, the dual pressures on today's CIO become even clearer: they’re expected to support new areas of growth while balancing the ever changing demands of employees, customers and partners alike.

By all accounts it's a mantle they're seen as ready to assume with 95% of non-IT decision makers in the UK reporting their CIOs as having the capable skills and expertise to strategically support the business. Perhaps unsurprisingly and as acknowledgement of the difficulty of the role of a CIO, it was the weight of dealing with everyday activity (46%) and lacking the necessary resource (51%) that was cited as the top reasons holding CIOs back from supporting broader business objectives.

The research also points to how cross-departmental co-operation is key to effectively tackling those separate but sizeable challenges. 40% believe the IT department and senior management team should work very closely together to deliver business growth and enterprise availability, and while 42% believe a healthy distance between the two should exist for a competitive advantage to truly exist, just 3% of UK correspondents believe this means not working with the CIO at all.

Looking at their internal relationships within the organisation, 61% of UK respondents suggested they work closely with the CIO and their team because they are helpful in realising their department's ideas, are an integral part of their team (58%), and are open to new ideas (55%).

“Historically IT has also had a tricky relationship with the rest of the business. It’s often referred to as a troubled marriage, but in many cases it’s not the technology that’s the problem, but a perception that it doesn’t deliver, is inflexible and drains resources”, comments Joe Peppard, Professor at the European School of Management and Technology. “If the CIO can foster positive relationships with c-level colleagues, they have a great opportunity to build confidence, credibility and legitimacy that leads to business impact across the organisation.”

Where the CIO does, and arguably should, sit in regards to the senior leadership team opens up some interesting areas of debate. 77% of business decision makers in the UK responded that their CIO was part of the organisations senior leadership team  or a member of the board. Further to this, over half (59%) of respondents who replied they weren’t felt they should be, led by those from a marketing (73%) or HR (68%) department.

Surprisingly, more CIOs report into the CEO (42%) and COO (27%) than the CFO (26%), potentially indicating the need to have wider board representation at a senior management level, to ensure IT isn’t just seen as a cost-centre, but a potential area that can help meet organisational goals.

“As companies position themselves for growth, the CIO can become burdened with the task of everyday activities that focus on keeping the lights on rather than looking at ways to strategically support the business,” concludes Keith Tilley, Executive Vice President, EMEA & APAC, SunGard Availability Services. “Here is where a trusted technology partner can offer real assistance, and business leaders recognise this. In the UK over half cite an external partner as helpful in managing change initiatives (56%), responding to new demand patterns (55%) and enabling greater business agility/ competitiveness (55%), as companies look to capitalise on the opportunities today’s market is providing.”

London, UK: 28th November, 2013 – SunGard Availability Services, the pioneer and leading provider of Information Availability services, today announces a tranche of activities which have significantly increased its presence and capability in its UK and European operations. This latest investment demonstrates just how widespread growing demand for availability has become and how managed hybrid solutions are becoming an integral part of delivering All-time™ levels of information availability to customers across the globe.

With accelerated uptake of and migration into cloud, managed and virtualised environments, the opening of SunGard’s fifth UK Technology Centre based in Birmingham and a new data centre in Sweden means customers now have access to a network of eleven facilities across Europe, offering 600,000 sq. ft. of operations space:

•  TC5 Birmingham

Providing 67,000 sq. ft.  of data centre footprint, ‘Technology Centre 5’ as it’s known, is located in Birmingham, and increases SunGard’s UK data centre space to over 400,000 sq. ft. Since acquiring the facility, virtualisation and reconfiguration of the data halls/UPS has freed up more than 70 racks worth of space. This comes at a time when demand for UK data centre space has risen significantly, up 50% from the start of 2013, according to CBRE[1].

• DC3 – Sweden

Taking SunGard’s European data centre count to eleven is the 18,000 sq. ft. facility, known as DC3.  Based on a triangulated fibre network for resilience, this location is twinned with SunGard’s existing DCs in Stockholm to deliver higher availability. As with all SunGard data centres in Sweden, DC3 is powered entirely by wind, in line with SunGard’s commitment to low carbon facilities, and sports a PUE of 1.25. With SunGard’s ongoing commitment DC3 is also accredited to ISO 9001, ISO 14001 and ISO 27001.

“Businesses are crying out for solutions that will enable them to be always on and available anywhere and wherever their customers demand.  To achieve the desired 24/7 availability, more hybrid managed infrastructure services and different ways of delivering All-time™ levels of service are required,” says Keith Tilley, Executive Vice President, EMEA & APAC, SunGard Availability Services.

Meanwhile by expanding its Livingston Workplace Recovery Centre and extending the reach of its QuickShip service into Europe, SunGard is enabling firms to address the availability challenges posed by workforce mobility, consumerisation of IT and the rise of offshore-based rightsourcing. SunGard has made these other investments, geared towards maintaining staff productivity amidst myriad circumstances:

• Livingston Expansion

In response to the growing demands for dedicated (rather than shared) recovery space from Scotland’s professional and financial services industries, SunGard is building more than 200 additional dedicated back office positions, taking the total site size to more than 1,200 positions. This is the fourth such expansion of the site in a decade, demonstrating the commitment of Scottish firms to securing business availability.  The newly created space is available now in good time for those companies seeking to review their availability priorities in advance of Scotland hosting the Commonwealth Games in July 2014.

• QuickShip Service

Extending the services provided through its relationship with Regus, SunGard’s QuickShip mobile recovery solution will now be available across Europe, enabling it to equip alternative business centres, within major European conurbations, that are not currently serviced with recovery technology.

SunGard’s QuickShip service will provision firms with up to 50 PCs, European keyboards, and screens in flight cases, with stored and ready-to-go assets that can be shipped across Europe. It also includes the services of an IT technician who receives the equipment, sets it up and returns things back to SunGard when no longer required by the customer.

“SunGard is committed to helping customers exploit technology that will enable them to transform their business so they can keep the promises they make to their customers.  Our focus is on ensuring this becomes a reality” continues Tilley. “Delivering All-Time availability is based on more collaborative types of vendor relationships, where ongoing consultancy and trusted advice – geared towards delivering tangible business outcomes – is the priority. As companies expand evermore into new markets and new opportunities resilience has to remain constant and unfaltering.”

The company continued global expansion has drawn recognition from the industry during the third quarter: SunGard Availability Services was recognised for global customer services and awarded the BCI Global Award for Business Continuity Provider of the Year (BCM Service) by the Business Continuity Institute (BCI).   Within India the BCI has since shortlisted SunGard’s India operations for their Business Continuity Service Provider and Business Continuity Product Provider of the Year categories.

• 79% of business decision makers in Ireland believe closer alignment between business departments and IT will yield competitive advantage

• Expected advantages include technology-led innovation (52%), increased efficiency (48%) and organisational flexibility (44%)

• Across Europe, the relationship between IT, finance and marketing senior business decision makers is driving business growth.

Dublin, Ireland – 21 November, 2013: SunGard Availability Services, the pioneer and leading provider of Information Availability solutions, today reveals the shifting attention of business leaders, away from cost-cutting to driving innovation and growth. 79% of Irish business decision makers believe closer alignment between individual business departments and the IT function will yield a competitive advantage, with technology-led innovation (52%), being prioritised above a reduction in costs (49%). In addition, respondents believe greater efficiency (48%) and organisational flexibility (44%) could be achieved.

The study of 550 C-level and senior business decision makers, from organisations with more than 250 employees across Ireland, the UK, France and Sweden highlights the rise in business confidence as organisational mind-set shifts in an attempt to drive new revenue opportunities, with technology seen as the catalyst for this change.

“After several tough years, business leaders are recognising that the market is on the up and are adjusting priorities in light of this opportunity”, comments Keith Tilley, Executive Vice President, EMEA & APAC, SunGard Availability Services. “We’re seeing a welcome movement away from bottom-line barriers, as collaboration, innovation, efficiency and flexibility become the focal points for supporting business expansion.”

In an indication of the broader health of the respective markets, the research found that, across the regions, Ireland and France remained the most focussed on cost-cutting, with 52% and 49% of respondents prioritising this against a European average of 42% . Interesting splits also emerged in the levels of integration between the CIO and respective teams. All of the finance and marketing teams in Ireland and Sweden, for example, believe they work closely and effectively with the CIO, suggesting the greatest departmental cohesion can be found in these regions.

The report also highlights the departmental relationships that are currently shaping organisational growth. Within Ireland, the closest relationship with regards to achieving business growth and enterprise availability* was found to be between the Chief Information Officer (CIO) and the finance department: 100% of the latter believe they work closely with the former to deliver this. What’s more, well over a third half (38%) of  finance directors in Ireland recognise that CIOs should receive more resources to help them deliver further value for the business – an opinion most strongly felt in Europe amongst French respondents (69%).

The study reveals business leaders have become more conscious of the public perception of their company and their role within it. 81% of respondents in Ireland feel increased accountability under the external pressures of customer satisfaction, partner relations and supply chain issues.

The alignment between the CIO and other senior business decision makers is where the real contrast emerges between the regions. While the UK was by far the highest in terms of CMOs believing that CIOs should be on the senior leadership team, none of the French finance or marketing executives believe this should be the case. CIOs in Ireland appear to be supported by the finance teams (62%) and HR (63% above those respondents from marketing (44%) .

Behind the scenes, business availability and resilience are seen as crucial to supporting growth and maintaining corporate reputation. In Ireland, three years ago, just 14% of the board and senior management team considered building an ‘always on’ business to meet 24/7 customer and employee demands as important, a percentage which has now risen to 45% under current pressures. CIOs, in particular, recognise the role business availability plays, as more than double the number of IT decision markers now consider having an ‘Available Enterprise’ as critical to business success (an increase from 20% to 53% over the past three years). The biggest jump amongst the countries was in Sweden, which saw a considerable increase from 23% to 68% over the past three years.

“As companies position themselves for growth, they need to continue to keep the lights on to ensure the resilience of everyday operations isn’t lost,” concludes Tilley. “Here is where a trusted technology partner can offer real assistance, and business leaders recognise this. In Ireland over half cite an external partner as crucial to managing complex IT estates (58%) and improving security / compliance (54%), as companies look to capitalise on the opportunities today’s market is providing.”

The following table represents the responses from interviewees around their department’s initiatives against the capabilities of the IT department and the benefits they would expect to see as a result:

The following table reveals the percentage of business leader who work with the CIO to deliver business growth and enterprise availability:

The following table reveals responses from business leaders when asked whether external demands (i.e. customers, partners, supply-chain), for round-the-clock availability has increased the pressure on their role:

*Availability is defined here as: Enterprise availability for any organisation means that its people, data and processes, and the infrastructure that connects them, are all accessible as required to support the business. It is about keeping people and information connected.

• 97% of UK business decision makers believe closer alignment between business departments and IT will yield competitive advantage

• Expected advantages include increased efficiency (69%), technology-led innovation (54%) and organisational flexibility (51%) – but only 37% anticipate cost reductions

• Across Europe, the relationship between IT, finance and marketing senior business decision makers is driving business growth.

London, UK – 19^th November, 2013: SunGard Availability Services, the pioneer and leading provider of Information Availability solutions, today reveals the shifting attention of business leaders, away from cost-cutting to driving innovation and growth. 97% of UK business decision makers believe closer alignment between individual business departments and the IT function will yield a competitive advantage, in addition to greater efficiency (69%), technology-led innovation (54%) and organisational flexibility (51%) – but only 37% anticipate a reduction in costs.

The study of 550 C-level and senior business decision makers, from organisations with more than 250 employees across the UK, France, Sweden and Ireland highlights the rise in business confidence as organisational mind-set shifts in an attempt to drive new revenue opportunities, with technology seen as the catalyst for this change.

“After several tough years, business leaders are recognising that the market is on the up and are adjusting priorities in light of this opportunity”, comments Keith Tilley, Executive Vice President, EMEA & APAC, SunGard Availability Services. “We’re seeing a welcome movement away from bottom-line barriers, as collaboration, innovation, efficiency and flexibility become the focal points for supporting business expansion.”

In an indication of the broader health of the respective markets, the research found that, across the regions, France and Ireland remained the most focussed on cost-cutting, with 52% and 49% of respondents prioritising this against a European average of 42%. Interesting splits also emerged in the levels of integration between the CIO and respective teams. All of the finance and marketing teams in Sweden and Ireland, for example, believe they work closely and effectively with the CIO, suggesting the greatest departmental cohesion can be found in these regions.

The report also highlights the departmental relationships that are currently shaping organisational growth. Within the UK, the closest relationship with regards to achieving business growth and enterprise availability* was found to be between the Chief Information Officer (CIO) and the finance department: 96% of the latter believe they work closely with the former to deliver this. What’s more, over half (52%) of UK finance directors recognise that CIOs should receive more resources to help them deliver further value for the business – an opinion most strongly felt in Europe amongst French respondents (69%).

“Availability, resilience and speed of performance are all increasingly important to support exceptional client service and help drive growth”, comments Mark Sherfield, Chief Operating Officer at accountancy and business advisory firm BDO. “It is essential for marketing and IT functions to work together to anticipate client expectations and ensure innovation in service delivery continues to add value to our clients businesses. Having finance teams working alongside enables the process and helps justify the return on investment.”

The study reveals business leaders have become more conscious of the public perception of their company and their role within it. 90% of UK respondents feel increased accountability under the external pressures of customer satisfaction, partner relations and supply chain issues. In light of this, there is a close alignment between Chief Marketing Officers (CMO) and the CIO to deliver enterprise availability. Aside from the Chief Finance Officer (CFO), CMOs were shown to have the closest relationship with the CIO and to be most in favour (73%) of the CIO being on the board/senior leadership team.

Here is where real contrast emerges between the regions. The UK was by far the highest in terms of CMOs believing that CIOs should be on the senior leadership team.  Yet none of the French finance or marketing executives believe this should be the case, pointing to significantly strained relationships between these departments and the CIO.

Behind the scenes, business availability and resilience are seen as crucial to supporting growth and maintaining corporate reputation. In the UK, three years ago, 38% of the board and senior management team considered building an ‘always on’ business to meet 24/7 customer and employee demands as important, a percentage which has now risen to 54% under current pressures. CIOs, in particular, recognise the role business availability plays, as more than double the number of IT decision makers now consider having an ‘Available Enterprise’ as critical to business success (an increase from 31% to 65% over the past three years). The biggest jump amongst the countries was in Sweden, which saw a considerable increase from 23% to 68% over the past three years.

“As companies position themselves for growth, they need to continue to keep the lights on to ensure the resilience of everyday operations isn’t lost,” concludes Tilley. “Here is where a trusted technology partner can offer real assistance, and business leaders recognise this. In the UK over half cite an external partner as crucial to managing business change initiatives (56%) and enabling greater business agility (55%), as companies look to capitalise on the opportunities today’s market is providing.”

The following table represents the responses from interviewees regarding the benefits they would expect to see from closer collaboration around their department’s initiatives against the capabilities of the IT department :

The following table reveals the percentage of business leader who work with the CIO to deliver business growth and enterprise availability:

The following table reveals responses from business leaders when asked whether external demands (i.e. customers, partners, supply-chain), for round-the-clock availability has increased the pressure on their role:

*Availability is defined here as: Enterprise availability for any organisation means that its people, data and processes, and the infrastructure that connects them, are all accessible as required to support the business. It is about keeping people and information connected.

This has three major business implications:

1. Data compliance

Organisations that store large volumes of information must comply with both UK and European regulations. This not only means paying close attention to how – and where – that data is stored and protected, but also how it is handled during migration to an external cloud based service platform.

For example, all businesses located in the UK fall under the Data Protection Act 1998. This includes an obligation for the customer to retain close control over personal data, even when it is being processed by a third party on its behalf. The customer also retains legal responsibility for the data’s integrity.

2. EU legislation

Whilst EU law does not prohibit the transfer of personal data outside the European Economic Area (EEA) – which comprises all the countries in the EU, plus Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway – it does insist on various safeguards before that processing can take place.

The only exception is when the destination country has been pre-approved by the European Commission as having adequate data protection, including measures for isolating and deleting data where appropriate.

3. Transparency required

So how can external cloud service providers allay valid concerns about data protection compliance?  Before being trusted to handle company information they must:

• Demonstrate adherence to any relevant data protection rules
• Provide visibility into security, storage and data retention processes
• Allow information security monitoring and audits
• Link external hosted systems to on-premises platforms within broader hybrid cloud service delivery via secure network links such as VPNs.

For their part, client companies should work closely with the provider to establish the exact details of service policies, processes and controls governing the security of their personal data. They also need to confirm the provision of safeguards to ensure that information is stored in line with applicable laws.

To find out more about migrating to the cloud, download our Cloud Workload Migration White Paper.

Understanding cloud types

The US National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) sets out the following definitions:

•  Private cloud – an infrastructure for the exclusive use of a single organisation, either on- or off-premises
•  Community cloud – provisioned for the exclusive use of a specific group of users, either on- or off-premises
•  Public cloud – a strictly off-premises system provisioned for the use of the general public
•  Hybrid cloud – an infrastructure platform composed of two or more of the other models, integrated to enable data and application portability.

Customer preferences

A research paper conducted by IDG Connect on behalf of SunGard Availability Services identified that on-premises cloud services models are preferred by the majority of respondents. Just over a third (37%) felt that private clouds were most suitable for business requirements; an equal number prefer hybrid cloud platforms that integrate in-house with externally hosted systems.

Private cloud services, which are hosted on single tenant, or exclusive use, architecture within third party provider data centres were cited as suitable by only 13%, with public clouds attracting support from just 7% of those surveyed.

Maintaining an open mind

Despite respondents’ overall low support for public cloud services, a shared, multi-tenanted architecture can in fact be suitable for some types of workloads.

Understandably, most IT departments prefer to keep mission critical data and applications on-premises. But they can benefit from migrating others to flexible, pay-as-you-go environments.

For example, on demand SaaS-based office suites and Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) providers are ideal for supporting software testing and development processes on a temporary basis. You only pay for what you need, when you need it.

Cloud control

The survey also showed that the vast majority of organisations are looking to maintain either total or partial control of any cloud service or application they use. This reinforces the idea that the shared architecture characteristic of public cloud services may not serve their needs. It also shows the need for businesses to find the right cloud partner where a proper partnership based on trust, need and appropriate SLAs can be developed.

To find out more about cloud migration, download the full Cloud Workload Migration White Paper.

Of course, as with any industry shift, this trend is posing a serious challenge to many organisations. With dwindling IT budgets, providing a constant availability of service is a near impossible task for business continuity managers.

Of course budget constraints are not the only challenge. The rise of mobile working has created a significant demand for IT flexibility within organisations. With more data than ever flowing through the company, from numerous and geographically varied locations, many business continuity managers have seen their remit expand rapidly, extending outside of the traditional office environment and, in many cases, overseas. Business continuity management has become a business wide priority.

It has long been accepted that business continuity is no longer a stand-alone function of the organisation but one which must be built into the core infrastructure. Every employee should, on some level, help to take responsibility for ensuring all-time availability of service. With this it’s clear that a new approach to IT infrastructure and management is needed to ensure smooth business operations. From the senior management through to the lower levels of the company, resilience and availability must remain at the forefront of everyone’s mind.

Our new cloud-based business continuity management tool, SunGard Assurance^CM, aims to help ease this transition, offering businesses a real-time overview of their entire organisation to help identify possible issues and weaknesses. The software interface has been made as intuitive as possible (‘Facebook easy’, no less) to offer a full visualisation of the plans. This will encourage a wide user base and allow inputs from all areas of the company so that every issue can be addressed. The program can be accessed from any device and any location, customised for individual businesses and doesn’t require any level of specialist training.

Alongside ease of access, collaboration is another key feature in ensuring business continuity. The IT department is an integral part of business operations, and so any planning tool must be accessible to all areas of the business to ensure that no issue goes un- addressed.

Derek Bluestone, SunGard’s Senior Director of Product Management, will be on hand at BCM World to demonstrate the software – come to Stand 47. Derek will also be speaking at the event on the theme of decentralisation. Details of his presentation can be found below:

Derek Bluestone

Day 2 – 7^th November

15:40 to 16:10

Seminar Room 1

SunGard Assurance^CM will be generally available across Europe from March 2014.

Recently, whilst collaborating on a new research document with an overseas colleague during my morning commute, it suddenly hit me just how much the culture of working technology has changed. Within only a few years our expectations of IT have completely transformed – we now take for granted complete flexibility and easy access to whatever data we need. Cloud computing has been the driving force in this mind-set change, and now, as the technology nears maturity, we’re starting to see mainstream adoption.

And it’s not just the consumer demand that is driving the need for businesses to update their IT estates: employees are also pressuring CIOs to offer an infrastructure that can support the ever more common practice of flexible working and BYOD (bring your own device) trends. Employees want to experience the same freedom of technology in work as they do in their everyday lives. Recent research from Gartner, showing that the majority of professionals will be working from their mobiles by 2016, only serves to reinforce the point that this is more than just a passing trend. In fact we are a mere year away from mobile browsing becoming the dominant force in internet usage.

“Resistance is futile.” This quote may have been taken out of context, but I can imagine that Star Trek’s Borg would utter this famous line again given the latest findings surrounding the future of business technology. Availability will prove itself to be key: constant web presence and 24/7 accessibility of service are two essential components in any technology refresh. It will be interesting to observe which organisations will now take the plunge and invest in their future. Without a doubt, the decisions made by CIOs today will have a lasting impact on their businesses for years to come.

Out in front

Research carried out amongst IT managers by IDG Connect (commissioned by SunGard Availability Services) shows that data security remains the prime source of concern over the suitability of external cloud platforms for application and service hosting.

In fact, it leads by a significant margin:

• Security (80%)
• Reliability (37%)
• Performance (28%)
• Pricing and billing (21%)
• Management (20%).

Exploding the myths

This situation hasn’t exactly been helped by several high profile outages in recent years, such as those which adversely affected Netflix  and Google. These only served to heighten ongoing cloud security and performance concerns for many business customers.

But whilst it should be noted that these incidents involved the most widely used public cloud services, it should also be noted that sometimes those using public clouds do not scrutinise the small print as closely as they should, perhaps making assumptions about the level of given protection, and the need to specify enhancements  Setting that aside, however, typical public clouds are unlike private hosted and hybrid cloud services that use single-tenanted architecture with dedicated servers, storage and bandwidth, public cloud platforms deploy shared multi-tenanted architecture to simultaneously host different customers’ virtual workloads.

Which do you think will offer the more robust protection?

Education is the answer

On-premises system security has also been shown by various studies to be more vulnerable to malware, botnet and web application attacks than equivalent hosted systems.

If private/hybrid cloud providers are to capitalise on the enhanced security and reliability delivered by their enterprise-class platforms versus public cloud alternatives, they must first educate potential customers – in terms of what the differences are, and what use cases they are best suited too. They also need to set out comprehensive SLAs guaranteeing data integrity, uptime and application availability.

Keeping up to date

Another significant drain on the IT department’s time and budget is the need to maintain effective data protection through regular patches and updates to the IT estate. Outsourcing responsibility for security to a third party provider can alleviate much, if not all, of this management burden.

What is interesting to note is that cost does not rate highly as a concern. The relatively small number of respondents highlighting price and billing would indicate that the majority of organisations see cloud services as offering equal, or better, value for money than on-premises application and service hosting.

You can find out more about migrating to the cloud by downloading the full Cloud Workload Migration White Paper.

SunGard Availability Services, the pioneer and leading provider of Information Availability solutions, has today announced that Keith Tilley will assume the role of Executive Vice President, EMEA & APAC and John Stevenson has been appointed to the newly created role of Chief Operating Office for Europe. Adding the responsibility of APAC to his current role as EVP for EMEA, Keith will now be responsible for overseeing more than 3,000 customers across the regions and will work with John to continue the company’s transition to an outcome-driven IT infrastructure service provider and the partner of choice for supporting the availability of customers’ business operations.

Keith has been with SunGard Availability Services (and its predecessors) for 35 years. During this time he has built up extensive knowledge and expertise in the industry as his remit within SunGard has steadily grown from Managing Director UK to his new role, reflecting the company’s expansion and growth in terms of services and markets. Keith will be instrumental in the strategic development of SunGard within new and emerging markets, particularly Asia, in addition to overseeing continued growth in core products and services, including: SunGard’s Managed Infrastructure and Hosting solutions; Managed Recovery Programme; and its global cloud computing offerings.

Meanwhile the appointment of John Stevenson to the newly created role of Chief Operating Officer (COO) in Europe will continue SunGard’s growth across its core European markets. Reporting into Keith Tilley, John will be responsible for day-to-day operations in the UK, Ireland and Western Europe bringing his significant experience of global IT services, Business Process Outsourcing, software and telecommunications to bear upon the successful delivery of managed availability solutions for SunGard’s customers' business operations. John’s previous roles have seen him serve as Managing Director at Globe International Associates and prior to that as COO and Senior Vice President of Atos Origin.

Commenting on the news, Andrew Stern, CEO SunGard Availability Services, says; “Keith’s been an invaluable part of the company over the years and has grown into this new role at an exciting time. His new focus mirrors the way in which our business has evolved, as customers have to deliver against the business demands an ‘all-time’ world places upon them, and he will play a pivotal role in driving the geographic expansion of our business.”

Commenting on the appointment of John Stevenson, Tilley himself commented; “We’re seeing across the industry businesses looking for that crucial advantage that makes them better than the rest. They want to give value to their customers but are rightly demanding value from their suppliers, now more than ever, to maximise investment. John’s experience of working with global organisations, supported by SunGard’s expertise will help us continue to deliver a truly 24/7 business environment, where companies and their operations have to remain competitive, resilient and available around the clock.”