Tech Monitor’s inaugural Technology Leaders Index recognises digital and IT innovation projects, strategy and investment pacesetters, and showcases how organisations from the private, public and non-profit sectors are putting technology at the heart of transformation initiatives.
The first edition of the Technology Leaders Index features 25 organisations.
Those represented returned the most impressive responses to a survey and questionnaire fielded over the summer focusing on innovative IT projects; have been acknowledged by analyst partners GlobalData as technology strategy and investment leaders; or were cited by New Statesman Media Group editors for the delivery of recent technology, digital and IT initiatives.
Tech Monitor will be publishing a series of articles outlining the programmes, projects, initiatives and investments recognised in the Technology Leaders Index.
Tech Monitor special projects editor, Edward Qualtrough, said: “The Technology Leaders Index showcases the innovative digital and IT projects that technology teams – and those managing those functions – are delivering for their organisations, and shows how innovations in cloud, data and other technologies, together with smart partnering with vendors, are transforming business models.
“We are pleased to share how pacesetter organisations are deploying disruptive emerging technologies, and highlighting how some companies’ tech investments, vendor partnerships and hiring approaches are marking them out as technology innovation and strategy leaders.”
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Contact us to hear about future editions of the Technology Leaders Index; if you would like to share your technology innovations and digital transformation initiatives with the Tech Monitor editorial team, we would love to hear from you.
2020 Technology Leaders Index
Airbus
Recognised for its technology investments in disruptive emerging technologies – in particular internet of things, drones and 3D printing – and for its chief technology officer Grazia Vittadini’s leadership in the aviation sector’s commitments to develop clean travel.
Balfour Beatty
UK construction company recognised for its integration of digital technologies across construction project lifecycles, its ‘digital railway’ developments and software, and investments in emerging technologies such as IoT and robotics.
BAT
Recognised for business transformation initiatives, Global Functional CIO’s team’s work in NLP to improve company collaboration and help to tackle illicit tobacco trade, and for the company’s strategic focus on AI, Big Data and IoT.
BEIS
The Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy is recognised for its project to quickly develop the ventilator request form after the government launched the Ventilator Challenge in spring 2020 as a call to businesses to help increase the UK’s ICU capacity.
British Army
Recognised for digital transformation “Information Advantage” programme putting data at the heart of strategy, offensive and defensive cyber innovations, and “Digitising the Battlespace” innovations with IoT and autonomous vehicles.
BT
UK telco is a cybersecurity leader, is investing significant R&D funding in developing its 5G, internet of things capabilities, and is collaborating with major cloud and data players including IBM, Google, Cisco and Microsoft to offer cloud and network services.
Equinor
Norwegian energy giant Equinor is recognised as a leader in cloud and data – its OMNIA data platform has become the tool to democratise data across the organisation, and the company’s partnership with Microsoft saw the tech giant expand its cloud offering in Europe by locating new data centre regions in Norway.
Global
Recognised for its DAX Programmatic Trading Platform for Radio and Outdoor, a disruptive business innovation using cloud and data which is changing how advertising campaigns are bought and delivered.
Grant Thornton
Recognised as a leader in cyber, Grant Thornton has blended its forensic accountancy investigation skills with cutting-edge artificial intelligence in its new Cyber Defence Centre.
GSK
Recognised as a data pacesetter, pharma giant GlaxoSmithKline is at the forefront of secure, collaborative drug development to find a Covid-19 vaccine, and has invested heavily in its AI research hub in London to leverage AI for the discovery of new drugs to treat cancer and other diseases
HMRC
Recognised for heralded government IT project success story – the delivery of the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme on a scalable, cloud-based platform to support payment to millions of furloughed workers.
Houses of Parliament
The Parliamentary Digital Service is recognised for its initiatives in spring 2020 to digitise parliamentary procedure, and enable Lords and MPs to continue to debate, vote and scrutinise government remotely.
Johnson Matthey
FTSE 100 sustainable technologies company recognised for its tech team’s response in keeping plants running to continue providing crucial medical and drug supplies to health services around the world, and data innovations combining AI and video analytics.
Ministry of Defence
Defence Digital recognised for its pivot to enable remote working, cross-government collaboration, and, in particular, scaling digital and IT services to support the NHS, as well as the department’s steps in using public cloud for sensitive workloads.
Motor Oil Group
Athens-based, €9.5bn revenue energy conglomerate – with end-to-end operations from the refinery to the retail space – recognised as a data leader for its implementation of advanced, integrated tools for demand forecasting, stock replenishment and route planning.
NHS Nightingale Hospital
Bart’s Health NHS Trust CIO Sarah Jensen was seconded into the ‘virtual’ team assembled to deliver the first of the UK’s seven pop-up hospitals, with Jensen leading the IT operations as the site was operational in two weeks.
Ocado Technology
FTSE 100 company recognised as a cloud, data and emerging tech pacesetter for its IoT bots, “orchestrated robotic swarm” and automated storage and picking system to enable fast, scalable, sustainable and profitable logistics.
PMI
Pivoting its business to new ‘reduced-risk products’, Philip Morris is recognised as a data leader as its technology function embeds analytics into the company’s new operating model.
Rentokil Initial
FTSE 100 business services company Rentokil Initial is recognised for its innovative IT projects automating service work orders and introducing AI to the company.
Sainsbury’s
The Sainsbury’s digital, tech and data function is recognised in the first Technology Leaders Index for its use of cloud and data, quickly responding to restrictions brought about by Covid-19, to scale online payments and store operations.
SGN
Recognised for mobile FYLD app, which is using natural language processing and machine learning tools to revolutionise safety and efficiency in field teams.
Swiss Re
Recognised as an innovation pacesetter in the insurance sector, Swiss Re is developing digital and automated claims handling tools in its vehicle insurance business and is partnering with Microsoft to develop new insurance products using Microsoft’s data analytics and AI capabilities.
Vodafone
Recognised as a leader in 5G and the internet of things, as well as for sustainability projects and partnerships with the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs.
Hovis
Bread megabrand Hovis is recognised as a cloud and data leader, and for accelerating its journey into automation and robotics.
Northumbrian Water
Northumbrian Water Group tech function is part of the Technology Leaders Index for its CIO Nigel Watson’s pioneering leadership of NWG’s impressive Innovation Festival.
