Q&A: Copyright Agency CIO, Jacob Dudzinski

Copyright Agency chief information officer, Jacob Dudzinski.

Jacob Dudzinski has been CIO of the Copyright Agency in Sydney for four years. During that time, he has been responsible for a business process and systems improvement program.

Dudzinski spoke with CIO Australia to talk about how this program is going, the implementation of a new customer relationship management (CRM) system and why he loves the iPhone.

What does an average work day involve for you at the Copyright Agency?

It involves working with the executive team on long term strategic initiatives, active involvement with committee meetings across the organisation, and ensuring strategic alignment between business and technology.

A key focus of most days is driving our business process and systems improvement program by working with management team leaders across the organisation. An important aspect for me is the continual learning that comes from working closely with some very talented people on a daily basis.

What are some of the major challenges you face in the role of CIO?

• Keeping the organisation on pace with the ongoing rapid changes in the external commercial and technology environment, particularly the significant changes impacting the creative industries and the education sector.

• Taking a leadership role in adapting governance, project and portfolio management and IT processes to enable business managers to be more directly involved with technology decisions that impact their operations and strategies.

• Leading the organisation through the upheaval of major business and systems change whilst ensuring “business as usual” operations continue.

What are some of the major projects you have been working on?

Over the past two years, the Copyright Agency has undertaken a substantial business process and systems improvement program. The program was established to enable more efficient distribution of monies to our members by way of payments in return for the reproduction of their creative works, and to provide an array of new commercial offerings such as transactional content licensing.

This has led to business processes change across the entire organisation. Enabling such significant changes has required multiple technology projects to introduce a CRM system providing functionality for whole-of-business process, a new statistical engine, and integration of these with our existing enterprise resource planning [ERP] systems.

Supporting these platform projects mandated considerable expansion of physical infrastructure along with virtualization. This has been a major undertaking for our organisation, requiring substantial effort not only with developing technology, but also building the strong business and external partner teams needed to work across all parts of the organisation.

It’s fantastic to see this new technology implemented and now in the hands of those who worked so hard to make the change happen.

What are the three biggest issues CIOs face today?

• Appropriate investment selection given the current economic climate and the impact of disruptive technologies on existing markets.

• Bringing the business and technology people together to improve the value which can be created through appropriate IT investment.

• Technology as a service, and the management of associated risks in governance, security and compliance.

• Finding and retaining quality IT resource in an unstable business environment.

What is your favourite gadget?

My favourite gadget would have to be my iPhone. It’s impressive that technology has come so far that one device I can carry everywhere provides so much functionality.

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