A bold vision

TOUCH
“Technologies are
transforming and will
continue to transform
the way emergencies
are managed”
Darren McGrath, Unisys
MICROSOFT TECHNOLOGY IN GOVERNMENT, EDUCATION AND HEALTHCARE
ONWINDOWS.COM
A bold vision
How the Municipality of Matosinhos in
Portugal is working with Unisys to lead the
way in citizen services excellence
SPECIAL EDITION
A collection of articles that have
appeared in Touch magazine issues
from Summer 2012 to Summer 2014
Welcome
Contents
Unisys Special Edition
Unisys Special Edition
Citizen-centric services
Welcome to this Unisys Special Edition of Touch magazine. In this issue you’ll read some amazing
stories about how public sector organisations across EMEA and beyond are taking advantage of
solutions from Unisys to work more efficiently, collaborate more effectively and reduce costs.
As some of our thought leaders highlight in the viewpoint section from page 6, a number of
key IT trends are converging to create a new landscape in which public sector organisations can
modernise their operations to significantly enhance the services they deliver and streamline their
processes. From mobility and cloud to enterprise social, users across all areas of the industry are
being offered a game-changing opportunity to communicate, collaborate and serve citizens in
entirely new ways.
Our cover story on the Municipality of Matosinhos in Portugal is a great example of how public
sector organisations are taking advantage of our technology to modernise citizen services by
streamlining their processes and extending online services to the public. Working with Unisys,
the municipality developed an integrated service platform that has helped it redefine the way
it delivers services. Today, it is benefiting from more transparent processes and the ability to
serve citizens more quickly and effectively. It has also virtually eliminated error-prone manual
processes. Employees are working more efficiently and they appreciate having access to up-todate information.
Throughout the rest of the magazine you can read even more examples of how technology from
Unisys is empowering public sector organisations to improve operational efficiency and enhance
workforce productivity to deliver vital services to citizens.
I hope you enjoy the issue.
Joan Wesolowski
Director, Microsoft Alliance
News 02
A roundup of some of the key announcements made by Unisys over the
last year, including an overview of the company’s Workspace as a Service
solutions, and more on Unisys’ IT Service Management as a Service, which
is now available via Microsoft Azure
Viewpoints Empower your people
Fernando Reino da Costa explains the benefits of embracing social
media as part of an organisation-wide strategy
10
04
Connecting the dots05
José Carlos Anastácio gives his perspective on what governments
need to do to help overcome the challenges they face as a result of the
turbulent European economy
Mobilising emergency management
Darren McGrath explains how mobile devices can be used in
the public sector to ensure citizen safety in the event of a disaster
06
Increasing product innovations
Christian Schieb explains the benefits of an enterprise social
network can provide to businesses today
07
Citizenship in the 21st century
Paulo Teixeira explains the transformation that has taken place
within governments in recent years, which sees citizens receiving
a better service
08
Celebrating a ten-year partnership
Fernando Reino da Costa explains why Unisys is demonstrating
the latest innovative technologies at the recently opened
Microsoft Competence Centre in Portugal
09
15
Cover story
A bold vision 10
The Municipality of Matosinhos in Portugal has made a bold move to
modernise citizen services by streamlining its processes and extending
online services to the public. Working with Unisys, the authority has
realised impressive results
The collection of articles
in this Unisys Special
Edition appeared in Touch
magazine between Summer
2012 and Summer 2014
In practice
14
Sign out
16
We highlight successful technology implementations at the
Ministry of Labour and Social Security in Spain and the
Portuguese Energy Network
Bart Steukers, Unisys’ Continental Europe general manager and
EMEA services vice president, talks about the mission-critical
solutions that have made up the company’s DNA for over 100 years
02
1
Marketwatch
Unisys news from Touch Summer 2012 to Summer 2014
Unisys launches solutions
to improve flexible workstyles
Unisys has launched its new Workspace as a
Service (WaaS) solutions, which combine a
comprehensive range of advisory and cloudbased services for desktop virtualisation.
The Unisys solution provides organisations
with the right tools to improve the
productivity of a company’s internal and
external workforce.
“Today’s companies are facing a new
challenge: align information availability with
business and operational requirements to
take advantage of employee productivity,”
said Francisco Gomes, services director, Data
Center Transformation, Unisys Portugal.
“This is why most companies are or will
adopt a flexible workspace strategy in the
next few years, empowering organisations
with the right tools, the right access, in the
right time and place, with the right security
requirements and the available devices to
improve performance.”
The WaaS infrastructure can be deployed
as a private cloud in the client’s data centre,
which is managed either by Unisys or the
client, as a hosted private cloud in a Unisys
data centre, or in a shared cloud environment.
Unisys gains
Yammer certification
The solutions enable organisations to
define distinct personas for specific groups
of users based on their job profiles. The
organisation can then determine the type of
support each persona requires and which
functions can be offloaded from their devices
into the virtualised cloud environment.
Unisys Portugal was awarded Microsoft’s
Infrastructure Partner of the Year in 2013
at the Worldwide Partner Conference in
Houston, Texas and has developed expertise
in Microsoft technologies to support
organisations’ flexible workstyle strategies.
IT services and software provider Unisys
Portugal has been awarded Microsoft Yammer
Certified Customer Engagement Partner for its
collaboration solutions.
The award acknowledges Unisys for its
Unified Social Business solution and is part
of Microsoft’s Yammer Partner Program,
launched to enable partners to develop and
leverage social business solutions across
enterprises.
The solution provides diagnostic and
advisory, implementation and programme
management, and support services. It helps
organisations to modernise their technology
infrastructures, unify communications and
collaboration, and implement and integrate
social technologies into business processes.
In early 2014, Unisys also became a
Microsoft CityNext Program Partner in the
EMEA region in recognition of its cloud-based
services solutions, such as the Customer
Interaction Solution (CIS).The comprehensive
multi-channel platform integrates front-office,
back-office, back-end processes and legacy
systems/appliances, to streamline interactions
between citizens and public sector entities.
Solution profile: Unisys Windows 8 app
Pesquisas CTT
Unisys is developing and app for the
Portuguese postal service with Windows 8
Governments and public sector agencies
are challenged as never before by shrinking
budgets and more demanding citizens.
Unisys’ long-term collaboration with central
and regional government bodies has given
the company a deep understanding of their
mission-critical requirements. Today these
requirements focus around modernising their
IT and improving their relationship with the
citizens they serve.
Before the launch of Windows 8 and
Windows Phone 8, Unisys worked extensively
Unisys offers ITSMaaS via Azure
Unisys’ IT Service Management as a Service
(ITSMaaS) solution is now available via the
Microsoft Windows Azure cloud platform.
The standards-based service management
platform provides critical IT support services
and includes pre-built capabilities to simplify
implementations.
As Unisys ITSMaaS is offered via Windows
Azure, clients should be able to implement a full,
Information Technology Infrastructure Library
(ITIL) v3-compliant solution in just 45 days.
“Availability of Unisys ITSMaaS on
Windows Azure means that clients can
quickly gain the benefits of our solution,
enabling them to jumpstart delivery of
high-quality support services to their end
users,” said Rich Jaso, vice president, ITSM
Services, Unisys.
The ITSMaaS platform integrates with
Microsoft System Center 2012, enabling
organisations to manage and support devices
and applications according to ITIL practices.
End users can also use Microsoft System
Center 2012 to order, provision, track and
manage resources and applications that
reside in the cloud.
In addition, the ITSMaaS solution can
be used with Unisys MyWork Services,
enabling organisations to support specific
groups of users based on their job profiles.
The client can determine what type of
support users require and deliver services
on a personalised basis.
Unisys Stealth earns cyber security award
Unisys’ Stealth Solution has received a
TechAmerica Foundation American Technology
award for cyber security.
Unisys Stealth uses advanced data
protection and encryption technologies
to help organisations mitigate cyber
security attacks and protect business data
by rendering devices, data and end users
undetectable on the network.
www.onwindows.com
Stealth integrates with Microsoft Active
Directory to enable enterprises to develop a predefined secure community of interest (COI),
comprising of users authorised to access certain
servers and applications. Users and systems are
assigned matching COI credentials based on
their identity, which can be quickly updated in
Active Directory, enabling them to connect to
the enterprise’s systems.
Viewpoint
with the operating systems to understand
Improving remote collaboration
how public sector organisations can take
advantage of them to better meet their needs
as well as those of their citizens.
Unisys explains the benefits unified communications
solutions can bring to healthcare organisations
As a result of these efforts, Unisys has
recently developed a Windows 8 app for the
Portuguese postal service. Called Pesquisas
There are so many different technologies that
Microsoft Lync can enable clinicians to
CTT, the app takes advantage of Bing and
help healthcare organisations achieve their
stay connected and collaborate in real time –
allows citizens to conveniently access a
objectives; however, most businesses are left
not just with other clinicians and employees
number of key services on their tablet or
with many communication tools that are siloed within the healthcare facility, but with
mobile phone.
The app offers citizens the ability to:
or stand-alone and require a mix of skill types
patients too. Through Lync, we’re providing
and knowledge.
a positive user experience to healthcare
• Find a street address given a zip code
organisations by placing transformational
• Find a zip code given a street address
even greater challenge as the investment to
technology into their hands. Features such as
• Trace a postal object
standardise technology in the area of voice
single-click calling, voice mail, conferences
• Find and contact a local post office.
and video communication technologies
and call control improve user productivity
has been made difficult with the standards
in the hospital, while the improved
imposed by hardware-centric technologies.
collaboration and videoconferencing
Over time, large enterprises have an
We are well positioned to speak of the many
capabilities means that workers wanting
benefits of implementing Microsoft Lync as Unisys
a more flexible workstyle can still work
itself is saving US$5.2 million annually through
productively wherever they are.
using Lync internally as its unified communications
tool. In the healthcare sector, the benefits are
Travis Parker is director of global infrastructure
endless for organisations wanting to encourage
systems at Unisys and Joan Wesolowski is
mobile working and improved delivery of care to
director of global alliances for Unisys and
patients, wherever they are based.
Microsoft
3
Viewpoint
Viewpoint
Social media
Cloud computing
Empower
your people
Connecting
the dots
Fernando Reino da Costa explains the benefits of embracing
social media as part of an organisation-wide strategy
José Carlos Anastácio gives his perspective on what governments need to do to help
overcome the challenges they face as a result of the turbulent European economy
Many organisations are still debating the issue
of how to take advantage of social media. Some
have concerns about security, others fear a
potential negative impact on productivity, but
there is evidence to show that when leveraged
in the right way, social media has a great deal
of value to add to any business. At Unisys,
we’ve engrained the use of social technologies
into our culture and in the daily work patterns
of our employees. Today, across our company,
we use social media tools to be more agile, to
transparently share knowledge and to increase
the speed of innovation at a worldwide level.
So what encouraged us to make this move?
First it’s important to point out how we worked
before. Unisys employees, like in many other
organisations, sent e-mails internally to locate
help on specific subjects; these e-mails were
usually restricted to colleagues they knew.
They were not able to easily identify subject
matter experts and connect at the time of need.
Often this resulted in operating with the best
information they could get. As a technology
company comprised of approximately 23,000
employees across 100 countries, we knew that
there was a better way improve connections and
help people collaborate more effectively. We
needed a true enterprise collaboration platform.
After accessing various options, Unisys
decided to deploy Microsoft SharePoint 2010 to
take advantage of its in-built social computing
capabilities such as My Site employee profiles,
blogs and wikis. We enhanced the platform by
adding NewsGator’s social engine to provide
microblogging, news feed and community
capabilities. We also deployed FAST Search
and introduced badging to clearly identify
subject matter experts. Through SharePoint My
Europe is in the midst of one of the most
challenging periods in its recent history.
Facing another financial and economic
crisis as the Euro continues to struggle, it’s a
difficult time at the moment for everyone, but
particularly for public sector organisations.
Europe’s market conditions are eroding
public resources by reducing the revenue
on one side and significantly increasing
the social related costs on the other as a
result of increased poverty and growing
unemployment. This is leaving governments
with a battle to maintain and sustain the
European social model and one of its key
pillars: the welfare state.
As a consequence, the pressure to cut costs
is huge. And while IT has been commonly
seen as a worthwhile investment in recent
decades, it’s not insulated from today’s market
conditions. In fact, many IT directors are being
asked to reduce costs significantly, while new
investments are being delayed or cancelled.
The good news is that the market is reacting to
these pressures. Cloud computing adoption, for
example, is on the rise, promising organisations
significant cost reductions, and greater efficiencies
and flexibility. The US Federal Government was
one of the first in the public sector to move to
the cloud and although experience shows that
widespread cloud adoption will take some time,
many organisations are looking to make the
transition. Even in the short- to mid-term, a cloud
adoption strategy can help to realise significant
benefits. Here are just two examples.
Private cloud management systems like
Microsoft System Center can help to rationalise
data centres and streamline IT management.
Meanwhile, adopting a unified communications
www.onwindows.com
Sites, communities of practice and team sites,
employees can now locate content and experts in
minutes. Leveraging improvements in search and
content tagging has given employees faster access
to the right information and the right people at
the right time, increasing marketplace agility and
the ability to respond to customers quickly.
Today, Unisys has become known as a leader
in exploiting the use of social technologies to
improve workplace productivity, collaboration
and innovation. A key to our success has been
positioning Communities as the hub of social
collaboration – providing an ecosystem for sharing
and levering best practices, evolving skill sets and
expertise, and sharing ideas that contribute to new
and refined innovations. The company has also
integrated social technologies into its new hire
onboarding programme to enable new employees
to develop a company presence and build a
network of value colleagues in order to more
quickly engage. The company’s intranet Inside
Unisys has also been redesigned to incorporate
social features that provide a highly immersive
experience for all employees.
At Unisys, social collaboration has connected
individuals at all levels, from the CEO and
executive team, to sales and delivery, to backoffice and support functions. The ability to ask
questions, get real-time answers, contribute
ideas and share feedback has turned individual
learning into organisational learning, resulting in
enterprise-wide productivity gains and a renewed
innovative culture. At Unisys we recognise that our
greatest asset lies in our people, and now we’re
empowering them to do more than ever before.
Fernando Reino da Costa is application
modernisation services director at Unisys Portugal
“At Unisys, social
collaboration
has connected
individuals at
all levels, from
the CEO and
executive team, to
sales and delivery,
to back-office and
support functions”
Fernando Reino da Costa
Unisys
platform such as Microsoft Lync, which can be
deployed on-premises or in a service-based or
hybrid environment, can help to cut costs and
improve collaboration across the organisation.
Of course, while cloud computing is proving
to be a cost-effective alternative to traditional
IT, it must be used in the right way to drive
value across the organisation. When adopting a
cloud computing strategy, organisations must
focus on how exactly it will impact service
delivery and hopefully improve it. After all, if
governments can be more efficient in the way
they provide services, and manage interactions
with individuals, communities and enterprises,
they will make even greater savings in the long
term. The effort required to do this may seem
daunting, but the opportunity to achieve this in
a cost-effective manner using the power of the
cloud is huge. Organisations have the chance to
rethink how they structure their IT to support
their evolving service delivery model.
Admittedly, there’s still much to be done by
many governments when it comes to building
services-oriented solutions that can support
seamless, multi-channel customer service delivery.
Far too many investments have been made in the
past where a good front-office solution concept
ended up failing because it lacked integration
with a siloed back-office infrastructure. Moving
to the cloud may create a good opportunity to
address this crucial aspect. Organisations can build
streamlined front-office applications and integrate
them with a scalable, cloud-oriented, back-office
infrastructure that can scale accordingly to meet
their ongoing needs.
“Although
experience shows
that widespread
cloud adoption
will take some
time, many
organisations are
looking to make
the transition”
José Carlos Anastácio
Unisys
José Carlos Anastácio is public sector lead at
Unisys Portugal
5
Viewpoint
Viewpoint
Mobility
Enterprise social
Mobilising emergency
management
Increasing product
innovations
Darren McGrath explains how mobile devices can be used in
the public sector to ensure citizen safety in the event of a disaster
Christian Schieb explains the benefits of an enterprise
social network can provide to businesses today
Mobility continues to impact all aspects of
modern life – it facilitates communication
between friends and families, helps
employees work efficiently regardless
of location and, most importantly, it
is transforming the way public safety
organisations manage emergencies.
An emergency situation can occur anywhere
at any time and many countries have
experienced natural disasters such as floods
and hurricanes, technological disasters such as
oil spills, fires and deliberate acts of terrorism.
Consequently, public safety agencies need to
have access to crucial, time-sensitive data, as well
as the ability to coordinate with other agencies
operating across a nation’s public infrastructure.
Many public safety organisations have altered
their current strategies and implemented
innovative systems and solutions to ensure
they provide real-time, critical services to
citizens in the event of an emergency. Mobile
devices are set to become an integral part in
almost all aspects of emergency management,
with capabilities such as cameras, geo-spatial
position, GPS and communications offering firstresponders an ideal tool to direct emergency
procedures from the field.
New mobile applications have been created
to help agencies to mitigate risks by alerting
citizens to potential disasters and providing
preparation advice for various disaster scenarios.
Some applications also allow citizens to report
suspicious activity, or record critical incident
information in the form of images, videos and
location data, which can be used by public safety
agencies to manage incident response.
Although the advancements in mobile
technology have improved emergency response,
Do you remember the knowledge
management hype that started at the
beginning of the 90s? Many consultants were
preaching about the importance of knowledge
management and most businesses understood
it also, but what many organisations missed
was to bring it from a theoretical perspective
down to the ground.
Why? Because many knowledge
management projects resulted in implementing
databases with the purpose of documenting
skills and experiences within them. However,
how were these documented skills and
experiences used in the daily life of information
workers? In general, they had to start a
knowledge management application to search
within the database for specific skill levels,
which was very complicated.
A well-known person once said ‘information
at your fingertips’, and that is not a marketing
slogan. It is a mission statement for every
company that wants to be competitive in the
future. In 1999, there was a new term called
‘personal knowledge management’. This
started a new trend to manage knowledge at
the individual level.
With Web 2.0 technology, a communication
change has happened and real personal
knowledge management is now a reality.
Companies like Facebook led this trend in
showing the market the potential of social
networking in the private area. People started to
connect to each other and share information in
a way they were already comfortable with. They
were posting ‘messages’ and started to build
social networks – microblogging as a way to more
interactively communicate with each other – a
lot different to e-mailing. Today, Facebook earns
www.onwindows.com
they also present new challenges which must
be addressed to ensure the technology is used
efficiently and effectively.
For instance, organisations must exercise
caution when engaging with members of the
public to minimise the number of false reports
and deploy an intelligent interface to separate
the truth from the fiction. They must have
appropriate built-in security measures to prevent
mobile devices and apps becoming the targets of
cyber criminals.
Agencies must also ensure they employ
a scalable infrastructure to cope with the
substantial rise in the volume of videos,
calls, texts and other media moving across
the networks during disasters. Similarly, the
systems must be able to alternate between
online and offline modes with flexible
connectivity to provide a reliable network
connection at all times, ensuring organisations
are always able to respond to incidents as and
when they occur.
Finally, organisations must enable
seamless integration between their mobility
and collaboration solutions, and allocate the
appropriate resources to address individual
incidents according to their size.
By leveraging technological advancements such
as mobility, the cloud and social media, public
safety agencies can address these challenges and
improve the way they handle emergencies. These
technologies are evolving and will continue to
transform the way emergencies are managed by
bringing in new capabilities, which could not have
been imagined a few years ago.
Darren McGrath is the global director of mobility
solutions at Unisys
“Technologies
are transforming
and will continue
to transform the
way emergencies
are managed”
Darren McGrath
Unisys
money from using this documented knowledge
and the technology is accepted and used by 85
per cent of people – and more who are 35 years
old or younger.
Why don’t we use the same technological
components in enterprise environments
then? You do not have to use Facebook as
a collaboration tool in your company. With
enterprise social networking (ESN), you can
achieve knowledge management down to the
ground and it also boasts many more benefits
including a reduction in e-mail (no more
mail chains); reduced time to market with
your projects and products; less time spent
trying to find answers from employees; an
increase in the number of successful product
innovations; improved project collaboration
and productivity; better speed of access to
internal subject matter experts; and quicker
access to knowledge.
Microsoft bought Yammer to enrich
SharePoint with additional ESN functionality
in the future. This is an important step, but
there is no need for companies to wait to
use ESN features with SharePoint 2013.
As we have seen in our SharePoint ESN
implementation projects so far, SharePoint
2013 already has all the basic features you
need to use ESN now (without having to
license any third-party tools separately).
I personally believe that the use of
SharePoint in organisational units – and the
fact that SharePoint 2013 already has basic ESN
features out of the box – will take knowledge
management a major step forward.
“Microsoft bought
Yammer to enrich
SharePoint with
additional ESN
functionality in
the future”
Christian Schieb
Unisys
Christian Schieb is business development manager at
Unisys Austria
7
Viewpoint
Viewpoint
Citizen engagement
Competence centres
Citizenship in
the 21st century
Celebrating a
ten-year partnership
Paulo Teixeira explains the transformation that has taken place within
governments in recent years, which sees citizens receiving a better service
Fernando Reino da Costa explains why Unisys is demonstrating the latest innovative
technologies at the recently opened Microsoft Competence Centre in Portugal
In the final decades of the previous century,
we saw a revolution where information and
communications technology (ICT) left the
business and academia niche and reached
the street to the citizen – it democratised. But
what about the state – did it follow this trend
too? And what’s in it for the citizens?
It is undisputed that the Portuguese state
has been modernised in certain areas, bringing
obvious advantages to citizens. One example
is the Ministry of Finance Portal, which has
eliminated the need for many hours waiting in
the tax office with paper documents.
The creation of citizen interaction channels
has provided many benefits. In the wake of the
‘Citizen Bureau’, the Portuguese Government
started to multiply new channels including
portals covering various fields from health
to education. Mobile platforms have also
brought new dimensions and benefits to the
government and citizens alike.
The development of modern methods of
identification and authentication has meant
that citizens don’t have to carry as many ID
cards around with them, and it has also allowed
for the simplification of citizen identification
through the use of intelligent chips.
Business process management platforms
occupied their rightful place in the public
sector, alongside enterprise resource
planning platforms public accounting
plans and other approaches to resource
management. And so all these different
systems within the government have been
interoperated, creating services buses that
have simplified processes and reduced many
challenges. Access to information has created
analytical frameworks that produce a wide
Celebrating over a decade of collaboration with
Microsoft in Portugal, we opened a Microsoft
Competence Centre in Porto Salvo earlier this
year to support local and worldwide Unisys
subsidiaries projects and bring next-generation
technological innovations to the market. The
competence centre has approximately 100
qualified professionals that demonstrate
Unisys’ commitment to implementing business
solutions based on Microsoft technology
that meet demanding challenges faced by
organisations today.
Microsoft is a leader in enterprise solutions,
ranging from desktop and mobile environments
to enterprise business server solutions and
development platforms, and is now a major
player in the cloud arena. As an enterprise
consultancy and integration services provider
and an enterprise server manufacturer, Unisys
has been working closely with Microsoft
for many years across a range of projects
from product development to the delivery
of enterprise solutions. Our partnership
has subsequently resulted in a number of
distinctions including Microsoft Infrastructure
Partner of the Year in 2012 and 2013, as well
as Azure Circle Partner and Cloud OS Partner,
to name just a few. In Portugal, we have created
a strong partnership sharing business strategy
at a CXO level, go to market and business
opportunities with the sales teams, services
delivery (by sharing resources and building joint
projects) as well as other joint initiatives.
The competence centre is a work group
focused on a defined technology, divided by
certain competency areas including Microsoft
Dynamics CRM, SharePoint, .NET platform
development and business intelligence,
www.onwindows.com
variety of business indicators including
financial, performance or quality.
Administrations became aware of the need
to manage the relationship with citizens and
to create personalised offers that meet specific
needs of each individual. And this relationship
management extended to relationships between
different citizens in various social networks.
In terms of the central administration within
a government, there are many challenges that
are a result of the scale of the implementation.
When we consider a smaller scale of the
administration, whether a regional or a
municipal dimension, despite having similar
requirements as the central administration, we
actually end up facing scale inefficiencies.
Municipalities tend to have a tactical view of
ICT, resulting in weak technological maturity
and inability to start from a business goalsvision to achieve, and only then do they draw a
roadmap to look at the fundamentals, benefits
and dependencies.
Municipalities, being typically closer to citizens,
tend to have a much more focused marketing
perspective rather than the service provided
(we rarely find decent customer relationship,
incidents or case management platforms). The
outcome is technology disbelief, due to the
low portal effectiveness in comparison to the
investment it requires.
Citizens want to be well served – they want
closeness, knowledge, efficiency, simplicity,
ease and speed. Only if municipalities start
from the citizen viewpoint will they be able to
provide value and be recognised in the polls.
Paulo Teixeira is engagement manager at
Unisys Portugal
“Citizens want
to be well
served – they
want closeness,
knowledge,
efficiency,
simplicity, ease
and speed”
Paulo Teixeira
Unisys
System Center, Lync and Cloud OS/Microsoft
Azure. For each of these, we have specialised
groups with these competences, training and
certifications.
We’re also able to deliver solutions that bring
together several competences, such as Unisys’
Unified Social Business solution, which is based
on SharePoint and Lync, aimed at modernising
communications and information sharing. We
offer different delivery models that can address
capacity improvements, implement closed
solutions and projects, and outsourcing (such
as application management services).
Any current or potential client can visit our
competence centre to learn about our offering
and view demonstrations to see how innovative
technology can be implemented within their
organisation. By working with Unisys, customers
can count on a partner that embraces all
Microsoft technologies in a solid and integrated
way. Visitors can see a number of solution
demonstrations, such as Unified Social Business,
Unisys’ social and collaboration solution
designed to transform the communication and
collaboration experience. Also demonstrated is
the customer interaction solution, a platform
which integrates the Customer Interaction
Centre from Interactive Intelligence and
technology including Microsoft Dynamics
CRM, SharePoint, Lync Server and BizTalk
Server. Other solutions include application
management services, Unisys document
management and workflow solutions, customer
interaction solutions, workspace-as-a-service,
mobile enterprise and cloud accelerate services.
“We’re able to
deliver solutions
that bring
together several
competences”
Fernando Reino da Costa
Unisys
Fernando Reino da Costa is services director at
Unisys Portugal
9
Cover story
Municipality of Matosinhos
A bold
vision
The Municipality of Matosinhos in Portugal has
made a bold move to modernise citizen services
by streamlining its processes and extending online
services to the public. Working with Unisys, the
authority has realised impressive results.
Rebecca Lambert charts the transformation
Matosinhos is a coastal municipality in
northern Portugal with a population of
over 170,000 people. As one of the region's
commercial and industrial centres, its
citizens expect the government to instil
order, maintain the infrastructure, and
govern in a streamlined and hassle-free
way. While meeting this expectation wasn’t
always possible, today the municipality is
leading the way in citizen service excellence,
largely thanks to its new IT infrastructure
built in partnership with Unisys.
Just a few years ago, the municipality
faced a number of key challenges, as Nuno
Oliveira, deputy mayor of Matosinhos
Municipality, explains. “We had so many
points of service spread out across the region
in different buildings, and this meant that
citizens were passed from one department
to another to resolve a query,” he says. “The
result was extremely delayed response times,
inconsistency, increased errors and, ultimately,
frustrated and dissatisfied citizens. What’s
more is that our processes were largely
manual. This made it difficult to get hold of
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relevant information quickly or obtain data for
analysis and decision making.”
In fact, it was not uncommon for someone
to have to wait as long as six months to receive
a simple building permit needed to begin a
construction project. Citizens had come to
accept that a trip to City Hall, which typically
required more than four separate visits for a
single project, usually meant meeting with as
many as seven different people to acquire the
necessary information.
Today, the situation couldn’t be more
different. In 2005, a new mayor was elected
and there was a general feeling across the
municipality that the time was right for
change. This led to the authority making the
bold decision to revolutionise its processes.
In particular, it looked into how it could
take advantage of the latest in technological
innovation to help simplify life for citizens
and civil servants. “We knew the task ahead
of us was huge, but we were ready to do
whatever was necessary to improve our
citizen service delivery levels and we wanted
to do it in a really innovative manner,” says
Through the SIMPLIFE solution, citizens are now served more quickly and efficiently
Oliveira. “Matosinhos is an innovative city,
and we were keen to ensure this was also
reflected in the way citizens could interact
with the municipality.”
Matosinhos was interested in taking its
existing technology investments to new levels
of service delivery, employee productivity
and executive decision-making. However, the
municipality’s leadership recognised that a
critical first step was needed – development
of an overarching strategy and execution plan
to ensure goals and objectives were clear and
closely aligned with processes. The project
was based on two vectors: quality service
and productivity improvement, fighting a
problem with three dimensions: external –
the image of the municipality to the citizen;
internal – effectiveness and efficiency in
the process procedures and employee
motivation; and management – ensuring
timely decision-making.
“We can just
keep adding
functionality as and
when it’s needed,
and it’s all fully
integrated with the
main platform”
Paulo Teixeira
Unisys
“We knew we had a demanding vision,
but we also recognised that we had to make
big changes to get to where we wanted to be
in terms of meeting and exceeding citizen
expectations,” says Oliveira. “As a result, when
selecting a technology provider to help us meet
our objectives, we needed a company that
shared our vision and could show us a whole
new way of working.”
Matosinhos considered a number of
different options before finally choosing
to work with Unisys and Microsoft. Paulo
Teixeira, engagement manager at Unisys, is
closely involved in the project and explains
why his company was best placed to meet the
municipality’s needs: “In the tender process a
number of leading technology vendors were
asked to provide their view on how to evolve
citizen care. While others presented a very
technically driven approach that didn’t really
focus on business processes or meeting citizen
needs, Microsoft and Unisys approached the
brief from a different angle: we focused on
process. Unisys has a proven track record
successfully delivering solutions to very
demanding industries and Microsoft trusts in
us to provide the industry-specific expertise
required from a project of this magnitude. We
really gave Matosinhos confidence in what we
could deliver. We showed them that the best
approach would be to design the IT, validate
the proof of concept, and then we delivered on
exactly what we said we would.”
“Once we had seen their IT concept,
Unisys really stood out from the
competition,” adds Oliveira. “It has proven
to be an excellent choice. Both of us have
embraced the project wholeheartedly with
determination, confidence and creativity. The
results speak for themselves.”
11
Cover story
Municipality of Matosinhos
SIMPLIFE has inspired other organisations to transform their processes
Viewpoint
A global alliance
Unisys explains how the company is working with Microsoft to help
drive excellence in the public sector
Innovation has been the engine for the
governments and municipalities with
Unisys and Microsoft global alliance.
a platform that supports their core
Unisys and Microsoft deliver secure,
operations such as citizen-focused services
scalable solutions that harness the power
and lifecycle management capabilities.
of people and technology, allowing
organisations to realise the value of
enterprise visibility – total alignment of
business strategy, process, applications
and infrastructure.
Within the context of the Microsoft
Connected Government Framework,
the Unisys Citizen Interaction Solution
reference architecture provides
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Careful planning
To drive the project forward, a team was put
together involving a Matosinhos taskforce, a
business consulting team from a local partner
called Eurisko, as well as a group of experts
from Unisys. The solution was designed
following the Unisys 3D Blueprinting
methodology to help define the key strategic
approach, the processes and operations
that needed to be automated, as well as the
technology components required.
Although meeting citizen expectations
was a priority, it was clear the solution
needed to factor in other key criteria. In the
first two months of the project, the Unisys
3D Blueprinting approach identified three
other areas to address: enhanced visibility
for executives and regional leaders; greater
efficiency through retooled processes; and
increased civil servant productivity. “Our
aim was to simplify people’s lives, which
was why we decided to name the project
SIMPLIFE,” says Oliveira.
SIMPLIFE identified opportunities for
process improvement and called for a
combination of Microsoft solutions, which
included Microsoft Dynamics CRM, BizTalk
Server, Office SharePoint Server and SQL
Server, to create an integrated service platform
that included three main modules: customer
relationship management (CRM), document
management and a geographic information
system (GIS). Throughout, Unisys liaised with
Microsoft in order to make sure the technology
was used in the most efficient and effective way.
First, Unisys architects and consultants
used BizTalk Server to integrate front- and
back-office applications, particularly integration
with the authority’s legacy enterprise resource
planning system (ERP), and SQL Server for
data services to create Matosinhos Citizen Mall.
The front-office solution was then integrated
with online services to create the Matosinhos
Web Services Portal and made available to the
public. “With information online for all users,
we have democratised access to information
across the municipality,” states Oliveira. And
once that phase was complete, e-mail, SMS
and fax interaction gateways were linked to the
front-office solution.
Speaking about the ongoing project, Unisys’
Teixeira says: “There have been a number
of phases to get to where we are today. The
first phase required implementing the core
functionality and integrating the new technology
working more efficiently and they appreciate
having access to up-to-date information.”
“Matosinhos was a very bold customer,”
adds Teixeira. “They were forward thinking
and had a clear vision for what they wanted
to achieve. They weren’t afraid of doing
something nobody had done before. The risk
has clearly paid off.”
The solution earned Matosinhos the
European distinction as the 2009 Best Citizen
Service Project at the Microsoft Local and
Regional Government Forum. And, more
importantly, the solution has paved the way for
with the municipality’s legacy IT infrastructure.
That was extremely complex. The second phase
involved creating a new channel that could
offer everything they could do on premises: selfservice, portal, messaging and e-mail responses.
And just in the last two years, we have entered
the third phase – specialisation. We’re now in
the process of extending functionality for the
authority and creating vertical applications for
specific departments. The great thing is, because
we’re now working with such a flexible and
scalable architecture, we can just keep adding
functionality as and when it’s needed, and it’s all
fully integrated with the main platform. Looking
ahead, we are exploring the opportunity
to enable service sharing and drive greater
efficiencies. From day one this was something
Matosinhos aimed to eventually achieve.”
streamlining additional and future services.
“Next we want to focus on mobility
solutions,” says João Prudente, the
municipality’s IT director. “We want to take
our solution outside City Hall for other
government entities like the police department
and social services. We also want to make
better use of BI.”
Transforming the way services are delivered
By deploying such a tightly integrated
Microsoft-based solution, the Matosinhos
SIMPLIFE project has redefined the way
services are offered within the municipality
and established the foundation to
accommodate future technologies that will
further enhance government services.
Describing the impact the project is having
on employees and citizens, Oliveira says: “Our
efforts prompted a silent revolution across
the municipality and we’re now embracing
the future, leaving the paper era behind. The
most important benefit has been improving
the quality of people’s lives. Processes are more
transparent and citizens are served more quickly
and effectively. We’ve also virtually eliminated
error-prone manual processes. Employees are
A bright future
Taking advantage of the great relationship
they’ve fostered, Unisys, Microsoft and
Matosinhos are now building on the success
of the SIMPLIFE project. They’re also seeking
ways to replicate the success they’ve achieved
in other municipalities. “We are looking
forward to a great long-term partnership,”
says Teixeira. “Roughly every two months, we
will keep adding more functionality to meet
Matosinhos’ ongoing needs. The next big
project for us will be to replace the existing
ERP platform and change the way the business
is presented internally.”
What’s more is that following the success
of SIMPLIFE, other organisations across
Portugal have taken note and approached
Unisys to develop similar solutions. “We’ve
demonstrated what’s possible if you’re willing
to be forward thinking and embrace cuttingedge technologies. We’re extremely proud to
be an inspiration to other organisations across
Portugal and beyond,” says Oliveira. “Between
Microsoft applications and the Unisys 3D
Blueprinting approach, there is seemingly no
limit to where we can take interactive, online
collaboration and change citizen service
delivery for the better.”
13
In practice
In practice
Security
Collaboration
Ministry of Labour
and Social Security
The Portuguese
Energy Network
Unisys’s security management solution based on Microsoft Active Directory is helping the
Spanish government agency to gain a 360-degree view of physical security across its two data centres
Organisation modernises its communications, data sharing and access to information in
order to drastically improve collaboration and productivity of its employees
Responsible for managing labour relations,
immigration, emigration, and social security
benefit disbursements, Spain’s Ministry of
Labour and Social Security plays an integral
role in the lives of each of the country’s
46-plus million citizens.
The government agency is tasked with
tracking and maintaining the employment and
citizenship status of many individuals, and so
protecting the security, integrity and availability
of confidential information is of the utmost
importance. To this end, the ministry hosts all
of its mission-critical data, applications and
user services in two geographically separated
data centres protected by a wide array of
physical security measures, including access
controls, fire detection and suppression
systems, and uninterrupted power supplies.
However, these systems were not integrated
and did not provide the coverage required to
adequately protect the ministry’s infrastructure,
following the frame of the application of the
Spanish National Scheme of Security, making
it difficult for the ministry’s personnel to gain a
holistic view of security across both data centre
locations. And without this high level of visibility,
the ministry was challenged to know who accessed
the data centre, when, what was done while inside,
and if the individual had the proper clearance.
The ministry enlisted the services of Unisys
to help modernise and strengthen its security
capabilities and implemented a solution that
leverages key elements of its identification,
credentialing, and location, perimeter, and
surveillance service capabilities. At its core, the
solution is built around seven key subsystems
that work in unison – and integrate with
Microsoft Active Directory – to provide the
The Portuguese Energy Network (Redes
Energéticas Nacionais – REN) is responsible
for managing major electricity and natural gas
transport and distribution networks in Portugal.
As part of its continuous transformation strategy,
REN wanted to improve the way employees work
through the modernisastion of communications,
data sharing and access to information. It
wanted to improve employees’ user experience
by speeding up processes, streamlining data
sharing, promoting collaboration between teams
and increasing user autonomy – thus minimising
dependence on IT.
According to Tiago Azevedo, CIO at REN: “From
a very early stage we identified collaboration as one
of the areas with greater potential for changing the
way our employees work. This led us to implement
not just another sharing platform, but a truly
innovative project that would effectively make a
difference. However, REN is not a laboratory and
can only afford to implement projects based on
widely accepted and proven technologies. In this
sense, innovation was achieved by combining a
wide series of technologies into a single solution,
based on key concepts such as simplicity,
ubiquitous access, interconnected features and
user autonomy. In fact, these aspects are essential
for IT to effectively promote flexibility and mobility
within the organisation instead of hindering
internal processes.”
REN selected Unisys’s for its recognised
competence and experience in collaboration
technologies and trusted delivery capabilities.
Unisys’s close partnership with Microsoft also
contributed to the selection of Unisys’ solution, as it
guaranteed the use of the most recent technological
approaches and standard technologies. Unisys
implemented its Unified Social Business (USB)
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ministry staff with a 360-degree view of
physical security across both data centres. Key
components include: video surveillance that
automatically records upon activity detection;
access control panels that employ biometric
readers, alphanumeric keypads and smartcard
scanners; intrusion detection systems; IP
intercoms; temperature, humidity and
barometric pressure monitors; uninterrupted
power supply interfaces; fire detection and
alarm system interfaces.
These functions are orchestrated through
an intuitive, unified, easy-to-use command and
control console that enables administrators
to monitor each security subsystem through
a single interface – without forcing them to
manage the technical complexity associated
with each. The solution also leverages standard
Microsoft Active Directory management
tools. This allows it to integrate with the
organisation’s user grants data repository,
allowing administrators to easily extend access
rights to new personnel, and alter or remove
existing credentials, at either data centre on the
fly – and follow the same approach for physical
and logical security.
Throughout the design and implementation
of the solution, Unisys worked closely with
the ministry to understand its unique security
concerns and delivered a tightly integrated mix
of commercial packages and custom-developed
components – most notably, the first-of-itskind access control panel that delivers the
multiple layers of security needed to limit data
centre access to only those individuals with the
proper qualifications.
The unique, cutting-edge security solution
Unisys built for the ministry has enabled
!
the organisation to strengthen the means
with which it protects its critical data centre
infrastructure. Specifically, the solution has
helped the ministry to safeguard mission-critical
applications, data, and user services by ensuring
only credentialed, fully authorised individuals
can enter the data centre. It has also enabled
the ministry to track and trace activities, and
subsequent auditing, by providing real-time
monitoring capabilities while also improving
the uptime of its infrastructure by analysing
current conditions and alerting personnel about
abnormal operational values in advance of a
compelling event.
Overview
Solution: Security management
Benefits: Improves the uptime of its
infrastructure, safeguards missioncritical applications, provides real-time
monitoring capabilities
Technologies: Microsoft Active Directory
Partner: Unisys
solution, which is based on SharePoint 2013,
Lync Server 2013 and SQL Server 2012, and
components developed by Unisys.
REN implemented NetworX, providing
employees with four main features: the creation
of personal areas – Boxes – where users can
easily access, save and share information that’s
synchronised with their desktop, via browser, tablet
or smartphone; the creation of common areas –
Team Rooms – for project teams, or teams organised
by business units, to share and edit documents
simultaneously with different versions and
metadata, anywhere and anytime; the introduction
of advanced corporate search capabilities; and
voice, message or video communications, through
the implementation of Lync – Microsoft’s unified
communications solution.
By implementing NetworX, REN has launched
a next-generation collaboration platform that
has improved efficiency and productivity, and
encouraged new forms of collaboration between
teams, which is a fundamental requirement in
today’s work models.
REN employees now have fast and easy access
to corporate resources, promoting mobility, access
to information and communication between
individuals. The solution offers ubiquitous access
– within and outside the network, online and
offline, mobile devices, as well as multi-browser
and multi-platform access – that is compatible
with Windows and other platforms.
The platform has allowed a shift in the work
paradigm for nearly 800 employees, and more than
80% of its employees use at least one solution feature
daily. Furthermore, approximately 350 documents
are shared monthly, more than 220 online meetings
are held monthly and more 1,500 minutes in voice
and video calls are made in a month.
!
Overview
Solution: Collaboration
Benefits: Provides faster access to
corporate information, allows better
document sharing and improves
employee collaboration
Technologies: Unisys Unified Social
Business, SharePoint 2013, Lync Server
2013 and SQL Server 2012
Partner: Unisys
15
Sign out
U-LEAF: Make Intelligence Your
Investigative Partner
Investing in
industry trends
Amber Stokes talks to Bart Steukers, Unisys’ Continental Europe general manager and EMEA services vice president,
about the mission-critical solutions that have made up the company’s DNA for over 100 years
Tell us about Unisys
Over our 140-year history, Unisys has been
helping businesses and governments protect
their assets and apply IT to achieve new levels of
success. Our technology heritage is in missioncritical infrastructure, applications and support.
What makes you unique?
We merge our intellectual property with our
services and technology to engineer, create and
implement solutions that help solve customers’
problems. This wouldn’t be possible without our
industry domain experience and complex systems
integration and program management experience
that allows us to consistently deliver services
on-budget and on-time. We can provide this level
of service because we place the customer at the
centre of our solutions to continuously improve
customer satisfaction and loyalty.
Our solutions, combined with our worldwide
practice leadership and strategic partners, provides
the underlying infrastructure and framework
to modernise public safety processes and in
particular, enable more effective communication,
collaboration and information sharing.
How do you see the public sector evolving?
Citizens today demand more from their public
service organisations. They want information
to be delivered with increased responsiveness
and greater interactivity, and they want it on the
devices and platforms of their choice. Couple this
with legal mandates to reduce costs and improve
efficiency, the key trends that emerge are cloud
and mobility.
Cloud helps connect geographicallydistributed agencies, transforming data centre
operations into highly-automated infrastructures
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with improved resource use. Mobile technologies
are also leading the way in helping agencies
improve operational efficiency and enhance
workforce productivity by enabling employees to
deliver vital services in the field.
What solutions do you offer?
Unisys sees the integration of disruptive market
trends – cloud, mobility, cybersecurity, big
data/smart computing, social computing and
appliances – into our existing technology, solution
and services portfolio as integral to our success
and critical to adding value for our customers.
Our Intelligent Application Alignment
Solution (IAA) determines optimal deployment
and facilitates the creation of a roadmap for
customers to migrate applications and processes
to cloud platforms, namely Microsoft Windows
Azure, as well as to non-cloud systems. IAA
services generate views of where value is most
likely to be found when applications are moved
to a new deployment model such as cloud.
Unisys has completed IAA engagements in the
US and has recently launched this service in
EMEA with its first clients.
Our mobility programme drives solutions
that help users to do their work more efficiently.
Gartner recently recognised our innovative
approach to the mobility market by positioning
us as ‘visionaries’ in its first Managed Mobility
Services Magic Quadrant report and said we:
“have an early-mover advantage in providing
project-based services such as consulting and
development and integration. Visionaries
maintain the potential to quickly become leaders
based on the assumption of deeper managed
services relationships that span both tactical and
strategic user requirements.”
“We place the
customer at
the centre of
our solutions
to continuously
improve customer
satisfaction and
loyalty“
The accelerating growth in cloud computing,
mobility, social computing and big data and the
increase in more sophisticated security threats
means cybersecurity is now top of mind for
most CIOs. The Unisys Stealth Solution Suite
is a defence-grade software security innovation
that makes data communication endpoints
undetectable on a network, thereby helping to
eliminate them as targets for hackers.
What does the future hold for the company?
Unisys is focusing its investments on security;
data centre transformation, including our server
business; end-user outsourcing; and applications
modernisation. By optimising investments in
market trends and integrating them with our
technology and services IP, we can evolve and
create business-driven, IT-enabled solutions.
Shrinking budgets, growing expectations, influx of unstructured
data, and evolving threats – this is the reality of 21st Century
law enforcement. Armed with over 40 years of experience in
Public Safety and Justice, Unisys understands your needs better
than anyone else. We have developed Unisys Law Enforcement
Application Framework (U-LEAF) – a flexible framework designed
to assist law enforcement organizations in the investigation and
management of cases from routine to the most complex incidents.
With U-LEAF, you can collaborate across various levels of the criminal
justice ecosystem, connect the dots across investigations with
advanced analytical capabilities, identify actionable forms of
intelligence by recording and analyzing and investigate different
types of cases, from mass-casualty, immigration enforcement,
citizenship, fraud to terrorism.
Learn more at www.unisys.com/u-leaf
People Critical is the
New Mission Critical
What is the single most critical element
in your most critical operations?
Answer: It’s Your People
People drive revenue, deliver innovation, delight customers. And, thanks to mobility,
social, analytics & cloud, people are now more effective - and more critical - than
ever. From the devices they are using, the applications they are accessing and the
support they need, it’s all about the People.
Learn more at www.unisys.com/peoplecritical