Government Operations committee  If there is one significant challenge that the shared services would face, it would be that you're talking about 43 departments that are all operating differently, with different cultural tones. Merging them into one organization with similar values and cultures—that's where the

Government Operations committee  I cannot recommend specifically what would work for the shared services, because I don't know the composition of the organization. I can play back to you what I have seen work, which is to have the projects very well defined with a start and an end date, a very “blocking and tack

Government Operations committee  Thank you for that question. I think in a lot of the areas in procurement, we have worked very closely with the government at the federal and provincial levels. When you look at the shared services side, it's not just procurement. A significant amount of effort is upfront plann

Government Operations committee  Thank you. I won't make the supposition that the cultures are all bad—it would be a bad premise to start with—but they are different. If we start with the assumption that there is some difference in culture in different departments, it would take some amount of time within each

Government Operations committee  No. I think the projects we have done in the private sector are single-threaded. They were not 43 departments or 43 companies merging at the same time, and the scale and scope were not as large as what you're seeing here. I would not dispute the PricewaterhouseCoopers study. What

Government Operations committee  That's a very good question. I think this is where, in setting up the projects, it's very critical how you break them up. A big part of the initial stage is investment, but a big part of the downstream investment should be fed by the benefits you garner in the early years. That's

Government Operations committee  I don't know in this case. I couldn't answer that question. But if it is a five-year project...for the ones we have done, I'd say by about 20% to 30% of the way in, you should starting getting some significant benefits.

Government Operations committee  Yes.

Government Operations committee  They're probably to some degree dependent upon the outcome model. If you go to a cloud for various aspects, then a significant amount of internal management could be moved out. That's one scenario. If you replicate what you have today, but just modernize it, then you continue to

Government Operations committee  Thank you. As I mentioned, the way we did a project was to have very clear governance at the outset—the framework as to who does what. The second piece that goes with that from an accountability point of view is to establish something like a scorecard model. If you have clear

Government Operations committee  Yes.

Government Operations committee  Would you clarify the question? There will be a collaboration of these data centres in what context?

Government Operations committee  Depending upon which one you pick first—you have three elements now, with e-mails, data centres, and the network—the easiest one would probably be e-mails in terms of sequencing. The hardest one would probably be the network. The data centre would be somewhere in the middle. The

Government Operations committee  Yes.

Government Operations committee  That is the easiest one to look at. The footprint of consolidation is seen not only with the building but with the energy costs, maintenance, support, security—you name it. All aspects have to do with cost and are of immediate net benefit to the project. There's no doubt about it