Yarra Valley insourcing project wins CIO award

A nine-month insourcing project at Yarra Valley Water has won chief information officer Leigh Berrell the title of Utilities CIO of 2012.

Yarra Valley Water CIO Leigh Berrell (right) is presented his award by Dimension Data Learning Solutions general manager Mal Shaw at the iTnews Benchmark Awards.

Yarra Valley Water's internal Business Technology Services team took responsibility for desktop and application support, service desk and network support for the first time during 2012, reversing a decade-long outsourcing trend.

Information submitted to the inaugural iTnews Benchmark Awards indicated that in-sourcing had improved the utility's IT project delivery and cut costs by $2 million a year.

Berrell accepted his award at the Benchmark Awards ceremony held at Melbourne’s Grand Hyatt.

"This project shows that business is about people," Berrell said. "The people have made this successful."

Other finalists in the Benchmark Awards Utilities category were former Internode CTO John Lindsay and Jemena CIO Cameron Dorse, the former for the ISP's thought leadership position on IPv6 and the latter for the rollout of a customer self-service portal as part of its smart meter project.

The projects were assessed by an editorial judging panel and members of iTnews' CIO-only LinkedIn group.