Black & Veatch's New IT Operating Model Supports Cross-Market Solutions

As a provider of a range engineering and design services, Black & Veatch has seen significant change —and growth — with the advent of digital technologies. What the company can deliver and how it does so have both been revolutionized. To keep up, Black & Veatch emphasizes the importance of its own Information Technology (IT) structure and digital strategy, led by Irvin Bishop, Jr., CIO of Black & Veatch.

In a recent interview with CIO.com, Bishop discusses his newly minted operating model for the company’s IT systems — designed to utilize digital technologies in all its business offerings — and how it fits into the company’s newly transformed structure.

The global company has streamlined its overarching operating model, consolidating its previous 13 business lines into three integrated market sectors to better address the cross-market nature of modern projects. Bishop explains that to support this change, Black & Veatch has organized its IT functions into seven areas: Engage, Innovate, Transform, Operate, Secure, Comptrol and Manage.

The structure is unique for its Engage function, which connects and communicates with market sector and business leaders to ensure IT solutions can best meet their evolving needs. Called Business Relationship Leaders, these individuals help Black & Veatch’s IT department “understand the pulse of, provide thought leadership to, and collaborate with our business sectors and functions to identify technology solutions for their business problems,” said Bishop to CIO.com.

This function reflects the mission at the heart of the changes Black & Veatch is making: to offer adaptive, integrated solutions that respond to the world’s evolving infrastructure needs. Digital technologies are perfectly poised to support those solutions.

“Not everyone understands the impact of and opportunity for digital technology to drive business value,” said Bishop. “Digital is not an IT function. Digital is sales, marketing, finance, legal, and operations — everything.”