IT Platform Strategy for Business Agility
Overview Solution Highlights
Cepsa IT has chosen a platform approach to provide • Reduce the Cognitive Load of Fusion Teams:
IT and business-led fusion teams with reusable Build and manage foundational, self-service
application building blocks, development tools and platforms that enable fusion teams to easily meet
architectural and security support to help them non-functional requirements.
develop their own digital solutions, with the ultimate • Redesign the IT-Business Interface for Digital:
goal of driving faster delivery Provide fusion teams with seamless access to
technical expertise to accelerate architecturally
Scenario sound and secure delivery. Susana Zumel Vara
Cepsa’s ambitious digital transformation goals have • Triage Support by Fusion Team Maturity: Offer
accelerated, with technology talent and contractors tiered support, from self-service to coaching, based Chief Information
organized in product teams. Moving the development on fusion teams’ level of platform adoption. Officer
of digital capabilities closest to customers, products or
• Track Platform Adoption and Team Autonomy:
business operations increases delivery speed and
Shift from baseline KPIs (cost, risk, reliability) to
agility but makes it harder to advance architectural,
platform adoption and the extent to which fusion
security and other non-functional requirements.
teams self-serve.
About Cepsa
Industry: Energy Revenue: €33.4 Billion (2022)
Headquarters: Madrid, Spain Employees: 10,310 (2022)
1 © 2023 Gartner, Inc. and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved. Gartner is a registered trademark of Gartner, Inc. and its affiliates. 792932
Digital Transformation for the Energy Transition
Cepsa’s 2030 ‘Positive Motion’ Strategy
Championing Sustainable Energy Leading Sustainable Mobility Transforming Traditional
and New Marketing Models Refineries into Energy Parks
Decarbonization of customers in Decarbonization of road transport and Transforming refineries into diversified,
industry, air and maritime transport end-customer mobility sustainable energy parks
(e.g., increased production of green (e.g., ultra-fast recharging network, (e.g., green energy for e-mobility, solar
hydrogen, second-gen biofuels, hydrogen for heavy road transport, and wind plants, grid connections)
sustainable aviation fuel, portfolio of offering customers comprehensive
renewable projects) decarbonization solutions)
Source: Adapted From Cepsa
2 © 2023 Gartner, Inc. and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved. Gartner is a registered trademark of Gartner, Inc. and its affiliates. 792932
IT’s New Mission: Democratize Delivery by Design
Cepsa’s Democratized Digital Delivery Model (Illustrative)
Business Subject Matter Experts Third-Party Developers IT Staff
Trading Mobility Energy Parks Commercial
Business Areas
Fusion teams increase speed by making
decisions closest to Cepsa’s customers,
products and operations. Some teams are
business-led while others are IT-led.
Forward Engineering Teams IT Mission Statement
Enable faster delivery by facilitating the
Corporate IT
Cloud-Native Application Development Platform development of internal software products
by IT and business-led product teams,
Integration Platform Mobility Platform providing a platform for the development and
execution, and collaborating with the product
Cloud CoE Cybersecurity teams in the definition and implementation of
the architecture.
Infrastructure
Source: Adapted From Cepsa
3 © 2023 Gartner, Inc. and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved. Gartner is a registered trademark of Gartner, Inc. and its affiliates. 792932
An Incomplete View of Requirements
Sources of Digital Friction Experienced by Distributed Digital Delivery Teams (Illustrative)
Functional Complexity
Business Functionalities
Processes Customer Experiences
Scaling and Code Quality, Testing
Resilience
Monitoring Construction,
and Alarms Delivery and
Deployment
Fusion teams are burdened
by the technical complexity
Non-Functional Complexity Enterprise
Cybersecurity Architecture and cognitive load of non-
functional requirements.
Compliance and Risk
Management
Infrastructure
Procurement
Source: Adapted From Cepsa
4 © 2023 Gartner, Inc. and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved. Gartner is a registered trademark of Gartner, Inc. and its affiliates. 792932
Reduce the Cognitive Load of Fusion Teams
Cepsa’s Foundational Digital Platforms and Self-Service Capabilities for Distributed Fusion Teams
(Illustrative)
The foundational platforms provide reusable
Foundational Digital Platforms application building blocks, tools, infrastructural
and security services to fusion teams.
Cloud-Native Application Development Platform
Container Execution Observability Technology Capabilities:
• Version Control
Application Infrastructure DevSecOps & Toolchain • Pipeline Execution: automated build, testing,
delivery, deployment
• Software Repositories
Identity & Access Control API Management & Integration
• Reusable Components (libraries)
• Container Images
Mobility Platform Integration Platform • Vulnerability Analysis and Code Quality
• Infrastructure as Code (e.g., provisioning)
Cloud Center of Excellence Cybersecurity
Technology capabilities are grouped in platform
Infrastructure
components to simplify life for the fusion teams,
reducing their cognitive load without giving up
good development and operational practices.
Source: Adapted From Cepsa
5 © 2023 Gartner, Inc. and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved. Gartner is a registered trademark of Gartner, Inc. and its affiliates. 792932
Redesign the IT-Business Interface for Digital
Cepsa IT’s New Engagement Model for Platform Adoption (Illustrative)
Business Subject Matter Experts Third-Party Developers IT Staff
Trading Mobility Energy Parks Commercial
Business Areas
Forward engineering teams are temporary
teams that are drawn from the foundational
platform teams to support fusion teams.
Objectives:
• Simplify engagement with foundational
platforms to drive adoption
• Maximize platform asset reuse
Forward Engineering Teams (e.g., APIs, data modules, automation)
• Ensure architecturally sound, secure
Corporate IT
Cloud-Native Application Development Platform development practices in fusion teams
• Ensure fusion teams’ needs are
Integration Platform Mobility Platform represented in platform roadmaps
• Facilitate cross-platform dialogue
Cloud CoE Cybersecurity to manage interdependencies
Infrastructure
Source: Adapted From Cepsa
6 © 2023 Gartner, Inc. and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved. Gartner is a registered trademark of Gartner, Inc. and its affiliates. 792932
Triage Support by Fusion Team Maturity
Three Paths Through Which Product Teams Engage With IT (Illustrative)
Business Subject Matter Experts Third-Party Developers IT Staff
Low Fusion Team Maturity High 1 Embedding: Solutions architects
are temporarily embedded into
Business Areas
fusion teams to help them adopt
architecturally sound, secure
development practices.
2 Coaching: Solution architects coach
fusion teams on how to use the
1 2 3 development platform (e.g., toolchain,
container technology, Infrastructure
Forward Engineering Teams as Code, etc.).
3 Self-Service: Mature fusion teams
Corporate IT
Cloud-Native Application Development Platform
have autonomy and flexibility in using
foundational IT platforms without
Integration Platform Mobility Platform
direct support from IT’s forward
engineering teams.
Cloud CoE Cybersecurity
Infrastructure
Source: Adapted From Cepsa
7 © 2023 Gartner, Inc. and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved. Gartner is a registered trademark of Gartner, Inc. and its affiliates. 792932
Track Platform Adoption
Select Forward Engineering Team Metrics to Foster Platform Adoption (Illustrative)
Baseline KPIs Adoption Metrics Autonomy Metrics
1 Deployment Frequency 4 Number of Teams Onboarded 7 Delivery Process Automation
2 Lead Time for Changes 5 Platform Adoption 8 Self-Service Development
3 Mean Time to Recover 6 Platform Feature Usage 9 Delivery Timeframe
5 6
No. of Fusion Teams
Platform Features Used Weekly
Platform Migrated Onto Platforms
Feature
Adoption Total No. of
Usage Total Features Available
Fusion Teams
Why It Matters: Why It Matters:
tracks “Market Share” of foundational platforms surfaces opportunities to simplify and lower costs
Source: Adapted From Cepsa
8 © 2023 Gartner, Inc. and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved. Gartner is a registered trademark of Gartner, Inc. and its affiliates. 792932
Track Fusion Team Autonomy
Select Forward Engineering Team Metrics to Foster Fusion Team Autonomy (Illustrative)
Baseline KPIs Adoption Metrics Autonomy Metrics
1 Deployment Frequency 4 Number of Teams Onboarded 7 Delivery Process Automation
2 Lead Time for Changes 5 Platform Adoption 8 Self-Service Development
3 Mean Time to Recover 6 Platform Feature Usage 9 Delivery Timeframe
7 8 9
What It Is: extent to which What It Is: extent to which fusion teams What It Is: time taken by fusion teams
delivery processes are automated self-serve versus rely on forward engineers to build and deliver digital solutions
Why It Matters: surfaces opportunities Why It Matters: enables IT to refocus Why It Matters: highlights the role of
to further reduce fusion team effort efforts on lower-maturity fusion teams platforms in business outcome attainment
Source: Adapted From Cepsa
9 © 2023 Gartner, Inc. and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved. Gartner is a registered trademark of Gartner, Inc. and its affiliates. 792932
Results
Cost Savings Self-Service Developmenta “The development platform has enabled our
€ 6,00,000 software engineering teams to improve time-to-
1.67 x market and quality simultaneously. They
€ 4,50,000 deliver digital products one to three months
1x
faster than before whilst sharing best practices
in development quality, cybersecurity, and
automation.”
€ 1,50,000
Susana Zumel, CIO
2022 2023 2024 2020 2022
(Projected)
Solution Investments
Cost savings result from automating non- Financial Investment €1.2 Million
functional requirements (cybersecurity, 12 months to build the foundational platforms and 12 months to facilitate
Time Investment
monitoring, observability, quality and adoption. New capabilities are added on an ongoing basis.
testing, etc.) and amount to savings of 20
Intangible Costs Talent attraction and retention, sustainability of internally developed software
person days per year per developer.
Estimated Time to
Implementation 12 months
Payback Period 2.5 Years
aExtent to which fusion teams can use the platforms independently versus the extent to which they rely on forward engineers for their use.
Source: Adapted From Cepsa
10 © 2023 Gartner, Inc. and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved. Gartner is a registered trademark of Gartner, Inc. and its affiliates. 792932
Results (Continued)
“The forward engineering team is essential to our delivery teams’ success.
They help us find optimal solutions in less time, get the most out of the tools we
have, and test and implement new tools when needed. The forward engineers
also help us detect and prevent possible errors faster.”
Fusion Team Leader, Trading
Source: Adapted From Cepsa
11 © 2023 Gartner, Inc. and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved. Gartner is a registered trademark of Gartner, Inc. and its affiliates. 792932
