Lee Sunter, CTO, Worldline UK&I
Worldline UK&I is a finalist in this year's Cloud Excellence Awards.
Please provide some background on your company for our readers. What makes you different from other companies?
Worldline UK&I delivers essential services to the UK rail industry, partnering with organisations such as Network Rail, the Railway Delivery Group (RDG), and various train operating companies (TOCs) to support the operational running of railways and the retailing of train tickets. In addition to rail solutions, we also offer mobility services and hospitality business account card services. Worldline UK&I whilst having a background in the rail industry, is part of the wider Worldline group, which is a global leader in payments, providing advanced payment technology that helps customers worldwide realise their goals.
Our commitment to excellence is reflected in our recognition as a Times Top 50 Employer for Gender Equality and accolades from the Women in Rail awards, along with achieving Great Place to Work (GPTW) ratings for the past two years. We are proud of our active and award-winning apprenticeship scheme. Recently, Worldline formed a strategic partnership with Google, opening up significant opportunities for both our customers and our organisation. Our new products are designed with cloud capabilities from the ground up, and we are actively engaged in a transformation program to modernise our heritage product offerings to fully harness the benefits of cloud services.
What one company achievement in the last 12 months are you most proud of?
A key achievement for our group is the strategic partnership with Google, which builds upon our existing infrastructure capabilities and experience within both our private cloud and AWS offerings. This partnership exemplifies our ambitious approach to cloud solutions and has been recognised as industry-leading. At a local level Worldline UK&I has earned several significant accolades:
• Being recognised as a Times Top 50 Employer
• Our colleague Julie Hillman winning ‘Inspirational Woman of the Year' at the Women in Rail Awards 2024
• Achieving a Great Place to Work (GPTW) status for two consecutive years
• Our collaboration with one of our customers has led to product-level recognition, specifically the CIS (Customer Information Systems) service award.
What have been the biggest challenges of 2024 so far and how have you overcome them?
The primary challenge — and opportunity — we encounter is time. We frequently discuss this internally as part of our principles for maximising the use of our available time. With so many possibilities ahead, it's essential to prioritise and choose our areas of focus. To that end, we have established programs centred around our Move2Cloud initiative and are exploring how to integrate AI practices both within our products and in our operations.
Our Data Science and AI teams are actively working on enhancing our offerings, while we're also leveraging tools like Gemini to assess our product codebases and LibreChat to help within documentation and the written word. Additionally, we're committed to utilising cloud services and automating our processes to streamline our workflows where and when we can.
What do you see as the main opportunities for the IT industry in the coming year? How do you plan to capitalise on those opportunities?
There is significant interest in AI, captivating our team, our customers, and the public at large. While it's essential to cut through the hype, leveraging this momentum is crucial for unlocking the innovative potential of AI in delivering new services and products to our customers. The opportunities AI presents can greatly enhance our ability to operate within our existing capacity.
By improving both our throughput and the quality of our output, we can free up time to explore new opportunities, enhance our products, and optimise our cost base—ultimately benefiting our customers. Furthermore, embedding AI into our products can provide operational advantages for our clients, allowing them to deliver improved services to their end customers. For example, AI can offer data and insights that inform complex decision-making for customer experts while automating more routine tasks.
Why are events like the Cloud Excellence Awards important to the IT industry?
These events are crucial for recognising success and serve as a focal point to celebrate our team's dedication and ability to overcome challenges. They offer a platform to showcase Worldline's advancements in cloud technology to our customers and the broader market. Moreover, these awards inspire our teams by highlighting the remarkable work, the exceptional submissions and the leading cloud technologists from across the industry.
Lee Sunter is CTO at Worldline UK&I.
