Posts Tagged ‘ceo’

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Cisco’s John Chambers’ Recession Tips For CIOs

Monday, August 10th, 2009
John Chambers Knows How To Survive A Recession

John Chambers Knows How To Survive A Recession

It can be a long and lonely journey through a recession for anyone, including CIOs. The company’s very survival may be at stake, the CIO’s job may be at risk, and of course there is that big unanswered question about what needs to be done to prepare for life AFTER the recession is over. Maybe Cisco’s John Chambers can offer us some insights…

Who Is John Chambers?

Michael Malone over at the Wall Street Journal had a chance to sit down with John Chambers and ask him for some guidance  for how CIOs can make it through these troubling times.

Just in case you don’t know who John Chambers is, he’s the CEO of the computer networking giant Cisco. Roughly 3/4 of all Internet traffic is estimated to run over Cisco gear and if you own a LinkSys router in your home or use one of those little Flip digital cameras then you are a Cisco customer.

John Chambers was at the helm of Cisco when the tech world really took a dive back in 2001. When he talks about what CIOs need to do to survive the current downturn, he knows what he’s talking about…

Chamber’s Suggestions For Surviving A Recession

John Chambers has a playbook that contains four key elements for how to survive a downturn. The playbook has been created based on years of experience in the tech industry and having had a chance to watch once great companies fall by the wayside. Here are Chambers’ key points:

  • Be Realistic: All too often CIOs like to pretend that the challenges that they are facing are all caused by the current economic situation. In reality, it’s more often a combination of what’s going on in the market as well as challenges that they are creating internally. Being able to realize that these are two separate groups is the first step in coming up with a plan to deal with them.
  • Assess Your Situation: When  a CIO discovers that a recession is starting to happen, he/she needs to ask themselves how long they think that this is going to last (they always end eventually!) and how deep it’s going to be. The answer all too often turns out to be that it’s going to last longer than you anticipate and be more severe. Knowing this you can create plans that will see you though the entire downturn, not just some made up short period of time.
  • Get Ready For The Upturn: This is the part that so many CIOs miss – all recessions eventually end. Although the ability to do a good job of cutting costs will help see the company through the recession, it’s the ability to position the IT department to help the company burst into the lead once the recession is over that will prove a CIO’s true value.
  • Get Closer To Your Customers: You would think that this would have always been on Cisco’s list, but Chambers admits that it was added only after the 2001 recession. The closer that you are to your customers, the sooner you will realize when a recession is starting because you’ll see the pain that they are starting to feel. This helps you to react quicker and better.

Final Thoughts

In an era in which firms seem to go through CEOs like copier paper and in a region of the county, Silicon Valley, in which there are very few survivors, John Chambers has not only survived, but he has done a great job of thriving. His experiences with multiple recessions provide a great lesson for all current and future CIOs who want to help their companies to grow quicker, move faster, and do more.

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What We’ll Be Talking About Next Time

The very first baby boomer was born on January 1st, 1946. Soon after that a LOT more baby boomers were born. This generation of workers is just now reachingretirement age en-mass. With the possibility of having a large group of experienced workers leave the workforce all at once, should CIOs be worried?

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Posted in recession | 5 Comments »

Iran’s Twitter Revolution Holds Lessons For CIOs

Wednesday, July 22nd, 2009
CIOs Need To Plan On How To Deal With Twitter <br> (c) 2009

CIOs Need To Plan On How To Deal With Twitter (c) 2009

Politics is a fascinating subject and I’m sure that we all have our own opinions about the events that are currently unfolding over in Iran regarding their recent elections. However, this posting isn’t about the elections or who won. Rather it’s about the amazing flow of information that happened even in a heavily restricted / controlled environment. We live in the 21st Century and this unfolding story holds many lessons for modern CIOs…

What Does An Election In Iran Have To Do With Twitter?

Noam Cohen over at the New York Times has taken a look at how information has flowed since the unrest began. In all honesty, “twitter revolution” is probably an overstatement. Web sites, text messages, and simple person-to-person conversation probably did a better job of spreading news than Twitter did. However, Twitter did do an amazing job of getting information OUT of the country.

Remember that Twitter is only three years old. It’s impact is much greater than its age would lead a CIO to believe. Although you might not be dealing with a disputed election, Twitter could play a big role in your company’s future.

What Twitter Means To Your Firm

There will be times in the future that your senior management (CEO, Chairman, etc.) will want to control what information is released about your firm and have some control over what people are saying about your company. Twitter opens up a whole new channel for people to talk about your firm. Here are six lessons that the Iranian election have taught all of us about this powerful new communication tool:

  • Twitter Really Can’t Be Stopped: Twitter messages (“tweets”) are really a form of one-to-many communications. There is no centralized site that can be shut down or forced to remove information by court order. There is no stopping this beast.
  • There Is Power In Numbers: A single tweet probably doesn’t mean much. A couple of tweets won’t attract attention. However, a series of tweets about the same subject will start to create an ecosystem about an event or a viewpoint. This can attract attention and start to generate more conversations.
  • Buyer Beware: Remember, on the Internet nobody knows that you are a dog (a saying from the early years of the Internet). Since the people participating in Twitter have no real identity, you really can’t trust what they are saying until its been verified.
  • Home Of Bad Information: There are probably people trying to communicate truths using Twitter, but there are probably also people who are trying to spread lies using Twitter. Whether it’s to drive your stock price down (or up) or prevent / encourage a takeover, all sorts of people will use Twitter to spread completely made-up stories.
  • Twitter People Use Twitter: CIOs always have to keep in mind that the people using Twitter are generally tech savvy folks who are online a lot. This does not necessarily represent the public at large.
  • Twitter Is Connected To The Media: The popular media “gets” Twitter and they are listening in order to get leads on new stories and dig up sources. This means that almost any storyteller now has a potential direct line to a major media outlet.

Final Thoughts

Twitter is yet one more way for people to communicate. It takes a little getting used to for most of us as we struggle to understand why anyone would take the time to send 140 character messages to communicate when we have so many other tools that we can use. However Twitter (and all of its variants) are here to stay.

CIOs need to adapt to this new world. When future events affect your company (disasters, mergers, takeovers, product issues, etc.) Twitter will probably play a role in how information gets out to the world at large. Developing a communication strategy that includes Twitter is a critical CIO responsibility. Addressing this issue this will mean that CIOs will have found a way to apply IT to enable the rest of the company to grow quicker, move faster, and do more.

Questions For You

Are you using Twitter now? Is anyone discussing your firm on Twitter today? Have any of your competitors had discussions about them happen on Twitter? Does your communication strategy currently have a plan to include Twitter as a part of how you communicate information to the outside world? Leave me a comment and let me know what you are thinking.

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What We’ll Be Talking About Next Time

One of the great things about working in the IT field is that whenever things start to get boring, we have the ability to create new buzzwords and make things interesting all over again. The arrival of “Cloud Computing” on the scene a couple of years ago showed that this cycle has not gone away. Maybe it would be worthwhile to take a step back and make sure that we’re all on the same page here – what is cloud computing and why should anyone care?

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Posted in communication | 2 Comments »

Security Policies Are What CIOs Know Make Good Security Solutions

Wednesday, July 8th, 2009
CIO's Realize That A Good Security Program Requires A Good Set Of Policies

CIO's Realize That A Good Security Program Requires A Good Set Of Policies

What does it take to do a really good job of securing your company’s systems and data? Is it just a matter of picking and implementing the right software or hardware solution? Is there a consulting firm that you can pay millions to who will come in and take care of this problem once and for all? Bad news – the answer is no.

How Policies Make A Security Program Work

Securing a firm’s systems and data is a daunting task. The first step to successful doing this is to develop a risk management program that captures and describes all of the various internal and external risks that your firm is currently facing. Next comes the prioritization which allows you to determine which of these risks is most likely to affect your firm – all risks are not created equal.

Once you have prioritized the risks that your firm is facing, the CIO needs to step in and make sure that a program of actionable policies is created in order to secure your systems. All too often, this is the step that gets skipped and no matter how much technology you throw at the security problem, if you don’t have a good set of polices you’ll never be able to secure your systems.

Polices Secure Your Systems From Day-To-Day

What too many CIOs tend to forget is that the key to any company’s security program is the human element and you manage this by having a clearly understood set of policies in place. Creating the policies is a first step, making sure that everyone knows about the policies and is living them are the next steps.

Kevin Mitnick is a reformed computer hacker who tours the country talking to businesses about the importance of securing their systems. I had an opportunity to hear him talk recently and it was amazing to hear how he acquired the information that he needed to break into company computer systems.

Kevin used a technique called “social engineering“ in which he would basically call up someone and ask them for sensitive system information. No matter if the firms had a corporate security policy in effect, Kevin was basically able to get the people that he called to violate it. No, they weren’t angry with their company, they were just trying too hard to be helpful. That’s what can happen if you don’t have security policies that are well known by everyone.

Final Thoughts

Doing a risk analysis and prioritizing the results is easy for IT professionals to do. However, creating policies that need to be followed by humans and then actually convincing their coworkers to follow the policies can be a real challenge.

A CIO can ensure that security policies will be successful by publicly stating his / her support for the policies and then by following them. Everyone will know if the CIO takes the polices seriously and by showing that you do, you will have found a way to apply IT to enable the rest of the company to grow quicker, move faster, and do more.

Questions For You

Does your firm currently have security policies in-place? Have these policies been communicated to everyone? Do they understand them? How can you tell if they are following them? Are you following them? Does anyone know that you are following them? Leave me a comment and let me know what you are thinking.

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What We’ll Be Talking About Next Time

So picture this: you’re a CIO and you desperately want to be seen by the rest of the C-level executives as something more than a simple cost center. What to do? If only there was some way that you could tap into all of that incredible creative energy that we all know lives in the IT department…

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Posted in security | 1 Comment »

Vulnerability Management: The CIO’s Other Job

Monday, July 6th, 2009

CIOs Will Get The Blame If They Don't Do A Good Job Of Vulnerability Management

The role of a CIO is to find ways to apply IT to enable the rest of the company to grow quicker, move faster, and do more. As part of this task a CIO needs to take steps to ensure that nothing happens that would prevent this from happening. This side of the job is not nearly as glamorous; however, it is at least as critical. What can a CIO do to ensure that

nothing bad happens

to a firm’s IT systems?

The Job Of Vulnerability Management

The first step in ensuring that a firm’s IT systems continue to allow the company to move forward is to come to terms with the real world. This means that CIOs need to acknowledge that the world can be

an ugly place

and there will always be outsiders

who want to do harm to your firm

. The person in the firm who will be most interested in what is being done to defend against attacks on IT systems will be the

CFO

. When discussing vulnerability management with the CFO, the CIO needs to explain that at its heart it’s really just the principles involved in

risk management

combined with

practical logic

and an understanding of

business value

for the firm.

How To Do Vulnerability Management

Although a CIO won’t actually perform the process of Vulnerability Management, he /she is responsible for ensuring that the program is

set up correctly

. This means that the three key components of a Vulnerability Management program need to be put in place:

  • Data Collection Needs To Be Integrated: Attacks on your IT systems rarely show up all at once. Instead, there is a sequence of minor events that occur as your defenses are probed looking for weaknesses. Having all of your data on system configurations, patch status, and access management polices in one place is a critical part of providing you with the ability to identify issues and respond proactively.
  • Prioritize Based On Business Value: Look, we are all busy and have too little time and budget to begin with. If you understand the value of each IT system, then you can allocate resources appropriately. Not all events require a full blown response – low value systems can be monitored further. Defenses for such can be augmented on your schedule as opposed to on an emergency schedule.
  • Improve, Improve, Improve: Vulnerability management is not something that can be done once and then forgotten about. The world is constantly changing and your program will need to be constantly being refined to adapt to new threats.

Final Thoughts

A CIO can do a great job of empowering the rest of the company to accomplish wonderful things; however, if the firm’s IT systems are compromised then all of the good that he/she has done will be

forgotten in a flash

. A well executed vulnerability management program provides a way to defend the firm against a cruel world. CIOs who follow the three steps that we’ve discussed will have

found a way

to apply IT to enable the rest of the company to grow quicker, move faster, and do more.

Questions For You

Does your firm currently have a vulnerability management program? Have you taken the time to assign a business value to each of your IT assets or does everything have the same value? Do you constantly refine your vulnerability management program based on changes in you IT systems and the direction of your business? Leave me a comment and let me know what you are thinking.

Click here to get automatic updates when The Accidental Successful CIO Blog is updated.

What We’ll Be Talking About Next Time

What does it take to do a really good job of securing your company’s systems and data? Is it just a matter of picking and implementing the right software or hardware solution? Is there a consulting firm that you can pay millions to who will come in and take care of this problem once and for all? Bad news – the answer is no…

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Posted in security | 2 Comments »

Can HP Survive? Do They Have The Secret CIO “Juice”?

Monday, June 8th, 2009
Mark Hurd Has Done Wonders At HP - Now Can He Find Enough Innovation?

Mark Hurd Has Done Wonders At HP - Now Can He Find Enough Innovation?

HP’s CIO Randy Mott has done some fantastic things in helping to turn the company around. However, now things are starting to get tricky and it’s not clear that the company is going to be able to continue to be successful. Everyone seems to think that what they need is a shot of that “innovation juice” and it’s not clear that Randy’s going to be able to deliver it…

What HP Did Right

Ok, so let’s admit it – HP had lost their way under Carly Fiorina’s guidance. They brought in Mark Hurd as CEO (who then brought in Randy Mott as CIO) to turn things around. Hat’s off to Mark – he’s done a great job.

Ashlee Vance over at the New York Times had a chance to talk with Hurd awhile back and he revealed that he sees HP in terms of four “quadrants“. These quadrants include operations, products, business & technology trends, and competitors.

Clearly Hurd has an analytical outlook on life – many people have remarked on just how good he is with balance sheets and dealing with numbers in general. It turns out that this is both good and bad.

The Problem That HP Has Now

HP has done a fantastic job of cutting staff, reducing costs, and negotiating great deals on parts. Having achieved just about all of the benefits that one can get from doing these types of actions, the question that comes up is “what next?”.

Shareholders like growth and in the immediate past, HP’s been growing by cutting. Now that that’s all done, how will it maintain its growth? This is where that pesky thing called innovation comes in…

Old Solutions Won’t Work!

HP used to be able to count on the famous HP labs to come up with new product ideas that would show them the way forward. However, in the current era of budget cutting and project justifications, HP has shrunk the number of projects that their labs are working on from 130 down to about 50. That may not be enough to have enough of those “eureka” moments where breakthroughs happen.

Next Steps For HP

The trick here is to find a way to recapture that “juice” that a technology company like HP needs to have in order to survive. This is exactly where CIO Randy Mott should step in.

As CIO of HP, Randy is in a unique position to help Hurd out. Since HP sells information technology products and services, their very own CIO is the person who can help them evaluate which ideas they need to run with.

Yes, yes – both Hurd and Mott like to run a tight ship with metrics ruling the day. I believe that that time has come and (partially) gone. Now is the time for Mott to throw open the doors to his IT department and start up some trial projects and initiatives. HP is so large that they could easily run multiple evaluations in parallel.

Final Thoughts

HP has made a remarkable comeback from the brink of despair. However, as they try to move forward, innovation and clever sparks of imagination are what’s going to be needed. HP’s CIO Randy Mott has the resources and the talent in his shop that would allow HP to use itself as a testing ground for encouraging its employees to make suggestions and have them tried out. Let’s see if they make the most of this opportunity…

Questions For You

Has your IT department lost its spark of creativity due to relentless efforts to drive costs out of your organization? Do you think that just having a highly efficient organization is all that is needed or does innovation also play a role? What do you think HP could do in order to re-awaken its innovation engine? Leave me a comment and let me know what you are thinking.

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The Accidental Successful CIO Blog is updated.

Coming Up Next Time

What would you say is the biggest challenge that CIOs are facing today? All that today’s CIOs seem to get a chance to talk about is costs. What’s missing here is a way for CIOs to communicate in a company-wide manner just how much value the investments that the company is making in IT are returning – the revenue of IT if you will…

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Posted in innovation | 4 Comments »

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