Posts Tagged ‘leadership’

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Unified Communications Is An Opportunity For CIOs To Show Their Value

Wednesday, June 17th, 2009
The Arrival Of Unified Communication Solutions Is An Opportunity For CIOs To Shine

The Arrival Of Unified Communication Solutions Is An Opportunity For CIOs To Shine

The role of a  CIO in any organization is to find ways to enable the company to be more successful. This can include introducing new products quicker, reacting to changes in the marketplace faster, or even lowering the cost of doing business.

Underlying all of these different ways to assist the business there is one area that every CIO must master first: providing great internal communications. An opportunity to radically transform how a firm’s employees communicate has arrived and it’s time for CIOs to step up and lead the charge.

Just What Is Unified Communications?

“Unified Communications” (UC) is starting to take on all the characteristics of a high-tech buzzword and in the process folks are losing track of just what it really means. If you boil it down to its bare essence, unified communications is all about moving all of your voice, video, and data business communications to a single network. Instead of having a phone network, a LAN, and the Internet, you combine all three of these into a single unified (get it?) network that carries all business communication.

Is This Really The Right Time To Be Talking About This?

Hey, there’s a recession going on – right? Despite the current economic problems that the world is facing, CIOs still have a job to do and studying and implementing a unified communications solution is a key part of this. The world markets will recover and if the company is left behind while its competition zooms ahead because they didn’t stop innovating then there’s going to be an opening for a new CIO.

Nicholas Hoover over at InformationWeek has been asking around and he’s found out that:

  • 57% of companies have not gotten past the pilot stage
  • 86% say that they can make a good business case for it
  • 55% admit that their company is confused about the value of UC

What Global Crossing Did

Just in case you need some more motivation to look into what unified communication can do for your firm, how about if we take a look at what the communication company Global Crossing did.

Global Crossing has embraced unified communications in a big way. Their chief operations officer uses it to hold weekly global staff meetings with his 16 direct reports. They use the video conferencing capabilities that they now have. The savings of using a unified communications solution for this type of meeting can be calculated in terms of savings on conferencing services, long distance calls, and even travel costs.

Global Crossing has taken unified communications one step further. They’ve discovered that the real hidden value to this new service is what is called “presence awareness” – who’s currently there for you to communicate with? They’ve integrated this functionality into their day-to-day business applications so that people using them will know who they can contact if something goes wrong.

Final Thoughts

All too rarely does an opportunity like this come along that will allow CIOs to clearly demonstrate their value to the firm. As existing PBXs and data network components start to become obsolete, there has never been a better time to start to analyze WHEN will be the right time to upgrade to a unified communications solution. Your company needs you now…

Questions For You

Is there a driver that you can use to start to build a business case for upgrading to a unified communications system? What features does your firm need most urgently: voice features, instant messaging, location awareness, video conferencing, etc.? Who do you think will be your biggest booster in the firm? Who will be your greatest challenge? Why? Leave me a comment and let me know what you are thinking.

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What We’ll Be Talking About Next Time

The job of  a CIO and the IT department is to equip the rest of the company to move faster and do more. One of the ways that a CIO can do this is by staying on top of new and emerging technologie. One such technology is called Complex-Event Processing…

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Posted in communication | 1 Comment »

5 Things That CIOs Need To Stop Doing

Monday, June 15th, 2009

CIOs Need To Stop Doing Things That Hold The Company Back

CIOs Need To Stop Doing Things That Hold The Company Back

I firmly believe that the reason that any firm has a CIO is so that they have someone who can drive the company’s IT department to provide services and support that will enable the rest of the business to grow faster. It really is that simple – if you can leverage your IT department to support what the business is trying to do, then you’ll be more successful. Of course, this only works if the CIO is doing his / her job…

First You Need Respect

Bob Evans (no, not the breakfast sausage Bob Evans) over at InformationWeek has been thinking about why, of all of a company’s senior leadership, CIOs seem to be the ones who get the least amount of respect.

His conclusions are that the world at large believes that CIOs lack the business skills that are needed in order to have a seat at a company’s strategy steering table. It doesn’t help that all too often CIOs tend to talk using technology terms that seem to go right over the heads of the rest of the business.

If CIOs are to take the reins of the IT department and turn it into the engine that allows the rest of the company to move faster, then there are 5 things that they need to STOP doing.

#1: Stop Avoiding Customers

In order to provide the firm with the tools and services that it needs to meet the needs of its current and potential customers, CIOs need to be spending time meeting with customers. It’s all too easy to become focused on internal issues, cost cutting, and staffing challenges. Get out and talk to customers in order to find out what you REALLY need to be doing to support the company.

#2: Stop Avoiding Change

It is all too easy for an incoming CIO to adopt the “if it’s not broke, don’t fix it” mentality. However, even as you read this the world is being changed by the arrival of Twitter, the long rumored Apple tablet PC, etc. Changes of this magnitude mean that everything must be constantly reconsidered by the CIO in order to find ways to allow the company to move faster and perform better.

#3: Stop Doing Projects Based On “Gut Feel”

Microsoft is getting ready to come out with a new operating system. Should the firm upgrade all of its PCs? Good question. The answer lies in another question: how would upgrading those PCs help the company achieve its business goals? Could the money be spent on something else that would do a better job of achieving those goals? It’s the ability to justify projects based on solid business reasons and not “gut feel” that has been missing from the way that CIOs have been doing business.

#4: Stop Spending So Much On Support

We’re not just talking about money here, we’re also talking about time. Everyone seems to be hung up on the 80/20 rule when it comes to support / new business. Over at HP they’ve found a way to do it, so why can’t everyone else?

#5: Stop Supporting Stereotypes Of CIOs

Evans points out that both at the online version of CIO magazine as well as over at Fortune magazine, disparaging things have been said about the role that CIOs play in firms. CIOs need to stand up and push back – as long as reporters and press are allowed to push them around, they will. CIOs need to start to publicize the fact that their departments are powerful enablers that the firm desperately needs in order to stay ahead of the pack.

Final Thoughts

No senior leadership position is easy to perform these days. However, CIOs have the double burden of having to stay in front of a rapidly changing technological wave as well as being intimately connected to what’s going on in the firm’s business. This can be done; however, in order to be successful, CIOs need to stop doing things that produce more harm than good.

Questions For You

How often does your CIO meet with customers: once a week, once a month, or once in a blue moon? Does your CIO talk about change or does he/she actually cause it to happen? Does your CIO have the ability to turn off the technology talk and turn on the business talk? 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.

Coming Up Next Time

The role of a  CIO in any organization is to find ways to enable the company to be more successful. Underlying all of these different ways to assist the business there is one area that every CIO must master first: providing great internal communications. An opportunity to radically transform how a firm’s employees communicate has arrived and it’s time for CIOs to step up and lead the charge…

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Posted in CIO | 1 Comment »

IT Value: How To Measure The Revenue Of IT

Wednesday, June 10th, 2009

IT Departments Produce Revenue, But You Have To Be Careful How You Measure It

IT Departments Produce Revenue, But You Have To Be Careful How You Measure It

What would you say is the biggest challenge that CIOs are facing today? There are a lot of possibilities to choose from, but if I had to put my money on just one issue, I’d choose the fact that 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. HP’s CIO Randy Mott has been facing this problem and he’s come up with a solution to it.

Chris Murphy over at InformationWeek had a chance to sit down with Randy and ask some questions about how he’s gone about communicating the value of IT in his company.

At HP, the IT teams attempt to put a measurable value on the work that they do. In short, it’s the sum of the tangible (hard dollar) and intangible benefits that each IT project delivers in the 12 months just after full implementation is complete.

Randy believes that IT has always produced a revenue; however, we’ve been doing a poor job of capturing the value of what we do. The correct way is to report on the value of an IT project  in such a way that it can be presented to the CFO / CEO / executive committee and have the numbers stand up.

How did HP pull this off? Simple – pre-planning. Before any project starts at HP, a complete cost-benefit analysis is performed and agreed to by both business unit leaders and finance. This means that the numbers are finance numbers – not IT numbers – and so they have credibility with the rest of the business.

So there you go – it is possible to measure the “revenue of IT”. It just takes commitment from both inside and outside of the IT department.

Questions For You

Is your IT department just a cost center? Does your IT department try to measure the revenue that they enable? Are the numbers that they report accepted by the rest of the company? 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.

Coming Up Next Time

The world at large believes that CIOs lack the business skills that are needed in order to have a seat at a company’s strategy steering table. If CIOs are to take the reins of the IT department and turn it into the engine that allows the rest of the company to move faster, then there are 5 things that they need to STOP doing…

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Posted in revenue | 1 Comment »

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.

Click here to get automatic updates when
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 | 6 Comments »

3 Ways To Bring Business And IT Together

Wednesday, June 3rd, 2009

Executing A Single Business / Technology Strategy Leads To Success

Executing A Single Business / Technology Strategy Leads To Success

In the end, it all comes down to execution. No, not chopping heads off, but rather how you go about having your IT department perform the tasks that the business needs them to do. How hard could this possibly be?

What’s The Goal?

The power term “alignment” is tossed around a lot these days. I think that it’s gotten used so much that a lot of us have forgotten just exactly what it means. In its simplest form, when a company is truly aligned then it is able to mange both its business and its technology together.

As simple as this may seem, too few companies are able to achieve this goal. The reasons are many: differing personalities, budgets that are unrelated, lack of accountability for business results, etc.

Fredric Fishman has spent some time  thinking about this and he’s come to the realization that in order for a a company to commit to managing both its business and its technology together, then it needs to do three things well:

  • Provide a clear vision for the organization
  • Create a well-defined roadmap that shows how to get to the future
  • Measure outcomes against predefined criteria

One Strategy For Both Business And Technology

If you have any hopes of bringing your business and technology activities together, then you’re going to have to make sure that the firm has a living business strategy. The world changes and your business strategy needs to be able to change with it. One way to accomplish this is to implement processes that will allow feedback on the business strategy to be collected and used to make adjustments.

The next step is to make sure that everyone understand just exactly how technology is going to be used to achieve each one of your business objectives. Finally, don’t just hope for the best – make sure that you have criteria in place to judge success before you start any IT project.

Strategic Imperative: Talk & Spend

A company’s goals are no good if nobody knows about them. Make sure that any planned investment in technology has a direct link to a business objective. This kind of decision making won’t happen overnight. You’re going to have to take the time to create internal processes that will allow your staff to learn how to make the correct investment decisions.

Once again, good communication is at the heart of any well run organization. You need to make sure that EVERYONE knows what the expected outcomes are and what the expected business results are. This will establish a sense of ownership and will make sure that everyone has “skin in the game”.

Measure, Measure, Measure

The best IT programs in the world don’t amount for much if you can’t determine what their impact was. You need to monitor the outcomes of each IT investment decision so that your decision making process just keeps getting better.

This is where IT folks can really shine: collect those metrics, stats, and usage data and use these numbers to measure impacts and report results.

Final Thoughts

As you can see, the steps that we need to take to align technology and business are pretty straightforward. The challenge is that this calls out not for a technology solution, but rather for a human-to-human solution. Within IT we’re great at writing code and hooking up new systems, now we just have to do a better job of talking and communicating with the rest of the company.

Questions For You

Within your firm, do you feel that you have a clear vision or is it just a piece of paper on the wall? Do you know how the company is going to achieve its stated goals? Are there effective ways to measure your IT results in place today? 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.

Coming Up Next Time

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…

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Posted in alignment | 5 Comments »

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