Posts Tagged ‘strategy’

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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.

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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 »

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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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 »

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 »

Is Allstate’s IT Department In Good Hands?

Wednesday, March 18th, 2009
Allstate Is Doing Interesting Things To Ride Out The Recession

Allstate Is Doing Interesting Things To Ride Out The Recession

Awhile ago over at the Wall Street Journal they had a chance to sit down and have a talk with Catherine Brune who is the CIO over at the big insurance company Allstate. Catherine had some interesting things to say about how she is adapting Allstate’s IT operations and strategy to deal with the current recession.

First off, Catherine pointed out that she sees opportunity in the times that we are currently living in. Specifically, she noted that yes, everything will eventually recover, and firms need to make sure that they will be ready to seize the moment when this occurs. IT will play a major role in making sure that any firm is ready to do this.

Allstate is currently in the process of re-prioritizing all of its IT projects (no surprise there, eh?) The way that they are going about doing this is by taking a look at what the project would produce once it was completed. They then ask “is this something that customers are asking for?” If it isn’t, then that project get shelved.

It turns out that this is actually pretty hard to do because every project is related to other projects. That means that that shelving one project may result in a number of other projects also being shelved. The key to doing this right is to take the time up front and map out the dependencies between IT projects.

Allstate’s IT department realizes that they need to support the rest of the business. This means that they find themselves living in both the world of IT and the world of business. They do this by focusing on business processes and how IT can help. The key here, however, is to make sure that they don’t automate a bad business process.

Finally, Allstate has adopted the ITIL (Information Technology Infrastructure Library) set of best practices in order to run their shop. This basically means that there is a form for just about everything that you’d want to do. This has simplified the routine parts of running the IT department.

Is your IT department currently reprioritizing your current projects? Have you created a dependency map? How involved in automating business processes are you? Does your IT shop use the ITIL practices? Leave me a comment and let me know what you are thinking.

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Posted in leadership | No Comments »

How Can You Make Your IT Department Strategic?

Monday, February 16th, 2009
Lockheed Martin's IT Department Had A Problem: They Had No Strategy

Lockheed Martin's IT Department Had A Problem: They Had No Strategy

Isn’t that the goal of every IT department – to move from being viewed as a support organization to somehow becoming part of the company’s strategic core? Although we all know that this is what we want, for some reason it sure seems to be very hard to do. Good news – the folks over at Lockheed Martin have figured out how to do it…

Ed Meehan is the VP of operations at Lockheed Martin’s Enterprise Information Systems (EIS) and back in 2004 he discovered that he had a problem on his hands. In 1995, Lockheed and Martin Marietta had merged and Ed’s IT team had spent the next 10 years consolidating data centers (they actually got to be quite good at it). However, in 2004 they were done and they found themselves adrift – now what should they do?

EIS had neither a strategy nor a focus. Does any of this sound familiar to you? In order to have a strategy, you need to have a goal and since EIS is an internal IT organization they don’t have the normal measures of profit and loss. What’s an IT department to do?

What EIS had to do was identify a goal, create a strategy to reach that goal, and then sell the strategy to a spread out IT department that had never needed to have a strategy. How hard could that be?

Ed was smart enough to know that he needed to have his team pick the direction that they wanted to go in. He showed up at a meeting with three different popular business books that had three different business strategy goals: become a product leader, become the low-cost leader, or provide complete customer satisfaction. Pick one – you can’t do all three. Ed’s team picked providing complete customer satisfaction with the customer being Lockheed Martin’s internal employees.

So now what? Ed set up an 8-person team who had to map out the new strategy and then get the message out to the rest of the department. Their first step was to create a strategy map which showed how each part of the company would be measured against the goal of providing complete customer satisfaction.

Now the 8-person team couldn’t do this alone, so they asked each business unit to design their own strategy map with the thought that once they had this, EIS could then build a master map. You can imagine how well this went over – none of the business departments saw any value in adding strategy to their IT department and so they were, to say the least, reluctant to participate.

The 8-person team didn’t give up and they brought Ed in when needed. In the end, they got what they were looking for – a complete map of what it would take to fully satisfy the rest of the company.

Now came the hard part: selling the concept of thinking about the new strategy to the rest of the IT department. The biggest problem turned out to be the middle managers – they had “This To Shall Pass” syndrome. They figured that they could just wait things out and this “new idea” would go away just like all the other ones before it.

Well, they were wrong. It took a year to get the program off the ground and then it took another year to get the message out and train the staff. However, through relentless communication, they finally did it – everyone bought it.

Lockheed Martin has seen measurable improvements in their operations since this strategy was implemented. Internal customers have rated alignment between divisions as having improved by 160%. Probably the greatest payoff is that at Lockheed Martin, IT is now seen as being strategic.

Is your IT department considered to be a strategic part of your company? Does your IT department have a goal? Do you have a strategy to reach that goal? How are you doing in getting there? Leave me a comment and let me know what you are thinking.

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Posted in alignment | 3 Comments »

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