Hiring managers also need to understand how they can leverage the social media solutions they already use to connect with potential new staff members. Do not think purely of using these sites as a means of advertising a role when it does become available. Think of ways to connect with prospective employees with every thing that you do online, not simply at the time you need a specific hire.

When It comes to bring ready to make a new hire firstly you should look through your own connections before taking any other steps. You may already be in touch with the ideal candidate. The other alternative is that someone you know will be connected to the ideal candidate and may be able to connect you. The last article discussed a number of methods to leverage what LinkedIn has to offer to identify potential candidates. As each social medial site differs in its approach, but they all offer tools that allow you to connect with other people and that is key here. The recruitment consultants and advertising should almost be the place of last resort, not the first place you focus on.

When you have looked at your own network and are unable to identify any candidates then It is time to find other ways to connect with them. For example all LinkedIn groups have ‘jobs’ sections where posting jobs is easy and it is easy to post a link to the job posting through Twitter or Facebook. The key aspect about this media is that It demands interaction. That is as true for the hiring manager as it is for the person seeking new employment. If you have seen a clear insightful comment on the media and thought you would like to hire that person an an opportune time, well now that you have such a need they should be your first call, even if you know them to be employed and happy in their job.

Don’t be afraid to ask the people you know to see if they can make recommendations, that is after all about leveraging your network. We know this is the best way to make an effective hire, which also saves the business money in the recruitment process. The key is participation, attention, and sometimes a little patience. Most hiring managers know the talent they require in advance of the formal recruitment process starting, use this time wisely to make connections that can help you get in touch with perspective candidates.

At the end of the day there are plenty of options available to use before turning to a recruitment agent, who have proven to be less than reliable in recent times.

The last article in this series covered “The Corporate Architecture and Complexity of Data Links“. This builds on out business understanding that impacts the selected solution. You should walk away from this series with an impression the selecting a BI solution is not merely about software selection, but about a whole range of factors that require a more holistic vision about how the corporation will be leveraging its business intelligence capability. Yes we do need to measure profitability, but ultimately we also need to measure a range of other factors.

So, what makes our business unique?

Each business has a set of products or services. Many of these may also sold by the company’s competitors, at a similar price in a similar format. There however is always some distinguishing feature that ensures customers buy our product or service rather than our competitor’s. This may be as simple as undercutting the competition’s price or may be some unusual aesthetic feature. Knowing the factors of uniqueness is essential for each business. This has been described as many things over the years, but it is generally known as the unique selling proposition, or USP.

Each business, of course, has its competitors. One of the reasons for implementing business intelligence solutions is to identify ways to take advantage of prevailing market conditions. Thus it necessary to understand the ebb and flow of the marketplace; how this industry sector(s) function. Marketplace goals will also be a driving factor.

One of the major reasons for introducing Data Warehousing technology is to identify and measure factors that distinguish this business from all of its competitors. Pre-packaged solutions are rarely capable of doing this. They concentrate on general business goals, or maybe that of the market sector. Uniqueness will always need to be added to any pre-packaged solution.

Note: the author has identified two factors that need to be considered:

►  Factors that are common within the particular industry sector. This may be all insurance companies, or alternatively may be insurance companies operating in the life and pensions sector, where specific rules have to be met.

►  Factors that make our specific business unique. E.g. the brand name – Coca Cola, the reputation for quality workmanship – Rolls Royce.

When I work with corporations to deploy BI solutions I have created an assessment form that allows these factors to be both defined and assessed for your corporation. If we take an example of a corporation involved in the travel sector some of the generic industry factors may be:

◊ Declining corporate travel market

◊ Buoyant executive travel market

◊ Growth of no-frills airlines

◊ Growth of on-line sales

◊ Reducing costs

◊ The impact of terrorism on the marketplace

Factors making our specific business unique may include:

◊ Guaranteed lowest price whether booked on-line of in store

◊ Value customer service and retention (follow up call after trip)

◊ Wide variety of sales channels, even active on Social Media

◊ Active in all areas of the world

◊ International free-call help line

◊ Links airlines and corporate customers.

Understanding these factors and classifying both their mission criticality and their complexity are both important to the financial decision making process. Some factors here may be regarded as complex because such data is not currently recorded within the company.

As a general observation the more unique the business the less likely it will be a candidate for using a pre-packaged Data Warehousing solution and the more likelihood that the corporation will have to define their own database model or make changes to an ‘industry focused template’.

Next “Suitable Analytical Applications”

This is part of a series on communications and links to other articles on this site…

There are several types of communication that are important to the average business today:

◊ Direct one-to-one, a dialogue

◊ One-to-many, broadcasting

◊ Many-to-many, such as in a meeting

On a “One to One” basis we communicate directly or through another medium. There are differences in how we communicate but there is generally a dialogue that occurs in any conversation. Our approach may be different say for a letter (if anyone writes these anymore) or an email than in a conversation, but it is a dialogue nonetheless. In a conversation we will deal with one point at a time, whereas in a letter we tend to put in all of the related detail before sending it.

Email differs from a normal letter in that it is not purely a one-to-one messaging tool, it allows us to send that same message to multiple people. We developed the ability to broadcast early in human history as well – remember the smoke-signals used by Native Americans were almost certainly used in other ancient societies; even 16 century England had a fire warning system used to send messages rapidly across the country in order to prepare for an expected attack of the Spanish Armada, allowing them to muster forces at a time when sending a message by traditional means was agonisingly slow.

“One to Many” messages are used in a multitude of ways, like a newspaper article, telegraph, radio, television. The ‘presenter’ prepares their statement and makes it via the appropriate medium. In the modern world we are putting a lot of this information on-line in the form of blogs or websites, but the majority still follows the process of one person posting for all to see.

“Many to Many” communications don’t really exist through any of the traditional communications media. A meeting may give everyone an opportunity for everyone to speak, but it is in reality held through a series on one to many communications. Us humans are simply not able to handle multiple simultaneous conversations; so we have developed a protocol that enables us to achieve the effect of a many-to-many conversation.

Computers on the other hand are able do multiple things at the same time more effectively and they can communicate with other computer at a speed allows messages to travel the globe in an instant.

The changing world of business communications is largely about empowering collaboration between people who are interested in a particular outcome. In business relationships matter and have always been vital for success, in fact it plays on another basic part of human nature. The need for a crew to work together for the success of the voyage is as vital in a trawler facing a ferocious storm as it is in your business.

Each person involved brings with them something unique that helps the team succeed. Yet today we are able  to contribute in so many ways and continue contributing. With the use of Social Media it is even possible to have our customers make a contribution to our product development which can be a vital part of our success. Collaboration is a very personal thing. Each and every person has a sphere of collaboration, which is about them, their team, the department they work for, the company, customers, suppliers, third-parties, industry experts, etc. Even their friends perhaps have a role to play.

Ultimately the changing world of business communications is about improving out ability to collaborate. It is about bringing the right people together, cost effectively, to solve a specific problem, then moving on.

Maximizing resources and aggressively planing for the future are likely to continue to be the expenditure themes for the coming months. Improvements to business effectiveness are more important than ever before, yet projects still need to be delivered. Today on-time and in-budget is increasingly important, yet it is still possible to deliver radical change to the business condition. Technology must not be seen as a “necessary evil” in the eyes of the business owner, it is a key enabler that adds value, yet the modern company does not have to invest in mega systems to get results.

With every project is important to identify a return on investment, and seeking some positive return during the first full year of operation is increasingly important. During the tough times it was necessary to stretch projects out, with a commitment to deliver fewer major projects. You business has to be ready for the economic upturn. Investment in marketing, communications and Social Media are a must have over the coming months, bust the spending must be cost effective. A clear picture of spending and expected benefits must be available to the executive team.

It is important to be making the right decisions at the right time, delaying growth can have negative consequences. Development projects, when correctly timed can have a dramatic effect on the growth we experience. Remember too many project fail because of our desire to fix the world in one massive step. Business is in a state of continuous improvement. If you could look at the oldest corporation in the world, it is unlikely to be run the same way today as it was when it first started. Business improvement will continue to be needed as long as we have business and where there is a culture of improvement there will be projects to facilitate change.

We should always remember that one of the keys to success is that projects are always limited by time and resources, it has always been true that more progress can be made through a series of small steps. As humans we frequently chase after the impossible. If we succeed then we are heroes but failure can carry with it dire consequences. Every business change project needs to be broken down into bite-sized pieces. This way we are better able to understand the scope and goals. It is important to look out for the signs of project failure, yet plan for success.  We should look to solve those problems that can be easily solved first. With each problem we need to:

■ Define it

■ Identify any barriers to success

■ Know how serious the problem is

■ Identify options that can assist us

■ Look at the outline costs involved

Fundamentally businesses should look to change its processes before it looks to change its systems. IT system processes are always more complex and more costly to fix than the associated business process. It is not about being opposed to a major systems change, but it is essential to go through the right level of thinking before making any decision to replace applications. The problem is largely one of strategic thinking. Strategic problem solving requires the definition of corporate goals and plans against which all projects are tied. Generally speaking these should be long term goals, yet we must always respond to changing priorities and be able to define new goals when necessary. Yet short term changes should not end up dictating long-term policy.

The business executive today needs to tread carefully over the next few months, yet at the same time plan for growth, then be prepared to aggressively execute against a growth plan at the right time.

I and many other IT leaders do not see that as being where IT is today. I have written before about how the role of the Head of IT (normally either the CIO or CTO) is changing. The role is becoming one of Chief Change Officer, in other words they should be seen as the best agent for change in the corporation. IT has a background in building capabilities, gaining clarity on corporate requirements, and increasing the commitment where change is needed, and most importantly executing change.

Now I will state here for clarity I do not see the primary role of IT as merely maintaining the equipment and operational applications. In fact that those types of roles may in some instances be more cost effectively managed by a facility management firm who engage operational specialists. IT’s role in an organisation is to focus on two areas:

◊ Changing business processes, and

◊ Contributing to improvements in Business Results.

IT’s role historically has been to respond to stimuli from other departments for change then build or implement systems as needed. More recently it has had to respond to corporate goals and implement corporate-wide solutions that are intended to provide an holistic solution. Ultimately both these areas are about supporting business decision making, being a change agent. Change agents by their very nature cannot be integrated with the very areas where change needs to happen. They need to have an independent viewpoint, but they do need to be able to understand the challenges faced.

It is the independence of IT that allows them to ask challenging questions that will then facilitate positive change.

That however does not guarantee people will buy from your offering. That will depend largely on presentation on your website once the person arrives and whether the product the company is selling really relates to the prospects specific needs.

Leveraging Social Media also takes us beyond the act of advertising and I have talked about this before, in particular the three key components: Improving communications and collaborating more closely; Intelligently intervening in respect of things said about the product/brand/company/marketplace; Each comes before the building of a revenue stream. It is essential to be seen as a market expert, and be seen as providing value, becoming a trusted resource. Leveraging Social Media is about more than marketing it is about connecting and communicating with your target audience – engaging them even when they don’t want something, but not doing so in a way that makes them feel you are chasing them for future sales. It is about being a resource to solve their problems. In fact Social Media can be a very effective customer service tool.

Erica Friedman, Social Media Optimizer and Publisher at ALC Publishing says “Advertisers are having major issues trying to understand the metrics associated with Social Media and are resistant to interacting directly with customers, except in very small, measured ways”. I have my suspicions they are measuring Social Media in the same way as they have measured any other media. She also points out “Once upon a time, long before radio and TV, people had to talk to their customers, in order to keep their business going. The friendlier and more open and easy to work with, the better your business did. We’re starting to see that model coming back, on a global scale”.

Social Media is about talking to the customer or prospect. Basically Social Media can simply be the platform by which a connection is made. It is still essential to win over the business, human to human.

Patrick Murphy of SiliconCloud makes the point that “that adverts are more targeted to your social media profile”, well they should be targeted to succeed. The 22 year old single woman sees a different advert than the 43 year old married man when they are on the same page at the same time. From the viewpoint of Facebook or LinkedIn this is the power of what they can offer an advertiser.  Now whether the demographic focus of a specific product is right for the target audience is another question. That is where it is important to build a market intelligence for each product any corporation markets.

The reason it is important for corporations to leverage the power of Social Media as a part of there marketing strategy is as Firas Abo Assaf points out that according to a recent survey “80% of decision makers say they found the vendor, not the other way around” and “According to Marketing Sherpa, 80-90% of business to business transactions begin with a search on the web”. With search engines becoming more Social Media aware the social media contributions made do become important. What this means is that buyers are increasingly aware of what they need and are researching the market before buying. This also has a relationship to the interaction with the marketplace through the Social Media channel. Buyers are looking for value from their suppliers and Social Media can be a part of that value chain.

The thought “Once upon a time, long before radio and TV, people had to talk to their customers” it seems like we have come full circle, yet we are using different tools to facilitate this.

Chris Anderson has recently published a book called “Free: The Future of a Radical Price”, which you can download a full unabridged audio copy, ironically free, here. which I am currently listening to as a part of my new business development. My challenge is can we really offer free services and make money out of it? I think the concept has some merit but do have to question where money can be made.

I have been running this site for some time and I know that it has raised my profile within my network and community. Yet is has not assisted my bank balance.

One of the concepts that Chris Anderson discusses is that the cost of on-line storage is reducing to the extent that it is almost free. Also the cost of publishing on-line is also so low that the free model makes sense. Yet there is one thing that can be forgotten in this equation, the value of the time of the author. I have worked for a chunk of my life in managing consulting practices and the cost of the advice given in these pages if used as billable consulting hours would have been hundreds of thousands of dollars, yet it is all here on these pages for FREE!

Please note that this is not written in the form of a gripe, it is written in the desire to learn and understand how to make money from ‘FREE’. I am writing this as the baseline understanding (e.g. the knowledge that I have before I personally understand how to leverage the free model to make money). The one aspect of the equation that is frequently forgotten is the effort or labour of the people making the contribution, especially when the only publication route is the Internet. Even with advertising on your site the amount you can earn through pure on-line knowledge contribution is close to zero.

Is free the default mode of exchange for humans? As Chris Anderson points out that within the family ‘free’ has always been the normal mode of exchange. I guess it is one of the reasons many business start-up guides tell you not to market to family members, because of the tendency to give things away for free. Indeed the Capitalist economy dates back less than four hundred years, yet we often view it as having always been here, and ever present into the future. I am not going to enter into a discussion about the merits of the capitalist system – this is not the right forum. I do however recognise that I live in a capitalist world  and unless that changes have to live by those confines.

Making money from FREE, is an important part of that process. The web is clearly a part of our long-term future and with the low cost for creating a new site and hosting especially when viewed in terms of the thousands of people who visit your site every year.

Is one of the side affects of FREE that we as a society are now tending to sell at an undervalue? Take for example the building of web-sites. Take a short trip through the business district of any city and you can see many adverts saying we can build your web-site for $199.99 or even lower. Yet few people question what the end result is from using such a service, which is clearly attacking the credibility of hard-working web-site developers, whose professional services will run into several thousands of dollars. In this example the buyer should be aware of what they are NOT getting when they buy at an undervalue. Your $199 web site will be a nasty piece of work that will simply put your business on the web with a badly designed web-site. Do a Google search for your site and it will NEVER be found, let along rank on the first page in your specialist area. This is where the professional web-developer adds value, in search engine optimisation and providing a smart os business like site, that is simply not possible by paying $199.

Another aspect of this is the micro-payment economy, which never really took off. Most people would not pay 10 cents for an article because of the pain of making the payment. Yet this is the whole concept of adding Google Adwords to your site – and yes I have included these ads on this site in the vain hope that I will eventually get some money from Google. So please feel free to cause Google give me a micro-payment by clicking on one of these ads, even if you do not buy anything. Just make sure you come back here afterwards!

We can operate quite effectively with a number of free offerings. For example membership of existing social media sites like Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube, Plaxo, and others can be through the 5% to 10% of members that do pay for services (e.g. ‘pro’ accounts), or the uptake of member advertising programmes, as well as the commercial advertising revenue from the site. Some of these services can provide very powerful facilities at no cost.

Should there be a nominal charge for such services e.g. $10 per year? I favour the provision of basic FREE services with the addition of cost effective enhanced services e.g. $25 or $50 per year, but with a clear and visible uplift in the available service levels. For example LinkedIn’s premium account pricing structure of $250 per year is not value for money for the majority of users and would not be the price model I would adopt if I were CEO of LinkedIn. Or does the mere fact that there is a price for the service add value to the FREE service?

Now do I understand making money from FREE? Clearly at this stage in my life I do not understand enough. and as I said at the beginning this article is the baseline in understanding the FREE model.

Much is talked about “Green IT” and how it can change the economy, but what re the findings? Please note that these views do not necessarily represent my own views.

♣ 32% of IT Leaders say they have a “Green IT” program in place already

♣ 60% the amount of consolidation possible by virtualization (according to Microsoft)

♣ 72% The average amount of energy that comes from coal, oil, and natural gas

♣ 75% The energy efficiency rating for PCs (compared to 30% for gas/petrol cars)

♣ 80% of CIOs do not see the corporate energy bill

♣ 90% of organisations have made efforts to reduce their environmental footprint

♣ 1992, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency launched Energy Star

♣ $7,800 the average annual cost of owning and operating a car

(individual saving, according to the CAA)

♣ $38,271 the energy saved when virtualizing 100 servers

♣ $68,000,000 the amount Sun saved in real estate costs in 2007 by home working (sorry for these people now Oracle rules the roost).

According to Jetson Green “Non-Green Will Not Survive” when it comes to buildings. The same has been said of both business and IT. Ultimately this may be right, but right now it is possible that something non-green will save a corporation, surely that is important.

The CEO and corporate leadership is interested in  how  IT is kept relevant and cost efficient.

Some approaches that may be considered in respect of managing cost reduction include:

•    Leveraging a positive economic justification
•    Centralisation of services
•    Server virtualization
•    Cut staffing levels or broadening job responsibilities
•    Outsourcing support of development activities
•    Find new vendors
•    Retain old equipment for longer period
•    Minimise maintenance costs
•    Implement Open Source solutions, or Software as a Service (SaaS)

Technology must not be seen as a “necessary evil” in the eyes of the business owner, it is a key enabler and should always add value and it is the CIO’s job to ensure it does. There must be a positive economic justification to go ahead with any project (even more so in a tight economy), yet the average CIO has between 3 and 5 years worth of change pencilled into his calendar already. Today every business is seeking a greater return on their technological investments.
If ever there was a time when Business Intelligence solutions were important it is right now! Knowing how your corporation is performing when compared the overall market position is vital for continued success and is one area where IT can contribute to positive growth. Don’t cancel any ongoing BI projects, they can save your company! Most large corporations already leverage BI to some extent, Now it is important to focus on those measures that add value to the corporation. The executive and board need to be aware of how much value this can add to the bottom line.

With every project is important to identify a return on investment, and many corporations seek a positive return during the first full year of operation, which is often un-realistic. In tough time it is necessary to stretch projects out, for example making a commitment to deliver only one major project this year may be the best way to leverage the budget. Work on other projects continues, but the staff compliment has been trimmed, and external contractors are no longer involved.

Software applications should empower the business to make effective improvements in service or efficiency. Budget holders need to have a clear picture of spending and expected benefits. ROI is a term that has to some extent gone out of vogue and needs to be re-learnt by the CIO. When any system is implemented there must a clear benefit to be made ROI has to take the complete current state into consideration. Before the project commences this must be based on the status quo. As the project proceeds this should build on the activity of earlier project work. Organisations can realise an ROI through a number of avenues, including:

•    Efficiency savings due to the automation of data and processes.
•    Identifiable business savings, e.g. the ability to scale-down facilities.
•    The value of new customers
•    The value of market share
•    Reduction in the cost of raw materials
•    The value of efficiency or business savings identified
•    Reduction in software or hardware maintenance fees

The current period demands a faster return to a positive ROI. The ability to measure a positive impact of any spending is one of the benefits good Business Intelligence brings.

In my experience few big-budget solutions pass the test even in good times, but many development projects have forgotten how to deliver business value. Few CIO’s are prepared to push back against vendor cost estimates. Most projects can have their costs trimmed by as much as 40% by smart management of the software implementation. It is rare that all features are required at once. Additionally there are savings to be made in respect of the hardware implementation.

Certainly there is a fresh opportunity to implement Open Source solutions at a fraction of the cost for normal commercial applications. Open Source applications are now able to compete directly with commercial solutions in terms of capability and are thus becoming viable options, certainly for smaller companies.  Even the more sceptical IT managers realise these solutions are now being widely accepted.

This may come about by implementing a small specialist solution. However it is important to remember that expert assistance is still likely to be required during certain implementations. The risks of implementation must be clearly identified, including the prospect of supplier failure.

Software as a Service vendors will argue that massive cost savings can be made with adoption of their solutions. It is true there is potential for savings here as there is no requirement for in-house servers in order to support such solutions. With a raft of solutions available including CRM, Marketing, eCommerce this seems like an attractive proposition at first glance, especially as the costs are calculated on a per seat per month basis.

However the corporation must consider the legal implications of implementing SaaS as part of their application set. Questions such as “who owns the data?”, “how do we guarantee statutory reporting compliance rules are adhered to?”, “what is the impact of privacy law?” all need to be considered in addition to standard vendor viability questions that must be asked of any software vendor.

The last word on SaaS is that we need to be mindful that such solutions are NOT currently mainstream IT technology. Whilst they may be in-vogue but they still have a rocky-road to travel before the technology is fully accepted into the mainstream. In that process many vendors will crash and burn, including leading ones available today.

Of course there is more to IT than the implementation of software solutions. Others areas will attract demands for cutbacks, including equipment and staffing.

In making departmental cutbacks the simplistic approach is to cut staffing levels across the board, but that raises the question of which roles need to be cut. This is the one option that is always hardest to carry out as there are hundreds of reasons why any staff individual member is valuable to the organisation. It can be argued that by focusing on IT operational excellence, you can drive the highest levels of system performance, availability while lowering the costs of maintenance. However the excellence and value any individual staff member brings to the team hardly matter when faced with the demand to cut 10% of the workforce especially when no individual falls beneath the expected level of excellence.

Centralisation of services can bring efficiencies, the main impact being through the use of centralised services and data centres. In looking for savings it is important to remember that equipment (PC’s, Printers, etc.) still needs to be maintained at each location. Outsourcing or off-shoring of support can also bring additional savings, but future cost rises must be limited by contract. Further staffing efficiencies may be facilitated by broadening job responsibilities across the team, for example the CRM specialist may need to take on responsibility for Supply Chain solutions. Certainly some savings can be found here but there is a risk that key knowledge is lost.

Server virtualization can provide a cost reduction through a better utilisation of the IT infrastructure, which will also bring reductions within the maintenance and support budgets. However I am convinced that unless the organization has some virtualization is already active a new enterprise-wide deployment would bring added risk and should be left for another time. Extending an existing virtualized architecture can bring cost benefits in server and storage costs.

Finding new vendors may increase the risk but it may reduce costs. Early in 2009 JP Morgan-Chase went to many outsourced services vendors and asked them to drop rates or find other people. This method may be a bit blunt but it can be an effective way of reducing costs in the short term. I do think that the risks associated with such a move do have to be fully assessed and may result in additional expense in the long term. It is important not to let short term demands cripple your long-term strategy in these areas.

Retention of old equipment is an easy cost saving to identify. Keeping PC’s for 5 years instead of 3 is the first of these cost savings measures that can be made. For the majority of users older kit is still more than capable of doing the job, it is only the power users that need the most modern machines, which are later recycled into the rest of the business. Here is where the argument for green computing falls flat in the current era, as the company can realise immediate savings, unless a replacement is required. The other area to consider is the number of printers. Do we need one for every 10 desks? Can we make it one for every 15 desks? After all we are all printing less these days than we used to and we should encourage less printing from a cost management perspective.

On the budget front one Silicon Valley CEO recently told me his company is just simply stretching out their resources and waiting on next years budget. Communicating bad news is never easy, but must be done in a clear consistent manner. We still have IT projects to deliver, but we have to do this with less resources. It is important that the CIO sets reasonable expectations and delivers on promises. The excessive multi-year projects are the very ones that will need a full justification, including a rapid return on investment.

Leadership in a recession requires strong prioritisation. The 80-20 rule applies so it is essential to know how to identify the diminishing returns and know when to stop. Practical solutions are needed, not perfection (that can come at a later phase). Results, i.e. the ability to deliver, are all important at this time. The ability of staff to deliver under pressure is also an important factor.

]]> http://cio-perspectives.com/2009/02/deploying-solutions-on-a-shoestring-budget/feed/ 0 http://cio-perspectives.com/2009/02/cio-strategy-development/ http://cio-perspectives.com/2009/02/cio-strategy-development/#comments Wed, 11 Feb 2009 04:18:35 +0000 Peter B. Giblett http://cio-perspectives.com/?p=118 The role of the Chief Information Officer (CIO) has changed forever.

Today’s CIO’s role is more than simply managing IT staff and ensure that systems and networks are up and running. They need to serve as integral members of the senior management team within the corporation. They need to take part in strategic development, organizational planning, and enable financial planning and decision-making. They have largely become the Chief Change Officer by leading their organization’s strategic business change initiatives.

Maximizing your current technology resources and aggressively plan for the future with the business in mind. In addition to this is the dimension of Business Intelligence that will allow a corporation to make informed business decisions. The role of  the CIO should increasingly be one of leveraging the technical services in order to truly empower the business. Business today is increasingly needing to optimise their IT investments.

It is after the challenges of 2008 that many USA business is coming to a realisation that IT implementations have to be done on a tighter budget and mega-projects must come under scrutiny. Ironically IT developments in Canada, UK, and Europe have already been performed on a shoestring budget. A new learning is necessary. The important message here is that it is still possible to deploy solutions, but cost effectiveness is key.

Further Reading

Information Technology Must be Integrated into the Core of Business! by Peter Giblett

Leadership for Extraordinary Performance by Joseph J. DiStefano