This is only a part of the problem, and this writer has previously argued “that IT leaders need to be contributing to revenue generation or assisting to reduce costs by being involved in business led initiatives”. This requires both an understanding of the advantages of good Business Intelligence and a knowledge of the corporate direction.

The CIO needs to be a board member, but will not be invited to participate if all they can provide are tactical solutions. The CIO need to be future focused and think about how their intervention can both boost productivity and improve profitability. It is essential to think about business outcomes not the technology implication of any corporate initiative.

No-one can deny that IT has been contributing to productivity boosts through the systems implemented, yet this is not always the case as all too many corporations have a multitude of systems that cover similar working areas or procedures. Whilst much of the reason this has occurred is historical, especially where there have been corporate mergers as a fact of life. Where there are multiple systems covering the same business process it is possible this contributes to a productivity decline, not improvement.

The other aspect about improving profitability has much more to do with implementing the right analytical applications based on a business intelligence capability. All too many such applications have failed to give the required results because they are looking purely and simply at fulfilling operational and tactical reporting needs, not at the strategic requirements. It is essential today to focus of strategic outcomes more than ever before.

This strategic outcome is largely driven by analytical need. The board needs to be analysing every aspect of the corporation more than ever before. Information combined with analysis can lead to making better decisions. Additionally if you are able to measure your increasing efficiency this can lead to a competitive advantage. The truth is that corporations are faced with the constant challenge of reinventing themselves due to either corporate takeovers or adapting to the competitive market place. Having the right information at the fingertips of corporate leaders at the right time also provide the capability to react effectively.

One of the things that Mr Murphy discusses is ‘introducing an IT-led product or service’; a term he does not actually define. In this context if he means that IT should be leading business focused change initiatives, then that is agreed. However this is not the context this reader interpreted it as. If what is meant by this statement is the introduction of technical tools, or even the technology department dictating change then I would disagree.

Recently I argued that IT leaders need to be contributing to revenue generation or assisting to reduce costs by being involved in business led initiatives. It is automation or rapid solution deployment that can often contribute to that overall success. It is the business that needs more effective tools in order to assist overburdened staff in all areas of the business, and this involves the business processes as much as any technical solutions.

If there is to be any imminent return to growth then IT’s role is in transforming business to a smarter more collaborative organisation, and not simply as provider of technical components. Part of this is about improving efficiencies across the business, by looking for opportunities to automate tedious manual processes. Each of these areas will make the organisation more effective and more economically savvy.

As much as we would all like to see a return to growth as soon as possible, it is unlikely to happen on a global scale before 2012. There is no individual industry, or even country, that is taking a real lead at this time, the belts remain quite tight for the forthcoming period. Right now the challenge seems to be about doing more with less resources, those that are in a job are often overworked, yet at the same time there are too many talented people looking for work.

Virtualization of services is of course perhaps the only exception to this rule, yet at the same time this should be considered a part of a corporate cost saving initiative, with providing more effective use of existing resources.

Budgets for IT departments may be on the increase – they had to from the severe restrictions faced in 2009 and 2010. No matter how far, or how deep cuts go it is a fact that business will always subsequently find it necessary to replace certain aging capital assets, or respond to stimulus from outside the business’s control. It is this that is driving any spending right now rather than expansion in response growth.

If hiring is still frozen then it is unlikely that major budgetary growth will occur. It is unlikely to allow room to expand the number of staff, or contractors that can be engaged.

It is good to see that technology leaders feel they have a role to play in driving new products and services to market. For too long there has been too little involvement in this process for IT leaders, with many only being told of release plans only days beforehand – necessitating bolt-on’s to existing systems instead of proper impact assessments.

Where we can agree on is the need for corporations to better leverage data in order to drive revenue and aid growth. This is one of the basic aims of business intelligence; and sadly one misunderstood by many corporations. Understanding the natural flow of business can aid both when to release a product to market and optimisation of production schedules. Sizable investments can be put into context by proper use of BI. For one corporation this meant a saving of over $30 million as they discovered that changing production schedules for existing manufacturing facilities abrogated the need to build a new factory. It also saved layoff’s in at least two sites. All possible because of leveraging readily available information.

Data driven revenue and savings opportunities abound across the average corporation, their is either insufficient expertise or training available to recognise available options.

One of the major goals of this existing time is in the way IT departments advance any appreciation of the organisations they are an element of. Each part of the organisation should  be working together with other company departments in plotting a path through the difficulties the business may be facing. Within this context technology departments have got to emerge as they key internal strategic partner for change as opposed to a simple overhead or cost centre.

The known conditions that are a part of our current decline remains throughout most industrial sectors and corporations remain more severely challenged than at any moment since the depression of the 1930′s. To a sizable extent revenue development and reduction of costs have turned into key corporate priorities. For many it may be a pipe-dream to ever return to pre-2008 income and profit levels. The current vision for some organisations may now be modestly a case of developing product sales to a stage that a sustainable income is possible;  after that it may be possible to leverage this as the foundation for steady future advances.

IT executives ought to be securing a relationship with the corporate management, understanding the enterprise capabilities and possibly contributing assistance for crucial change programs which assist your firm to achieve its goals. Three of the priorities in this regard include:

* Knowing the enterprise
* Thinking strategically
* Taking action and being in charge of enterprise transformation initiatives

Knowing the business must be with reference to knowing the desired ambitions in addition to objectives for particular areas and identify methods through which technical solutions is able to help in answering enterprise troubles. Largely this is about automation of things which may otherwise take extensive manual labour to complete. One of the rewards here can be projects that utilize rapid deployment techniques; technology should be capable of quickly delivering answers. Your aspirations at this point needs to be focused on helping the organization with achieving all their aims and objectives, and not on specific technology goals.

Thinking strategically relates to developing a specific knowledge of the company, its ambitions and as a consequence implementing strategic system functions which assist in the achievement of these needs. It is not possible to take your eyes off a changing and developing big picture it is necessary to constantly reassess all projects against these changing goals. Yet at the same time any critical assessment must substitute the focus from IT as being a overhead to becoming a profit enhancing centre of distinction which makes the necessary contribution to the future outlook of the enterprise. The sum total change initiatives should focus on aiding the organisation to strengthen, and attain its objectives.

Responding to and leading corporate transformation initiatives is important since this is an area where IT has built a solid status during many years. Nevertheless what is distinctive at this point needs to be that improvement ought to be business motivated and definitely not technology driven. This represents a key improvement in thinking for a variety of technology management.

Yet when writing about a trending topic waiting for more than a day for publication is simply put: waiting a day too long. Remember this is a fast-paced world with many of us looking for instant gratification, before we move on to the next topic. On the Internet, today’s topic of interest is no longer relevant tomorrow. People have in that time moved in their perspectives, thoughts and desires on to something else that now interests them.

When writing for commercial pay-per-read sites then all articles are submitted to rigorous checks to ensure that the content is original. Whilst all sites do have a declaration check-box for the author to indicate the content is original, similar to that used by Triond. Of-course the content publishers must perform these checks, otherwise they may find themselves on the wrong side of a law suit. Yet this need has to be weighed against the need to publish quickly. This is all the difference having a human publisher at a newspaper can make, they weigh the overriding public interest and the  importance of the story against the possible income to be gained from publication. They know there is a possibility that the paper can be sued for a range of reasons, and some papers actually sought out stories that were on the edge because the law suit itself brought extra revenue (and most cases were dropped before trial).

Of course the dominance of newspapers and professional journalism is being challenged these days by these new ways of being published and some web based writers do make money through these journals. The fact is that the only way to publish about a trending topic is to publish on your own blog, for no direct pay (of course you can receive advertising revenues if these options are switched on and your site ranks well). Article checking software on pay sites will always take time to publish because of the interrogation carried out on your article.

For the writer it is much better to be ahead of the trend, but that is easier said than done. Yet it is crucial when writing for a pay-per-read site you want large volumes of readers because it brings in the revenue. It is also better when writing on a topic of general interest than a technical topic (which always has a much smaller audience whatever the subject).

Checking for originality is a fact of life for anything being published on-line these days, as is brevity – the shortest article I have seen was less than 10 words. Most publishers are looking for 500 words maximum, although they will always publish longer pieces, albeit cut up over several pages.

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For some in the industry that ability to be a specialist is the driving force behind the whole of their career – they wish to develop their skills and showcase an ability in a specific area. Yet for others that is not sufficient. So what knowledge and skills does a good CIO need?

Finance:

Generally there is nothing more important to a corporation than its finance solutions. It is a core capability and IT has a very important role to play. The astute IT leader needs to understand the impact of financial solutions and how they add value to the organisation.

Business Intelligence

A working knowledge of the contribution made by Business Intelligence to the corporate well being is a key skill. This is not purely about financial reporting, but is interlaced with marketing and operational elements and the contribution they make to corporate growth.

Managing Budgets

Managing projects is the starting point. Projects all have their own budgets that have to be controlled but this is only the starting point. The more complex the budgeting scenario the more prepared an individual can become for the step up the ladder.

Strategy

The more the IT Leader develops the more they are involved in strategic thinking. There are any number of new imperatives that impact the business. The majority change the organisation to some extent, but not all impact IT systems. It is essential to develop a strategic mind, which includes both business and technology futures.

Corporate Architecture

The CIO has to take a more holistic view and consider the single system within a wider context. An understanding of the key architectural assets: applications; data; storage; security; network. It is not necessary to have a detailed knowledge of each but a detailed knowledge of two specialities and a broad understanding of the others. This is still applicable as the architecture goes into the cloud.

Marketing

This demonstrates an understanding of the markets in which the corporation is active. Communications, positioning, and promotion are key parts of marketing and skills an IT leader should develop. Marketing is another client of the Business Intelligence solution which underpins finance, marketing and operational activity.

Communications

Any leader must have an ability to communicate well with the business community and senior executives. Business analysts and project managers typically develop this ability during their project work but many others in IT can be afraid to venture out of their shell.

Operations

Develop an understanding of the business operations. Parts of the business, like manufacturing, may not seem sexy, but IT systems have an impact in each area and should add value to each.

Organisational Change

All businesses change, it is a simple fact of life, growth, diversity, mergers, etc. all impact the way that a business is managed. The CIO needs to understand the way that an organisation is changing and to some extent anticipate this. Processes and systems do need to change in response to the ever changing business landscape.

Legal Understanding

IT is becoming increasingly impacted by legal change. SOX is merely the tip of the iceberg here. The IT Leader does need to consider the systems impact of new laws implemented in their jurisdiction and ensure their department is prepared. One current example here is e-discovery in the case of any legal action.

Organisational Development

In addition to contributing to change the CIO should be involved with ensuring that the people side to the organisation develops. This is not just a matter of IT people getting appropriate training, but in ensuring that the business community develops appropriate skills. This is normally managed in association with HR.

Conclusion

Armed with skills in each of these areas the young IT professional that is seeking can develop to become a future CIO. It is essential to understand that the ground is changing and the role of CIO is not the same today as it was perhaps ten years ago and the role is also changing right now. These are the skills that are necessary to develop as a future leader. Most importantly the CIO must add value to the organisation. Additionally it is important to build a network of business connections, that network is essential for your future growth.

For Business Intelligence which type of solution is best will ultimately depend on individual business circumstances. The solution type assessment that has been discussed in this series of articles will aid that decision.

We are in the age of careful spending. So companies need to know that each dollar spent is going to provide business value. It is important to develop a consolidated global view irrespective of operational software used. Consolidating data into a common platform is not always easy. The Data Warehouse must always be the single source of the truth for corporate information. This must be based on an open and flexible architecture that is extendible. To be clear, whether the data warehouse database is a bespoke design or implements a packaged solution there is still a large amount of work to be completed. There will always be the need to build a project team and acquire data for the data warehouse.

When ready made solutions provide best results

Generally ready-made solutions provide best results when they offer a high degree of integration for existing operational applications. If using a corporate-wide ERP or CRM solution that provides the backbone tying all corporate applications together then it is possible to utilise the associated data warehouse as the corporate Business Intelligence backbone. The preference for a pre-built database can be strengthened if all of the applications identified can be provided by the same vendor.

Ready-made solutions are becoming increasingly complex as the solution providers learn and adapt their data models based on real business scenarios, these will continue to evolve into the future.

What custom solutions can provide

Custom-made data warehouses are capable of supporting any application that is required to run against it. The primary concern will always be the amount of time necessary to develop any solution. Even where packaged Analytic applications are to be used is it generally necessary to tweak the metadata to enable them to function smoothly against the database. Often these Analytic applications can best be supported through a custom data mart, fed by the data warehouse – the single source of truth.

When custom solutions provide best results

Custom solutions provide the best results when there is a high degree of complexity in the corporate legacy architecture, even if there is an intention trim and simplify the architecture. Custom solutions are also best when the solution itself is likely to be unique in nature, e.g. when your corporation is genuinely the only corporation in the world doing this – however this situation is increasingly rare in today’s business climate.

Five years ago the combination of complex business processes and a complex architecture guaranteed that customised solutions were necessary. Today this is less clear cut. look at some industry models and see whether it is possible to adapt them before making the final decision.

Leveraging the Solution Type Assessment

In the earlier articles the author talked about a Solution Type Assessment. Through this process it is possible to build a score based on firstly mission criticality, and secondly the complexity rating for your organisation. These will act as a weighting factor for the importance of each item covered in the decision process.the weighting factor should be agreed before starting the assessment. In weighting there is a tendency for business to show a low weighting factor for IT issues, this MUST be avoided as the technical obstacles do need to be considered.

The Complexity to Provide column relates to the ability of the current data processing facilities to provide such data in a succinct and meaningful way. It becomes complex if data is stored in many different systems across the world, and in different languages. It is also complex if many types of data storage system are used (e.g. non-relational data stores and relational data bases can provide parts of the data).

Overall taking a solution type assessment will ensure the necessary due diligence considerations are covered. Of course capability has to assessed alongside the overall project costs. Customised solutions can be implemented over a longer period of time whereas ready-made solutions will generally be implemented altogether, even if some data comes on-line at a later date.

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This series will be taking a break for a few weeks, but when it returns the next article will focus on: “Staffing your BI Solution”

Previous:

Part 1: Financing the Business Intelligence Project (Buy or Build?)

Part 2: BI Project Decisions: Ready Made Database Options

Part 3: The Corporate Architecture and Complexity of Data Links

Part 4: Financing the BI Project: Uniqueness Factors (or USP)

Part 5: Starting your BI Project: Suitable Analytical Applications

My biggest concern here is not what Google is not doing now – that is what they should have always done. If any government wishes to censor the Internet they have to find a way to do it themselves and not expect co-operation from an international corporation.

The point here is that any company that is operating internationally has a duty, perhaps more than any single nation state, to function in association with international treaties. This type of issue will not be going away any time soon, it also applies to a variety of on-line services such as social networking sites. Twitter has found itself being blocked in China in relation to freedom of speech. In my view it is better to be blocked than to comply.

Now China is certainly not the only country to violate the basic freedoms or even make attacks on people’s rights of thought, conscience, opinion, speech, and expression. Switzerland with its ban on minarets attacks religious freedom. From a business perspective these can be complex questions, for Google in particular breaching their “Don’t be evil” motto has an impact on their business ethics. How each corporation acts is of-course entirely up to them, but it is important to make consistent policy and live by it.

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.

Determining a strategy based on this question will largely depend on what your marketplace is, who your typical customers are, their demographic characteristics and their psyche. The person making the marketing decisions will tend to turn towards familiar territory when developing a Social Media strategy, which may not always be the smart move. For example using Social Media when trying to promote a new product aimed at on-line teens; you will not find many teens on LinkedIn for example as the site is focused towards professionals and executives and the site policy states that it is for people over 18; yet this may be where our executive spends her on-line life.

In order to market to people through Social Media it is necessary more than ever before to develop a brand persona and bring that persona to life, more so than for any other form of communication. This has characteristics which will be recognised by target market – they will identify with it. The prospective customer needs to feel that they are communicating directly with that ‘person’, so it is necessary to breath life into the product.

All social media activity must be via the brand. Continuing on the theme of the teen market you will need to understand the different locations for teens interested in music than for teens interested in sporting goods, although there may be some crossover obviously. For the business seeking to intervene in social media it is important they find the right site to be involved in from the literally hundreds available. This choice will almost certainly include the style of music, since each tends to have very different sub-cultures.

This involves a lot of research into the right locations to use for the relevant market. It is also seen to be relevant to the prospects out there – having someone aged 50 writing the posts for a teen site might not be a smart move. Would they know whether it is cool, kool, kewl, or hot? The latest recruit or even the latest teen idol you are trying to generate interest in may be the right person to make the posts – spelling mistakes and all.

Food for thought.

Reference articles:

“Brand Elevation Through Social Media and Social Business”

“Social media can strengthen customer relationships”