My latest bi-monthly column for CIO magazine came out in print this week. In it I challenge CIOs to think hard about what made the role successful in the 1970s – then in the 1990s – and how it is transitioning today. Far too many CIOs are locked in on old notions about what made them successful – usually controlling both hardware and software and forcing managers to behave in ways acceptable to IT. But today cloud computing, mobile devices and apps make it possible for many "users" to obviate the IT department entirely – skip the enterprise applications – and find an easy route for their information needs.
I encourage you to click through to the article on CIO.com, or ComputerWorld.com – if you're in IT it should give you something to think about regarding your role. If you are an investor it should give you some new thoughts about what IT companies are worth your money (time to rethink Oracle and SAP, for example.) And if you're a manager it just might embolden you to focus on your needs and fight back on IT solutions that don't work for you.
"Too Add Value Through IT, Pick Up the Ball" headlines my latest article published by IDG group. For years IT leaders thought their job was to "keep the joint running." Today, that's insufficient. Nobody can avoid being part of the growth agenda if they are to be a successful leader or manager.
To drive success, and keep their jobs, IT leaders now have to move beyond simply being defensive. Keeping the systems running, and cutting operating costs, is not enough to be a great CIO. Too many have ended up outsourcing almost everything in order to lower costs, only to discover that IT becomes far too rigid and unable to support market needs when so many services are outsourced to third parties.
Today's CIO has to spend more time figuring out how to flexibly, adaptively, bring new solutions to both insiders and customers. It's important CIOs not just track historical (and accounting) data, but behave like the offensive team, identifying and tracking considerably more market-based data. And creating various future scenarios to help the company spot trends and opportunities. On top of this, IT must demonstrate how using emerging solutions – from Salesforce.com to Groupon, Foursquare and Facebook (examples) – can reach more customers, faster – driving higher revenues.
Read how important it is for IT to become part of the growth engine at one of the locations where this article has been published:
Additionally, read my latest article on effective strategic planning – for IT or any part of the organization – published by the Strategic Planning Society of the UK "Disrupting the Marketplace". This article describes how to add maximum value, growing revenue, cash flow and profits, by identifying and implementing opportunities to disrupt the marketplace. And allowing those disruptions to invade your own organization for more dynamism.
The “White Space” approach to innovation helps
to cut the time and cost of deploying new technologies.
That's the title of my first column, published yesterday, for CIOMagazine. The four steps of The Phoenix Principle are as valuable inside a function as they are for running an entire business. And for IT shops, the value of using White Space to implement new technologies and solutions is extremely valuable.
This article overviews how world class IT shops avoid getting stuck with most of their budget tied up supporting legacy (and aging) solutions by using White Space to keep their technology base, and user support, ahead of competition. And the more they use White Space, the better they get at leading their companies to faster market reaction and superior rates of return.
Give it a read, you'll find it valuable for any function hoping to be an industry leader.
Here's a one minute video on the value of White Space – and how leading companies like Google master this capability:
