Tag Archives: CIO

Top communication tips for winning over the business

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Does IT need an image make over? Here’s my latest feature for TechRepublic, which discusses the need for CIOs to develop a well-honed communications strategy.

IT tends to neglect its own PR – and often only steps up communications with the business when things have already gone wrong. That approach has to change, say a growing number of IT leaders.

Communicating the value of technology to rest of the business is tough. Other functions, such as accounts or facilities, exist in almost splendid isolation, but technology has become the underlying architecture of the modern organisation.

CIOs charged with running the IT architecture have to communicate value to an increasingly technically literate audience. They have to deal with high user expectations, pushed upwards as employees in the age of consumerisation often have better access to technology at home than in the workplace.

But help can come in the form of a carefully-honed communications strategy, and leading CIOs are already drawing on external expertise to prove the business benefits of IT. Here, three CIOs share their top tips for using communications to boost business perceptions of IT.

To read the rest of the feature, please click here.

Does CIO mean career is over?

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Has the role of the CIO had its day? Or, is such a leadership vision needed now more than ever? In a recent column for IT Pro, I examined the future of the IT leadership role:

Regular proclamations throughout the media from so-called experts make the same assertion about IT leadership: CIO stands for ‘career is over’ and the technology chief is an endangered species that will soon be executively extinct.

Such a standpoint is, in short, ridiculous. The rise of the digital business means technology, and its management, has never been more important to a successful organisation. So, why is there a belief that the CIO role is on the way out?

One possible explanation is that, while technology underpins modern business, it has also become increasingly consumable. Long gone are the days when you looked forward to getting to the office so you could use a quick computer to surf the web.

To read the rest of the feature, please click here.

Want to succeed in IT? Five tips from the top

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How to reach the very top of the IT profession may remain a closed book to most technologists, but leading CIO Paul Coby presented some simple advice to me for TechRepublic on the best way to get there:

So, you want to be a top CIO? Sounds like a reasonable career aim, but how do you climb the greasy pole and reach the highest echelons of IT leadership?

If you want best-practice career advice, it makes sense to listen to people who have already excelled – and are continuing to excel – in the technology chief position. Paul Coby is one such CIO, IT director at UK retail giant John Lewis and former technology chief at British Airways.

Coby spent a decade as group CIO of the airline, a role he prefaced with 17 years at the forefront of the UK public sector. As well as running IT for John Lewis, Coby holds a senior position at advisory body e-skills UK. Here, he draws on his experience and offers his five top tips to IT professionals looking to become a successful next-generation CIO.

To read the rest of the feature, please click here.

Five reasons why cloud computing won’t face a backlash

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Business computing is slowly but surely moving on-demand, with analysts suggesting the cloud will be a standard way of sourcing technology over the next decade. So what will such a change mean for the IT organisation and the wider business? My feature for TechRepublic investigates:

Just as outsourcing experienced a backlash because of its effect on employees, will organisations and IT departments that externalise technology through the cloud also suffer a negative reaction? TechRepublic seeks the opinion of five IT experts.

Kurt Frary, ICT architecture manager at Norfolk County Council, is looking to develop partnerships with suppliers to improve services, and is considering the potential of approaches such as the cloud.

“At key decision points, you must consider all service options,” he says. ”There are some things we just can’t put into the cloud, like the social care system. You evaluate the decision point and work with that. Cloud is not always a risk to jobs, but it could be a risk in regards to a change in the type of jobs an organisation can offer,” says Frary.

To read the rest of the feature, please click here.

What will your next network look like?

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My latest feature for TechRepublic includes conversations with five IT experts who demonstrate how the next-generation network needs to be flexible, responsive and ready for changing business demands.

It’s one thing giving your employees access to information on the move, but it is quite another to create the type of network that can cope with the continuing demand for data and devices, both now and in the future. How can CIOs create an information network that can deal with the evolving requirements of internal and external customers?

Analyst Ovum estimates 70 percent of large companies have extensive networking requirements, with CIOs at such firms recognising that increased complexity in business applications is pushing the demand for a more sophisticated management approach.

“Apps are cascading through the organisation in every way, from workflow and testing through to e-commerce and billing,” says David Molony, principal analyst at Ovum. “CIOs now have to deal with the interconnectedness of machines. And it means IT leaders are looking for more flexibility and responsiveness in the networks that their businesses use.”

To read the rest of the feature, please click here.

Is the PSN really a shortcut to shared services?

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While the network of networks for public sector organisations is gathering pace, my latest piece for Guardian Government Computing examines the obstacles that could lie ahead for greater take up of shared services:

In austere times, the sharing of services – from back office processes to communications infrastructure and software – is viewed as a simple way to cut duplication and generate efficiencies.

But cost-cutting aside, the take up of shared services may get a further boost from the PSN (public services network). It is anticipated that as many as 80% of public sector employees, or four million individuals, will be using the PSN by the end of 2014, and the two key frameworks that govern the network of networks are expected imminently.

The government hopes the PSN will provide a significant support for the shared services approach, helping organisations to change the way they work together. If that vision is to become reality, there could be more than one bump in the road, according to chief information officers (CIOs). Linda Herbert, director of IT at the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service (COPFS), recognises the timing of the PSN is expedient.

To read the rest of the feature, please click here.

Five ways to ensure the IT leader role wins out

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My latest piece for TechRepublic shows how even though many finance chiefs seem to think the days of the CIO role may be numbered, IT leaders still have a number of options to strengthen their hand:

The headline figures make grim reading for IT professionals hoping to build a long-term career as a CIO. Almost one in five CFOs thinks the CIO role will disappear within five years, according to new research.

Worse, the survey of 203 key financial decision-makers by IT specialist Getronics and consultancy Loudhouse suggests 43 per cent of CFOs believe the IT leadership role will inevitably merge with the top finance position.

So, how can CIOs ensure their role does not become redundant? Here are five top tips from IT leaders and finance chiefs.

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Five tips for CIOs looking to create real change in two years

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The pressure on CIOs to make telling business improvements quickly is increasing – I recently presented five ways for IT leaders to make a mark in an article for TechRepublic:

What once took years now takes weeks. The fast-pace of technological development, supported by on-demand computing and the consumerisation of IT, means enterprise technology can now be adopted and used more quickly than ever before. So, how long do CIOs need to make their mark on an organisation?

IT strategy cycles traditionally run somewhere between three and five years. That schedule is consistent with tenures in the IT C-suite, with analyst Gartner reporting that the average time a CIO spends in post is four years and four months.

However, contract lengths vary considerably between sectors and nations. The Government Accountability Office, for example, reports the average tenure of government sector CIOs in the US is as low as two years. TechRepublic spoke to IT experts and got five top tips for how CIOs can act strategically in a digital age.

To read the rest of the feature, please click here.

Sainsbury’s IT chief: Why communication is key to IT success

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Sainsbury’s head of IT Rob Fraser knows that if you talk data centres and servers, you’ll lose your audience. So he’s been focusing on communication and the business skills of his tech staff, as he explained to me in a feature for silicon.com:

Rob Fraser, head of IT and a member of the operating board at retail giant Sainsbury’s, has worked hard since his appointment in July 2009 to ensure the resources of the inhouse technology team match the key objectives of the business. Crucially, the core of his attempt to meet such aims is people rather than simply technology.

Fraser says former CIO Angela Morrison put a lot of effort into reintegrating inhouse staff, following a period of outsourcing with service provider Accenture at the start of the century. The engagement of the firm’s 500 inhouse IT staff remains a critical priority.

“Our IT team complete the upfront tasks that make sure business outcomes are met,” says Fraser. “We don’t want technologists. We want people with an understanding of how retail works. The strategy and planning will support our great IT people. We want the dynamic to continually evolve from push to pull, so the business can always come to us for great ideas on what to do next.”

To read the rest of the feature, please click here.

Embrace transformation for the benefit of the business

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Are you ready for the digital future and the ever-continuing flux that will constitute the role of the modern IT leader?

More than anything else, CIO Connect’s 2012 Horizons research of more than 200 technology executives shows the target for high-quality IT leaders in the digital age is getting broader and wider. As the executive responsible for technology, the CIO looking to take advantage of the leadership opportunity must embrace transformation for the benefit of the business.

IT leaders are used to change; in short, they have to be. The mechanics – the basic building blocks of the IT industry – change and flex almost continuously with time. Today’s fundamental business technology has always been tomorrow’s potential legacy system.

But decades of enterprise IT implementations mean constrictions associated with legacy technology have become an issue common to all businesses, regardless of sector or specialism. And the modern pace of change in the digital age could, from the point of view of the sceptic, serve to create more complexity.

CIOs who managed what seemed like the fast-paced transformation associated with distributed computing and electronic commerce, now find themselves confronted with lightning speed change. The confluence of mobile, consumer, cloud and social technologies means the defensible enterprise perimeter has become a nebulous concept.

Our Horizons research shows CIOs recognise employees now demand a free choice of mobile device, and use such tools to draw on enterprise information on-demand. Building a firewall and locking down access is no longer an option because technology, and the knowledge it enables, is being democratised.

Yet the pace of change is no reason to be scared. Savvy CIOs are embracing consumerisation and showing the business how technology can help engage with customers whose opinions were previously hidden. It is the CIO, rather than the marketing director or another c-level strategist, who must grasp the nettle and demonstrate how going digital improves the business.

Responding CIOs also recognise that the cloud, although in its infancy, could help the business to really use IT flexibly and to create an approach to technology that concentrates on value-added outcomes, rather than being constrained by the fears of legacy infrastructures.

Now is your opportunity to finally address the embedded perceptions of the IT department, where the technology team is viewed as practising a dark art that only acts to reduce the potential for change. Leadership in the digital age means the converse is now true and CIOs must show a business-enabled approach to IT that is agile and light-to-the-touch.

Your first step towards success – whether working as a change leader, digital designer or a shared services executive – is to grab the attention of the chief executive and to work with trusted partners to deliver set objectives that relate to specific business outcomes. Now, more than ever before, is your opportunity to change the business for the better.

The above column summarised CIO Connect’s 2012 Horizons survey and was included in the recently released edition (issue 37) of CIO Connect magazine