CIOs have an opportunity to drive strategy and create business value, and not just reduce costs
Traditional IT departments are being dismantled piece-by-piece. Cloud services, Bring Your Own Device (BYOD), and even the drive for tighter integration with our partners, are poking holes in our IT organizations. More and more of the technology that our businesses use is purchased and controlled by someone other than the IT department.
But is this such a bad thing? As IT leaders, do we want to continue to be chief infrastructure owners and order takers?
The traditional CIO role is fading into the sunset. The businesses we work for are moving from needing to own technology to focusing on using what they can find around them.
We have an opportunity to carve out a new role for ourselves. A role where we bring together the technologies and skills our business needs to drive itself forward. The technology our business needs if it is to avoid problems and pounce on opportunities.
CIOs have the opportunity to make themselves as invaluable to their businesses as the CFO. The CIO as the in-depth professional who ensures that technology is an opportunity to exploited, rather than an albatross that drags the business down.
The demise of the Chief Infrastructure Officer
Our IT departments were built around the need for centralized control of expensive IT assets. Aside from brief episodes, such as the birth of spreadsheets and the desktop PC, most IT departments have kept a tight rein on where and how technology is used.
The success of our business depended on the quality of the tools it uses – the business processes and systems we rely on to keep the organization humming – as the business will fail if its tools fail. It’s not hard to find a business that will be significantly out of pocket if a core system fails at an inopportune moment, taking a day’s orders with it.
However, the environment our IT departments operate in has changed. We’ve used technology to solve the vast majority of the internal problems that business has, from maintaining finances through to managing supply chains and customer records.
The problems that our legacy solutions solve are now well enough understood for the solutions to be delivered as a service. Many of us are in the process of swapping our expensive on-premises solutions for more adaptable cloud-based services. This shift to cloud-based services is removing many of the traditional responsibilities of a CIO.
Technology is now central to how our organizations engage their market
The focus for enterprise technology has shifted from internal to external problems.
How do we integrate the heterogeneous and global supplier networks we need to operate in today’s global economy?
How do we support a workforce where many of the people working for our business are not employed by it? Our workforce is mobile, knitted together from baby boomers through Gen X to Gen Y, staff from suppliers and partners, through to free agents and even our customers.
How do we make sense of the many weak and confusing signals from the market, using social media as something more than a dog whistle? And how do we unlock the value in the disparate databases, spreadsheets and documents spread around our enterprise?
Which CxO will “own” technology?
We can see the shift in technology from an internal to an external focus is the tension between the CMO and CIO.
Many CMOs are on a similar journey to that which the supply chain team went through in the 80s and 90s. They’re experimenting with technology as they work to solve a poorly-defined and unstructured problem.
Our supply chain toolkit was built on the inventory management solutions installed at factories and warehouses, creating event management and planning solutions to help manage the flow of goods. Finally sales and operations planning was used to tie the end-to-end supply chain together.
Supply chain matured from a craft into a science as we broke apart the problem and then built out the toolkit needed to run an efficient supply chain.
CMOs are investing in new technology and new solutions. They’re building social media war rooms. They’re experimenting as they work to develop the toolkit they need to run an efficient and effective marketing operation. A marketing operation that must live in a world dominated by social media and omni-channel.
Best practice is currently based on disconnected solutions and tribal knowledge. Best practice, however, will mature rapidly, just as it did in supply chain.
The CMO is discovering what signals from the market to pay attention to (and which to ignore), what technology works (and what doesn’t) and how to structure their team to enable it to scale.
IT leaders have a lot to offer the CMO, just as we do to other business leaders.
CIO: Chief Inspiration / Innovation / Integration Officer
The IT department can help pollinate ideas and technology across the business, and across partners and industry. IT can make connections between needs and (potential) solutions.
We can help the business procure and manage their technology, ensuring that it is secure and reliable. And we can help them make the most of their technology purchases by integrating them into the business.
HR departments have renewed themselves by helping the business get the most from its knowledge workers; creative, problem solving people within the business. IT leadership can renew itself by helping the business get the most from its technology.
In an age when technology is woven into the very fabric of the business, companies depend on it not just to save money through automation but to also create opportunities.
Few companies would consider doing without a CFO and finance department, as finance is central to resource management. Few companies will be able to do without a CIO and IT department, as IT is central to a company’s ability to engage the market and create new opportunities.
Our business now lives or dies in its skill in using technology
Businesses used to live or die on the quality of their tools: the business processes and solutions that they invested so heavily in. Today businesses live or die on their ability to adapt: their ability to use the tools around them to solve the problem (or capitalize on the opportunity) in front of them.
The CIO is the in-depth professional who can bring together the technologies and skills that the business needs to drive itself forward, to enable it to avoid problems, and to pounce on opportunities and adapt.
IT is no longer just a cost of doing business. IT has become one of our major tools to engage customers and go to market. IT is now firmly at the centre of business, and our business will fail if we fail to use IT effectively.
What is your experience with the changing role of the CIO? Will IT spend migrate out of the IT department leaving an empty husk behind? Or can we reinvent the CIO role? And if so, what does the future CIO role look like?
What’s the Future of the CIO?
By Peter Evans GreenwoodCIOs have an opportunity to drive strategy and create business value, and not just reduce costs
Traditional IT departments are being dismantled piece-by-piece. Cloud services, Bring Your Own Device (BYOD), and even the drive for tighter integration with our partners, are poking holes in our IT organizations. More and more of the technology that our businesses use is purchased and controlled by someone other than the IT department.
But is this such a bad thing? As IT leaders, do we want to continue to be chief infrastructure owners and order takers?
The traditional CIO role is fading into the sunset. The businesses we work for are moving from needing to own technology to focusing on using what they can find around them.
We have an opportunity to carve out a new role for ourselves. A role where we bring together the technologies and skills our business needs to drive itself forward. The technology our business needs if it is to avoid problems and pounce on opportunities.
CIOs have the opportunity to make themselves as invaluable to their businesses as the CFO. The CIO as the in-depth professional who ensures that technology is an opportunity to exploited, rather than an albatross that drags the business down.
The demise of the Chief Infrastructure Officer
Our IT departments were built around the need for centralized control of expensive IT assets. Aside from brief episodes, such as the birth of spreadsheets and the desktop PC, most IT departments have kept a tight rein on where and how technology is used.
The success of our business depended on the quality of the tools it uses – the business processes and systems we rely on to keep the organization humming – as the business will fail if its tools fail. It’s not hard to find a business that will be significantly out of pocket if a core system fails at an inopportune moment, taking a day’s orders with it.
However, the environment our IT departments operate in has changed. We’ve used technology to solve the vast majority of the internal problems that business has, from maintaining finances through to managing supply chains and customer records.
The problems that our legacy solutions solve are now well enough understood for the solutions to be delivered as a service. Many of us are in the process of swapping our expensive on-premises solutions for more adaptable cloud-based services. This shift to cloud-based services is removing many of the traditional responsibilities of a CIO.
Technology is now central to how our organizations engage their market
The focus for enterprise technology has shifted from internal to external problems.
How do we integrate the heterogeneous and global supplier networks we need to operate in today’s global economy?
How do we support a workforce where many of the people working for our business are not employed by it? Our workforce is mobile, knitted together from baby boomers through Gen X to Gen Y, staff from suppliers and partners, through to free agents and even our customers.
How do we make sense of the many weak and confusing signals from the market, using social media as something more than a dog whistle? And how do we unlock the value in the disparate databases, spreadsheets and documents spread around our enterprise?
Which CxO will “own” technology?
We can see the shift in technology from an internal to an external focus is the tension between the CMO and CIO.
Many CMOs are on a similar journey to that which the supply chain team went through in the 80s and 90s. They’re experimenting with technology as they work to solve a poorly-defined and unstructured problem.
Our supply chain toolkit was built on the inventory management solutions installed at factories and warehouses, creating event management and planning solutions to help manage the flow of goods. Finally sales and operations planning was used to tie the end-to-end supply chain together.
Supply chain matured from a craft into a science as we broke apart the problem and then built out the toolkit needed to run an efficient supply chain.
CMOs are investing in new technology and new solutions. They’re building social media war rooms. They’re experimenting as they work to develop the toolkit they need to run an efficient and effective marketing operation. A marketing operation that must live in a world dominated by social media and omni-channel.
Best practice is currently based on disconnected solutions and tribal knowledge. Best practice, however, will mature rapidly, just as it did in supply chain.
The CMO is discovering what signals from the market to pay attention to (and which to ignore), what technology works (and what doesn’t) and how to structure their team to enable it to scale.
IT leaders have a lot to offer the CMO, just as we do to other business leaders.
CIO: Chief Inspiration / Innovation / Integration Officer
The IT department can help pollinate ideas and technology across the business, and across partners and industry. IT can make connections between needs and (potential) solutions.
We can help the business procure and manage their technology, ensuring that it is secure and reliable. And we can help them make the most of their technology purchases by integrating them into the business.
HR departments have renewed themselves by helping the business get the most from its knowledge workers; creative, problem solving people within the business. IT leadership can renew itself by helping the business get the most from its technology.
In an age when technology is woven into the very fabric of the business, companies depend on it not just to save money through automation but to also create opportunities.
Few companies would consider doing without a CFO and finance department, as finance is central to resource management. Few companies will be able to do without a CIO and IT department, as IT is central to a company’s ability to engage the market and create new opportunities.
Our business now lives or dies in its skill in using technology
Businesses used to live or die on the quality of their tools: the business processes and solutions that they invested so heavily in. Today businesses live or die on their ability to adapt: their ability to use the tools around them to solve the problem (or capitalize on the opportunity) in front of them.
The CIO is the in-depth professional who can bring together the technologies and skills that the business needs to drive itself forward, to enable it to avoid problems, and to pounce on opportunities and adapt.
IT is no longer just a cost of doing business. IT has become one of our major tools to engage customers and go to market. IT is now firmly at the centre of business, and our business will fail if we fail to use IT effectively.
What is your experience with the changing role of the CIO? Will IT spend migrate out of the IT department leaving an empty husk behind? Or can we reinvent the CIO role? And if so, what does the future CIO role look like?
Conversation with Gerd Leonhard: The future of privacy in a world of government data gathering
By Ross DawsonI recently spend some time with Gerd Leonhard recording some conversations about the future. After our video on Big Data, here are our thoughts on the future of privacy in the wake of the disclosures of NSA and US government data gathering.
Some of the points we made in our conversation:
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Leadership in enterprise technology must come from all organizational functions
By Ross DawsonThis morning I gave the opening keynote at SAP Australia Users Group Summit on Leadership in Enterprise Technology.
One of my central themes was that leadership in enterprise technology no longer resides just with the CIO and IT function.
The Future of the CIO is absolutely a critical frame, not least because I believe the CIO has primary responsibility for guiding boards of directors and top executive teams to understand the importance of technology in their organization’s future.
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The crime of the century: stopping the potential of connectivity
By Ross DawsonLast week I gave the keynotes at the Sydney and Melbourne relaunch events of Nextgen Group, which has restructured and rebranded with the acquisition of 70% of the group by Ontario Teachers Pension Plan (OTPP) from Leighton Holdings. The group provides networks, data centers, and hosting services, including a 100Gbps link between major Australian cities, and is building a submarine fibre cable linking Australia to Singapore.
The theme of my keynote was The Future of a Connected World, showcasing some of most interesting implications and potential of connectivity.
To provide some context for the future I spent a moment looking at the past of connectivity, which unfortunately is not always as happy a story as the future.
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Amsterdam visit September 18-20: keynotes at Dutch Future Society and on the future of investment management
By Ross DawsonI am looking forward to getting back to Amsterdam this September 18-20, after doing the keynote at TheNextWeb last year.
I will be giving a keynote on The Future of Investment Management and run an executive workshop on Creating the Successful Organisation of the Future at the closed-door SimCorp International User Community Meeting.
I will also be giving a keynote at the Dutch Future Society, described here:
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Meeting of the Minds with Gerd Leonhard: The implications of Big Data
By Ross DawsonMy futurist colleague Gerd Leonhard and I have highly complementary perspectives, so we are finding increasing interest in engaging us together for executive sessions.
When Gerd was in Sydney two years ago we created a series of videos together. After I recently did a keynote in Interlaken, Switzerland, I visited Gerd at his home in Basel where we did another series of videos for his Meeting of the Minds project. Here is the first one in the series, on Big data.
Just a few of the points we cover in our conversation:
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Metropolitan IQ and Urban metabolism: Great case studies of innovative, collaborative cities
By Ross DawsonLast week I went to the launch of an excellent issues paper created by The Committee for Sydney, titled #wethecity: Collaborating to Compete in the Digital Era.
Lucy Turnbull, chair of Committee of Sydney, notes in her opening comments that:
Cities are collaborating to compete and the ones that collaborate most compete best.
The paper focuses on the challenges and opportunities for Sydney, with the summary recommendations at the bottom of this post.
However to understand how innovative cities can be designed, the paper notes that [Leading cities] invest in the art and practice of what we could describe as “systematic serendipity”.
It draws on 16 excellent case studies of how to develop “metropolitan IQ” and a healthy “urban metabolism” (analogies I of course love), including both international and Australian examples. These are summarized below and described in detail in the paper:
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The immense social media opportunity for real estate
By Ross DawsonThe Weekend Australian last Saturday had an interesting article titled Facebook shakes up house hunt (subscription may be required).
It described how a couple had bought their dream home after finding it on the Facebook page of a real estate agent. They arranged to inspect it immediately after it appeared on the page and bought it the next day, before the for-sale sign had been put up in the yard.
The journalist writing the article called me for some comments and included this at the end of the piece:
This is true, but I think what was more interesting was the rest of what I said to the journalist, which wasn’t quoted in the article.
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Keynote slides: The Power of Social Media including 8 shock-and-awe statistics
By Ross DawsonTomorrow I am giving the closing keynote at Oracle Cloud Day Auckland on The Power of Social Media. Below are my keynote slides.
The usual disclaimer applies: the slides are designed to accompany my keynote, not to be viewed as stand-alone slides, but may still be of some interest to those who have not attended my presentation.
The Power of Social Media – Keynote slides from Ross Dawsn
The keynote provides a whistle-stop tour of the value of social media, beginning with statistics showing that New Zealand is a world leader in the use of social media and going on to provide a few select statistics that bring home the enormity of the impact of social media.
I then go through three major perspectives on social media: Engagement, Organizations, and Individuals, and finish off by spinning through our Social Media Strategy Framework and some perspectives on why effective Leadership is essential for value creation from social media.
Here are the statistics I provide (together with sources):
* More than 1.7 billion people are on social networks (eMarketer)
* Over 30 billion pieces of content are shared on Facebook monthly (Facebook)
* 46% of consumers have used social media to help make purchasing decisions (Nielsen)
* 55% of under 35s share bad customer service experiences on social media (YouGov)
* Managers who use social media are 39% more likely to have been promoted recently (Millward Brown)
* 36% of 60-year old New Zealanders are on Facebook (Facebook) (compared to 43% of over 65 year old Americans on social networks (Pew))
* US$900-1300 billion annual value that could be unlocked by social technologies (McKinsey Global Institute)
* Over 85% of Facebook activity from Egypt in early 2011 was political (Dubai School of Government)
Emerging markets professionals are at the vanguard of the future of professional work
By Ross DawsonA very interesting global survey title The Professional Revolution has just been released by Thomson Reuters (Disclosure: I long ago worked for its predecessor Thomson Financial as Global Director – Capital Markets).
The report uncovers a number of very interesting insights into professionals and professional work. One of the most interesting is the differences between emerging market and developed market professionals.
The most interesting statistics from the report, shown below, show emerging market professionals demonstrating clear leadership in creating the future of professional work.
Source of all charts is the report The Professional Revolution.
Emerging market professionals are substantially more entrepreneurial than their developed market counterparts, wanting to drive change and initiatives, and preferring a competitive environment. They also recognize there is no conflict between competition and collaboration, and that collaborative work is the essence of professional growth and work satisfaction.
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