REALIZING INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY VALUE Why CIOs and senior managers should unite
By Professor Donald A. Marchand. (June, 2007)
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REALIZING INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY VALUE | Why CIOs and senior managers should unite
Is your company getting maximum value from IT? Professor Donald Marchand explains why traditional attitudes to IT should be left behind. Where to position IT in your business is a cloudy issue. Our research confirms that senior managers today see the value of IT as going beyond the IT function. For them, it touches on every part of the organization. General managers need to instill the right behaviors for information and knowledge sharing and use. Employees need to share and not hoard information. It even touches on HR because the business needs to hire and develop the right people with the right attitude towards decision-making and innovation. CIOs on the other hand tend to focus on achieving results by aligning IT with the business, and deploying it. Historically, they have let the business units worry about how information is managed and used. So who should take responsibility for managing information, IT and people (knowledge) in your company? Most companies fall into one of two camps. In the first, the senior managers take a traditional view. They have grown up seeing IT as a competitive necessity. They invest as much as their competitors do in IT, but no more. The CIO reports to the CFO, and focuses on operating and standardizing systems. The second is “the business impact view.” Here managers have a more strategic outlook. They see IT as a source of advantage. Information and knowledge play a key role in their business model and they know that good IT systems and processes are vital. In fact your CIO’s mindset has an enormous impact on how much or how little value you get from IT. Those who come from technical backgrounds may find it difficult to think about how information is used in a business. However, some may have a head for strategy and are able to redesign IT processes that really add value.
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REALIZING INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY VALUE | Why CIOs and senior managers should unite
Typically, you find four scenarios in most companies: IT doesn’t matter Here IT is important as an operational support and competitive necessity. The focus is on standardization issues, automating supply chain transactions, etc. IT leaves business managers to decide how to manage and use information and business intelligence. IT pushes the business Here we see IT wanting to play a strategic role. The CIO believes he/she needs to drive IT initiatives. But the business has a traditional view of IT and does not understand why IT wants to be involved. This scenario is high risk for the CIO. IT stands to lose credibility if a project goes wrong. He/she needs to get buy in from the management team and this is not always easy. The business pulls IT In this scenario, business managers want to use information and IT strategically. But if IT is not able to supply the right systems, they find the expertise elsewhere. I call this “shadow IT”. IT is not sufficiently focused on innovation in the business. This leaves both sides frustrated - IT because it is being sidelined, business managers because IT is not responsive. IT does matter Here, IT is seen as a source of business value through growth, innovation and differentiation. In this case, the CIO has to understand the difference between the deployment of IT and the actual use of IT in the business. The CIO is a real player and is involved in strategy discussions.
In the final scenario, both groups - the managers and the CIOs - are on the same page. They understand what motivates people to share knowledge, how to facilitate this, how to use it in their business through their culture and processes, and how to deliver it at the right time and right place for decision-making and performance improvement. If you want to achieve this in your business you will need to ask yourself if you have had the right conversations in your management team - with everyone on board. Secondly ask yourself: Where are you today as a management team in terms of your view of the role of information, people and IT in your business model? How do you think about it?
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REALIZING INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY VALUE | Why CIOs and senior managers should unite
If you are not clear about this, then you need to go further. Are you traditionalist? Do you understand what you are really going after? Make an honest assessment. At the same time, do you have the right CIO at the table? Can he/she move from a traditional role into a more strategic role, a leadership role? Can they work with other managers to seek the opportunities, take the risk to achieve results? This brings me neatly back to my original question and by now the answer should be clear. The leadership and management of information, IT resources and people (knowledge) is the shared responsibility of senior managers and CIOs. Shared opportunities, shared risk, and at the end of it, shared results. Professor Marchand teaches on the Breakthrough Program for Senior Executives (BPSE), Mastering Technology Enterprise (MTE) and the Orchestrating Winning Performance (OWP) programs.
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REALIZING INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY VALUE | Why CIOs and senior managers should unite
RELATED PROGRAMS
BREAKTHROUGH PROGRAM FOR SENIOR EXECUTIVES http://www.imd.ch/bpse High Impact Strategy and Leadership - Use your senior position to get things done Program Director Peter Killing -
Define your must-win battles and develop a personal action plan
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Identify new opportunities in your business to create exceptional value
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Learn how to lift your corporate and personal performance to new heights and pass important leadership lessons on to others
MASTERING TECHNOLOGY ENTERPRISE - http://www.imd.ch/mte Preparing Technical Managers for the Challenges of General Management - Preparing technical experts to lead Program Director Ralf W. Seifert -
Prepares technically trained managers from technology or knowledge-based industries to be company leaders
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Gives you a deeper understanding of the business functions, processes and challenges the technology enterprise faces
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Helps you grow personally, develops your leadership potential, boosts your selfconfidence and teaches you how to use cutting-edge management tools to lead organizational change
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