Change Management / Case studies

Creating the desire for change

If you’ve made any new year resolutions this year and have started to find yourself slipping back into your old “2011” habits then you’ll understand how difficult it is to change.
Similarly in business it has been well documented that one of the major reasons for failure to deliver successful change initiatives can be attributed to the over-emphasis on process and technology rather than the people.

Written by Paul de Quaasteniet07 Feb. 12 22:00

'You have to be masochist to be an IT person'

You have to be a masochist to want to be an IT person,'' says Robert Carter. And he would know. Carter is the soft-spoken, hard-driving CIO who has been fighting for the past 11 years to transform IT operations at FedEx, where "the planes don't fly and trucks don't roll without IT services.''

Written by Neal Weinberg18 Oct. 11 22:00

The CIO's role in social enterprise strategy

Social technology offers considerable promise, but CIOs and business units are struggling to figure out how to use it effectively. A key reason is that most social media outside the enterprise is just pure communication. Making the same use of these tools inside the enterprise only imposes more channels on already overwhelmed staff. What’s needed are alternatives woven into the existing IT fabric that help users sift through information and that augment existing business processes, making it possible to alleviate rather than add to communications overload.
Some popular social enterprise tools do meld communication and context for better collaboration, which is where the focus should be. But too many enterprises still assume that social tools can only mimic consumer use. That assumption is why it is hard for the CIO to make a strong case for enterprise adoption of social technologies, and why an evolutionary approach is warranted.

Written by Bud Mathaisel15 Oct. 11 22:00

Takeover targets

It all sounds so exciting in theory. A company pulls off a coup, taking over a rival and the chief executive proudly spruiks to the sharemarket about the wonderful benefits, synergies and innovations that will result from joining forces with a former foe.
As the cameras in the news conference flash and the two CEOs shake hands and grin, somewhere in the shadows stand an anxious pair of executives sweating over thoughts about what the future holds.

Written by Paul Smith08 Oct. 11 22:00

The ‘new normal’: Time to hit reset

What advice do you offer CFOs on positioning for recovery following the recession? “There’s a need to ‘audit’ and reset the strategies of the organisation to drive new growth opportunities, value creation and manage strategic risk. The primary challenge for most organisations is to achieve profitable growth and innovation and co-create the future with their customers, employees and other stakeholders. This requires developing the business case for growth opportunities that will allow companies to move beyond the ‘new normal’ and start growing the business again. Strengthening enterprise risk management (ERM) for competitive advantage is another challenge. Boards of directors are asking executive teams to focus on strategic risks and to strengthen ERM in ways that’ll complement the business strategy and drive competitive advantage.”
What recommendations do you make to CFOs who are stretched ‘keeping the lights on’? “CFOs can think over two levels of strategic leadership: Level 1 is ‘managing the present’, which focuses on keeping the lights on, keeping customers and so on. Level 2 is ‘co-creating the future’, which involves innovation for future growth. This means balancing focus on executing strategy while continuing to develop options for growth in the future.”

Written by CFO New Zealand27 March 11 23:00

Grow your own CIO

Last summer, about 30 hand-picked IT managers convened in an executive classroom for the third session of CIO University, a leadership development program for would-be CIOs. The agenda was chock-full of sessions covering best practices for stakeholder management along with role-playing exercises to explore the Thomas-Kilmann model of conflict resolution. Guest speakers included C-level executives as well as former attendees who had gone on to become CIOs. A post-session happy hour and dinner gave participants a chance to network, exchange insights and simply blow off steam.

Written by Beth Stackpole07 Feb. 11 22:00

How to protect your company during a relocation

In its 16 years of business, DataServ Solutions has relocated five times. That makes David Berndt, CIO at the document-digitisation and process-automation company in St. Louis, Missouri, in the US, something of an expert on the topic of securing corporate moves.
"By now, we've got a good process," he says. In the most recent move this past February, nothing was lost or damaged. "We shut down the office at about 2:30 on Friday, and we were up 100 percent on Monday, with no disruption for our clients and no service levels missed."

Written by Mary Brandel08 Sept. 10 22:00

Change or be ousted

CIOs know all about change management - from jettisoning legacy apps, to prodding line of business VPs to share virtualised resources.
But today, CIOs themselves are in the midst of a make-or-break personal change-management project: CIOs who can only take orders, who can't speak the language of the business, who can't step out of the proverbial back-office and into the front lines of customer service, social media or supply chain management will soon go the way of ancient tech gear - remembered fondly on occasion but sidelined in the future.

Written by Thomas Wailgum23 Aug. 10 22:00

Talking change

Whether connecting people to their colleagues, customers or business partners more effectively, or enabling them to get the right information to those people when it is needed, collaboration technologies are playing a central role in changing the way we work.
MIS Australia recently hosted two round table events sponsored by Microsoft – one in Canberra with public sector chief information officers, the other in Sydney with their private sector counterparts – to discuss how collaboration technologies are helping organisations make better business decisions.

Written by Brian Corrigan13 June 10 22:00

BT B4 itz 2L8

The argument to change the IT (Information Technologist) job title to BT (Business Technologist) has been gaining resonance with me lately, as I take a long-term look at the strategic value of our department to the business.
Briefly, Forrester’s CEO George Colony has been promoting the idea as a “final metamorphosis”, to send a strong signal to the organisation that IT people aren’t just in the technology business, but the company’s business as well.

Written by Aubrey Christmas26 May 10 22:00

Shared services: Testing the maturity of CIO functions

As governments on a global basis seek to reduce business-as-usual ICT costs, many are turning to centralisation and shared services to harness economies of scale. Shared services offer an apparently elegant solution to the problems of excessive devolution of ICT.
While the logic of consolidation, rationalisation, and economies of scale is undeniable, making the new organisational relationships work is another matter. Shared ICT services face a challenging “many-to-one” dynamic, if they are expected to serve a multitude of different masters – many departments and agencies and their subsidiary divisions, programmes, and project teams all acting independently.

Written by Dr Steve Hodgkinson27 April 10 22:00

Capital changes

User-friendly technology and difficult economic times have combined to help change the CIO landscape in New Zealand government departments and agencies.
Recently, Inland Revenue disestablished the role of CIO and created two IT divisions, one to focus on day-to-day business and the other on future IT requirements and strategy.

Written by Randal Jackson11 April 10 22:00

‘I was a CIO’

Technology is now so ubiquitous and so central to business enablement that arguably the responsibilities of any business executive will include most of the essential elements of what today is in the CIO's exclusive domain. Is it therefore not plausible that 10 years from now, the Chief Operating Officer could take over most of the CIO's responsibilities, rendering the CIO position extinct?
According to the largest global survey of Chief Information Officers, the role of today's CIO continues to profoundly evolve. CIOs have a "new voice", and now spend less than half their time on traditional IT management. CIOs are now engaged in multiple, diverse, business-facing tasks. The question is whether their specialised IT management skills are sufficient to preserve the role of the CIO into the future.

Written by Paul Bellack15 March 10 22:00

NZ on an innovation flatline?

A research paper on New Zealand’s innovation performance from 1998 to 2008 reveals that while some industry sectors have performed reasonably well; the country’s overall rate of innovation has remained virtually flat for nearly a decade.
The report, Innovation Index of New Zealand, reveals that after rising by 13 percent between 1998 and 2000, the whole-of-economy index was flat for the next seven years.

Written by CIO New Zealand21 Feb. 10 22:00

Too many CIOs arrive late to the dance

There's probably no greater indication of a CIO's strategic importance to his company than what happens at the time of a merger or acquisition: Is the CIO a key player during pre-deal negotiations and analysis? Is his expertise sought on whether back-office IT consolidation will be able to produce the desired "synergies"? Does the board ask for his risk analysis on whether key ERP, CRM, BI or supply chain systems will be harmonious or disastrous?
Or is the CIO relegated to afterthought status, as in the CEO wondering: "I guess we should ask Gene if he can actually pull this off?" - after the deal has been consummated.

Written by Thomas Wailgum20 Feb. 10 22:00

The new normal for employment

The New Normal. I'm sure you've heard this expression. It's used by many people to describe the way the recession has changed life and business. There's a new normal for consumer spending, a new normal for IT operations, and not surprisingly, a new normal for employment.
Cris Janzen, a career coach and president of Seattle, Wash.-based outplacement firm Janzen & Associates LLC, recently described the new normal for employment. In her blog entry, " It's a whole new game," she writes:

Written by Meridith Levinson16 Feb. 10 22:00

Green IT is not dead

The world’s green enthusiasts had pinned a lot of expectation on the United Nations-backed summit on climate change (COP-15) held at the Danish capital of Copenhagen in December last year.
But the talks at the summit nearly broke down — as climate change sceptics had hoped for following the leaked e-mails from a University of East Anglia climate science research lab. Climategate, as the scandal came to be known, questioned the official position of the green brigade — that there was a need for global cooperation in controlling the juggernaut of climate change.

Written by Zafar Anjum13 Feb. 10 22:00

Worlds apart

There can be few things more frustrating for a chief information officer than labouring away in an organisation that doesn't appreciate their skills. For years, CIOs of various standing have bemoaned the problem of working with a chief executive, chief financial officer or board that just doesn't get what they are trying to achieve.
But, alas, if new research is to be believed there is still a worrying disconnect between how a CIO believes their IT vision and spending is understood within their own company and the reality of the perceptions among those with ultimate responsibility for the organisation's performance.

Written by Paul Smith31 Jan. 10 22:00

What it takes to become 'the extended CIO'

The extended CIO role is often the CIO’s first foray into non-IT roles. The title is typically something like "senior vice president and CIO"—a title that reflects both the holder’s primary focus on IT and the additional responsibilities that management has assigned.
The extended CIO often takes on responsibility for functions or tasks that are related to the CIO role and do not require a full CxO-level role. These may be temporary assignments (such as merger integration) or ongoing responsibility for centralized services that can be managed as infrastructure (such as facilities or physical security). Other CIOs take responsibility for areas that are not usually managed by a seniormost executive, such as business processes or strategy.

Written by Richard Hunter and George Westerman24 Nov. 09 22:00

CIO roles and salaries out of sync

Many chief information officers will remember 2009 as the year their pockets felt the pinch. Analysis by The Australian Financial Review found salary packages for senior IT executives were down as companies responded to tough trading conditions.
Metcash information chief Bernard Hale suffered the largest drop, down $514,656 to $1.5 million, or almost 35 per cent off his 2008 packet. Meanwhile Suncorp's Jeff Smith lost 50 per cent of his remuneration package to just over $790,000 and Alesco's Brian O'Connor saw his payout fall by more than 60 per cent to just over $310,000.

Written by Brian Corrigan and Rachael Bolton16 Nov. 09 22:00