The Practical CIO E-Book

Jose Carlos Eiras

• Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
• Kategorie: Fachliteratur
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 225

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2010

Beschreibung

The IT executive's ultimate handbook for survival in a rapidly changing economy The Practical CIO: A Common Sense Guide for Successful IT Leadership provides needed advice for modern executives competing in a challenging global environment. * Proactively establish goals for IT * Hold all vendors accountable * Extract maximum value from existing IT investments * Manage and market the IT brand * Build relationships up, down and sideways across the enterprise and beyond its traditional boundaries * Act like a CEO Brimming with interviews and case studies from leading global enterprises such as Microsoft, Prudential, Citigroup, Chiquita Brands, Smithfield Foods and West Marine. The Practical CIO is designed for clear-eyed IT and C-level executives with no patience for hype or overly optimistic visions of a "better tomorrow." Truly a commonsense guide for successful IT leadership, this book delivers exactly the kind of hard-nosed, actionable advice that executives urgently require.

Leseprobe

Table of Contents

Title Page

Copyright Page

Dedication

Foreword

Acknowledgements

Introduction

Rapidly Changing Markets Require Transformative Leadership

Welcome to the “New Normal”

Drive the Economic Engine

Reality Check

Additional Resources

Chapter 1 - Build a Great Team

My Role Model

Focus on Talent

Key IT Competencies

Send Sacred Cows to Pasture

Never Forget, You Are an Agent of Change

Start at the Top

Find a Friend in Human Resources

The High Performance Team

Global Team for a Global Effort

Remember, Communication Holds the Team Together

Chapter 2 - Proactively Establish Goals for IT

You Call the Shots

Discretionary Spending

Non-Discretionary Spending

Service Contracts

It Pays to Be Proactive

Whenever Possible, Integrate

Why I Am Comfortable With Numbers

Back to Our Story

One Step at a Time

Chapter 3 - Design the IT Strategy

You Were Hired to Solve a Crisis, But . . .

Learn from the Masters

My Approach to IT Strategy

Chapter 4 - Hold All of Your Vendors Accountable

Focus on Win-Win Scenarios

Real versus Ideal

Insist on Continuous Improvement

Contract or No Contract, Get What You Need

Internal IT Suppliers

Escalate Problems Quickly and Decisively

Leaping Into the Fray

Chapter 5 - Before Negotiating, Do Your Homework

No Two Suppliers Are Alike

How Did You Know That?

Read That Contract Again Before You Renew It

Make Sure Your Suppliers Follow Your Checklist

Sometimes Regional Makes More Sense Than Global

Chapter 6 - Manage Contracts, Don’t Just Sign Them

The Seed Crystal

A True Story

It is Never a One-Shot Deal

Managing Contracts Like a Pro

Do Not Focus Solely on Vendor Performance

The Price of Ignorance

Structure Contracts to Make Your Life Easier

Seek Outside Help when Necessary

Eyeball to Eyeball

What about In-Sourcing?

Chapter 7 - Work With the Business

IT’s Unique Perspective: Worth More Than All the Software in the World ...

Formalize a Process for Joining the Discussion

Processing Insight

It Takes Two to Tango

The New Model For Collaboration

Sometimes There Are No Common Solutions

Chapter 8 - Manage and Market the IT brand

Telling the IT Story

Branding Must Be Consistent With Reality

Three Steps in the Right Direction

Brand Identity

Marketing the IT Brand

Marketing the IT Portfolio

Turn Consistency into a Discipline

Brand Management is Not Rocket Science

The Medium is Still the Message

Chapter 9 - Building Relationships Across the Enterprise—And Beyond

Earning Credibility

Creating Relationships, One-on-One

Intangible, But Also Valuable

Role of the IT Board

Sharing Power and Responsibility

Learning the Business

Creating Relationships Upward

Managing and Delegating Across the Enterprise

Building Relationships with Vendors

Getting and Staying On Message

Make Sure That Everyone Knows That You Are Responsible and Accountable

Chapter 10 - Act Like a CEO

Climbing the Ziggurat

The Business Within the Business

Why You Need to Behave Like a CEO

Take a Step Back

Style Is Important

Do Not Forget Altruism

Outside versus Inside

Find the Middle Ground

AFTERWORD

ENDNOTES

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

INDEX

Copyright © 2010 by José Carlos Eiras. All rights reserved.

Published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, New Jersey. Published simultaneously in Canada.

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Eiras, Jose Carlos, 1947-

The practical CIO : a common sense guide for successful IT leadership / Jose Carlos Eiras.

p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

eISBN : 978-0-470-60645-2

1. Chief information officers. 2. Information technology-Management. I. Title. HD30.2.E386 2010 658.4’038-dc22

2009041465

To my wife, Alzira, for showing me the light many times over.To my mother, Edit, for always keeping a candle lit for me.

FOREWORD

Tony Scott

CIO, Microsoft Corp.

Looking over the past quarter century of information technology development, one of the few constants I can observe is continuing change.

From the moment I performed my first chore as a newly hired techie, it seemed as though all of us in IT were constantly framing the decisions in front of us in the context of what we knew was coming next. We just didn’t know how fast. The tantalizing future was right around the bend, and we were speeding toward it just as fast as our budgets and human capabilities would allow us to go.

Even as we toiled away over our mainframes, we read and we wondered about and in some cases started getting experience with microcomputers, networks, parallel processing, and distributed computing. Soon we were reading and wondering about servers, data warehouses, OLAP, and XML.

The Internet and the Web browser changed everything, of course, except the rapid pace of change itself. We hurtled into the future, propelled by a volatile mixture of Moore’s Law and our own imaginations. Today we are pondering the impact of virtualization and cloud computing. Tomorrow we will be thinking about—who knows? I really cannot think of another field that has experienced so much change in so brief a span of time. The speed at which IT evolves is, quite simply, breathtaking.

For the modern CIO, however, there is one certainty: IT must deliver solutions that enable the business to achieve its goals. IT must be aligned with the business; the goals of IT and the rest of the enterprise must be compatible and mutually supporting. Today’s CIO must develop a comprehensive IT strategy that maintains the alignment between IT and the rest of the enterprise. In addition to supporting the business, IT must also be ready to drive the business.

In some ways, the added burdens on IT make me genuinely nostalgic for the good old days when the primary job of IT was taking care of technology and the CEO’s primary job was taking care of strategy. The lines of demarcation are not as distinct as they were 25 years ago. As technology evolves into a critical driver of business development, those lines are becoming even less distinct and considerably more blurred.

The extraordinarily rapid pace of business transformation requires the CIO to do a lot more than just determine a path from A to B. The modern CIO must figure out how to get from A to n. And needless to say, the value of n is always changing.

Given the difficulty of the task, where does the CIO begin? Here is my practical advice:

• Know where you are today. This might sound simplistic, but you need a complete and precise inventory of your IT department’s assets, capabilities, and capacities. You have to know which of your systems are working and which are not. You have to know which applications are nearing the end of their useful lives, and you must have a plan for retiring them. Many CIOs struggle because they do not possess that fundamental knowledge of their own systems.

• Plan for tomorrow. An important part of your job is figuring out which technologies will be important six months from now, a year from now, and five years from now. Do you have the infrastructure and the governance in place to support these new technologies? Where will you find the people to run and manage the new systems you will bring on board? As the CIO, you must plan for the future now—it will arrive sooner than you think.

• Prepare to move smoothly from the present into the future. This is the hard part, because it requires patience, skill, planning, and a sense of purpose. You must envision all of the many steps required to adopt new technologies while maintaining the alignment between IT and the rest of the enterprise. Then you must execute all of those steps without missing deadlines, going over budget, or inadvertently creating new problems. This is the true test of the CIO’s character and ability.

Companies are only now beginning to realize that IT has an exceptional vantage point. Because IT is quite literally everywhere in the enterprise, IT tends to see everything. Since IT is embedded in virtually every business process, frictions and inefficiencies in the enterprise become visible through the perspective lens of IT. This is not a metaphor; this is a description of the new reality of business.

More people today generally understand that IT can do more than just keep the trains running on time; IT can deliver insight and intelligence based on information gathered from every corner of the enterprise. The mere fact that IT has a unique view of the enterprise does not grant the CIO magical powers. Whatever influence the CIO wields must be earned the old-fashioned way, by inspiring trust and confidence.

The modern CIO focuses on building relationships and partnerships. The modern CIO also earns respect by delivering on promises and commitments to multiple business partners across the enterprise. The quality of these relationships and partnerships will not be judged by the sleekness of new technologies; they will be judged mainly by the business results that those new technologies make possible. At Microsoft we have a formal process for evaluating the relationships between IT and its business partners. We call this process “shared commitments.” It focuses more on business outcomes than on explicit technology goals, and it is measured using our scorecarding methodology. One of the interesting aspects of this process is that it empowers leaders from IT and the business to “stop the assembly line” when they spot minor problems that could lead to bigger problems down the road. Then we all sit down together and try to solve the problem, even if it means missing an internal deadline or delaying the implementation of a new solution. We did not invent this approach; Japanese automakers have been using it for years.

Naturally, this approach can put IT in the hot seat. From our virtual crow’s nest, we can often see potential problems sooner than other parts of enterprise. This can lead to some tense meetings between IT and our business partners. But I have noticed over my career that when the new solution is up and running successfully, people tend to forget the minor scraps that invariably took place along the way. What they tend to remember is that when it really counted, IT delivered on its promises and the business achieved its goals.

Obviously, it will be more difficult to build trusting relationships with your business partners if IT is not delivering basic services or is performing inconsistently. At the risk of contradicting my earlier statement, you still have to keep the trains running on time. Unlike the earlier generation of CIOs, today’s CIOs are expected to help the enterprise achieve its business goals. That expectation represents a fundamental shift in thinking and it certainly poses the biggest challenge for the current generation of CIOs.

In my bones, I feel another wave of transformation looming over the horizon. It will bring opportunity and disruption. It might make solving today’s problems seem like child’s play. This book will help you deal successfully with the challenges ahead of you. José Carlos Eiras shared his wisdom generously with me when I worked with him at General Motors, and I benefited greatly from his knowledge and experience. I know that you will too.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

This book is based largely on the knowledge and insight that I acquired from over four decades of experience as a senior IT executive at several large companies. But since the book is also a work of journalism and reportage, I could not have completed it without tapping into the collective wisdom of many expert sources. To them I am deeply indebted. I thank them sincerely for their time, their energy, their intelligence, and their support.

I owe a special debt of gratitude to Mike Barlow, the co-author of Partnering with the CIO (John Wiley & Sons, 2007). Mike served as my editorial director for The Practical CIO and his guidance was truly invaluable. In addition to being a talented writer and communicator, Mike is an all-around good guy. Thank you, Mike!

Esther Schindler, the well-known writer, editor and blogger extraordinaire, also provided timely support, constructive criticism, and a unique perspective on the continually expanding information technology universe. Thank you, Esther!

Much of the content of this book was based on in-depth interviews with CIOs and senior executives at numerous companies and organizations all over the world. I could not have written it without the active participation and cooperation of Ashlee Aldridge, Matthew Chamberlin, Eric Chow, William Christie, Ronald Franz, Michael Hugos, Darwin John, Claudio Joppert, Beth Kirkpatrick, Harvey Koeppel, Mark Lutchen, Claude Marais, Steve Marenakos, Alejandro Martinez, Rita Gunther McGrath, Caroline Michiels, Joseph Miller, Michael Moran, Eugene Nizker, Jim Onalfo, Mark Polansky, Chris Potts, Manjit Singh, Tony Scott, Marco Stefanini, Bob Turner, Cesar Vinocur, Mitch Wagner, Kevin Wale, Robin Watson, Mansour Zadeh, and Dave Zitur.

A special thanks to Jim Giustini for his contribution to the book. Jim helped me a lot when I was CIO of DHL-US. We are now collaborating again at Resources Global, a consulting company that I admire greatly.

All writers, of course, need many additional pairs of eyes. I was especially fortunate to work with Edith G. Barlow, whose initial copy editing and useful suggestions greatly improved the quality of the manuscript. I also thank Sheck Cho and Stacey Rivera, my editors at John Wiley & Sons, who had faith in the value of the project and were patient when I missed my deadlines.

Most of all, I thank my wife, Alzira, who put up with long nights of writing, endless phone calls, and lost weekends of heavy editing.

INTRODUCTION

Rapidly Changing Markets Require Transformative Leadership

I always thought that I was lucky to be born in Brazil, but the real value of my ancestry became apparent to me only after I became Chief Information Officer (CIO) of General Motors Europe. As you can imagine, a lot of my energy was consumed by the process of managing a large, decentralized team that was both multinational and multicultural.

As a native Brazilian, I was considered a “foreigner” by everyone. That perception offered me a cloak of neutrality that came in handy whenever I had to resolve disputes. It also provided me with a unique perspective on the skills required to manage a busy IT shop in a global economy.

Now seems like a good time to share some of the insights that I acquired at General Motors and other global organizations such as DHL, General Foods, Philip Morris, and Kraft Foods. I hope you will find them useful as you confront the challenges of today.

One of the primary differences between today’s CIOs and the previous generation of IT leaders is the idea of transformational change. Thirty years ago, nobody seriously believed that IT would be called upon to lead enormous ransformational efforts affecting every aspect of a global enterprise. Today, in addition to making sure that IT runs smoothly, the CIO is expected to provide strategic leadership and high-level guidance. That is a big difference indeed.

Welcome to the “New Normal”

We are living in interesting times. Rapid shifts in market dynamics require new modes of thinking and novel approaches to strategy at all levels of the enterprise.

When I began this book, the world economy was unraveling. Now it appears to be heading back toward some level of stability. But the “new normal” is not likely to resemble the “old normal” that we grew accustomed to during the boom times of the 1990s and most of the first decade of the twenty-first century.

The IT landscape will never be the way it was back in “the good old days” when it seemed as though vendors sold their wares by the pound and nobody really understood—or cared about—the value of information technology.

As the global economy evolves and transforms, IT executives face dilemmas of truly mythic proportions. Despite understandable feelings of helplessness, they must still choose their destiny. Whether they emerge as heroes or scapegoats is up to them.

Many CIOs will find themselves trapped in a labyrinth from which there appears no hope of escape. On the one hand, they must focus on cost reduction. On the other hand, they must produce tangible results for the business.

As they strive for cost reduction, their decisions are driven more by panic than logic. Some of those hasty decisions can make it nearly impossible for IT to deliver the results necessary to sustain the business in times of great stress.

As a survivor of four previous recessions, I can testify that hard times present excruciating business challenges. Challenging times also bestow incredible opportunities for building the infrastructures required for future growth.

So you have a choice. Do you hunker down and wait timidly for fate, or do you seize the moment and act like a hero?

To the sacrificial lambs, I offer my condolences. To the would-be heroes, I offer two pieces of advice:

1. Cut IT expenses deeply, but remember to set aside adequate funds for development and revamping of your systems and infrastructure. Think of those funds as seed money for growing the business.

2. Whatever you do, make sure that you keep enough money in the budget for retaining your top performers. They will get you through the hard times.

Even if you stop reading now, I hope that you consider those two pearls of advice and take them to heart. If you do, you will increase your chances of surviving through the next couple of rough quarters. You will also be nicely positioned for the recovery—when it arrives.

For CIOs with genuinely heroic souls, I also offer the following suggestions:

• Build a great team. As the manager of an indispensable organization within a larger business, some of your primary responsibilities are attracting, nurturing, promoting, motivating, and preserving talent. The responsibilities to find and manage talent extend well beyond the traditional boundaries of the company to include vendors, consultants, business partners, and all the various outsourcers that IT depends upon. A deep pool of talent is a great asset and the best hedge against the uncertainties of a bad economy.

• Proactively establish goals for IT. Don’t wait for someone to tell you what to do or you’ll always be trailing the pack. In a challenging economy, it’s actually easier to set realistic goals and accomplish them than it is during periods of rapid growth. Since all areas of the business are in a cost-cutting mode, now is the perfect time to simplify your IT landscape by eliminating legacy systems and redundant components. Remember, IT owns the systems, so there’s no excuse for not acting swiftly when the opportunity arises to ditch a costly and inefficient legacy system and revamp or replace it with a more cost-effective alternative.

• Design the IT strategy. Even in the best of times, you could not raise capital for a business unless it had a strategic plan. Think of IT as a business and think of your company’s board of directors as a group of venture capitalists. Write out a strategy for IT, share it with the board and use that strategy as the template for everything you do.

• Hold all of your vendors accountable. Make certain they are delivering on their promises to you. Remember, they’re part of your team. Manage your relationships with them and make sure the contracts you sign reflect your business needs and not just the needs of your vendors.

• Before negotiating do your homework. Very few CIOs relish the prospect of negotiating contracts with suppliers. Even fewer of them enjoy renegotiating contracts. But in a difficult economy, sometimes you need to bite the bullet, call a supplier and say, “You know, this deal just isn’t working.” That’s when you need all your ducks in a row, because renegotiating a contract requires more than courage—you need to know precisely what you’re trying to achieve and be ready to offer alternatives.

• Manage contracts, don’t just sign them. Negotiating a good contract can be a burdensome chore. But managing a contract is where the real work starts. Just because you have a signed contract with a service provider does not mean that you can put your feet up on your desk and relax. Business conditions can change, rendering some conditions in the contract meaningless. A shift in business strategy might require you to seek new terms. Nothing is chiseled into stone, no matter what the lawyers tell you. Most of all, a contract does not guarantee performance. It is your job to make sure the provider delivers.

• Work with the business. The business values results. If you cannot deliver results, the business has no need for you. Once you understand what the business needs in terms of results, you can align IT operations to help the business deliver those results. Work with the business, not for the business.

• Manage and market the IT brand. IT is a product and like any other product, it cannot speak for itself. That is where you, the CIO, come in. You must put a face on IT, you must explain to the world what IT does and how it creates value. In other words, you must sell IT. But before you can sell IT, you must learn how to market IT. To the amusement of your colleagues in the marketing department, you are likely to discover that marketing a complicated product such as IT is harder than it looks.

• Build and manage relationships up, down, and sideways across the enterprise and beyond its traditional boundaries. Remember that IT is a team effort, and you need cooperation from an extremely wide range of participants, in and out of the organization, to get the most value from your IT systems. Usability and user acceptance will always be critical issues, so don’t forget to include the user base in your considerations.

• Act like a CEO. CIOs need to define their role broadly. They are the chief executives of complex businesses that exist within larger complex businesses. When you act like the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of IT, you generate respect for the IT organization. That respect usually translates into more cooperation from all the various constituencies required to keep IT running smoothly. Acting like a CEO also makes it easier for you to sell your programs to other C-suite executives, making it more likely that your budget requests will be approved and funded.

Last but not least, I urge you to think green. Sustainability is more than a trend—it’s a smart strategy. IT can play a crucial role in developing, managing, auditing, and analyzing green projects across the enterprise, so do yourself a favor and don’t surrender this opportunity to accumulate more responsibility and acquire expertise in an area that will certainly grow in importance.

Drive the Economic Engine

When I began my career back in the early 1970s, I never dreamed that IT would evolve into the indispensable engine of a global economy. Even as the global economy falters and sputters, it seems to me that IT is more significant than ever. This significance puts a heavy burden on the shoulders of CIOs.

A couple of years ago, business academics wondered if CIOs were truly prepared for their roles as C-level executives. Today, some of these same academics wonder if CIOs are still relevant or even necessary.

From my perspective, CIOs are relevant and necessary. Think about it: Information technology is everywhere, and this is just the beginning of a new era in which some form of digital intelligence will be built into practically every product you can imagine. When you look at the future and consider the potential of information technology, you will see a path stretching into infinity.

As CIOs, we need to start thinking seriously about redefining our roles. I’ve written this book to launch what I sincerely hope will be a meaningful conversation about the role of the CIO going forward, and to offer some specific suggestions for ensuring the survival of CIOs, both as individuals and as a species.

One of the most important lessons I learned as a CIO is this: Make sure that everyone knows that you are responsible and accountable. When the opportunity presents itself, step up and take on more responsibility. Don’t be afraid to define your role broadly, and don’t hesitate to be accountable. Let’s face it: As the CIO, you’re going to get blamed anyway if something goes wrong, so there’s no point in trying to duck. You own IT, so act like a leader and show your pride.

Demonstrating ownership and accountability makes it less likely that someone else will try to usurp your legitimate role as the company’s technology czar. The last thing you need in today’s environment is some self-appointed “expert” from a business unit telling you how to run IT, or recommending which systems to purchase from which vendors. I have a simple rule for establishing boundaries: If it looks like IT, feels like IT, and smells like IT, then it is IT—and the CIO is responsible for it.

Reality Check

Parts of this introduction appeared originally as a guest column that I wrote last year for CIO.com. One of the interesting things about publishing an article in an online publication is that readers can respond immediately. The first response to the article was from an anonymous reader who no doubt had risen from the wrong side of his bed that morning. Nonetheless, he asked what I consider to be a fair question. I’m not quoting him exactly, but the essence of his question was this: