"The

The nature of competition has changed. The battlefield of the future is the application of advanced mathematics to business problems. Things such as a transaction processing and just doing the business day in and day out have become the level playing field, and companies now will find competitive advantage and differentiation through the application of analytics to both structured and unstructured information and utilizing the vast amounts of digital data that are being created about our world and about ourselves every day." Carl Abrams, IBM Reserch Division business executive speaking with Harvey Koeppel in a soon-to-be released video entitled "Technology Insights Shape the Future of Business."

As Center members further explore applications of analytics in their organization, case studies,

frameworks and questions to analyze your organizational capability may be helpful.  These are explored in the new IBM executive report - Customer Analytics Pays Off - driving topline growth by bringing science to the art of marketing.

Vinod Sivarama Krishnan – CIO Global, Jubilant Life Sciences Limited, India.

Jubilant is a global leader in Pharmaceuticals – specifically Contract Manufacturing and Contract Research, Generics & Specialties. The group also has a significant presence in Food Service, Oil & Gas Exploration and Prospecting and Retail.

Vinod is a Business Technology Leader with over 18 years of global experience in delivering business solutions and creating and leading IT organizations across several business domains.

The Center for CIO Leadership has requested CIO members and other industry experts to answer three questions regarding predictions for the CIO in 2012. Here are my answers to these three questions.

What are your top 3 CIO priorities for 2012?

1. Data to Information using Analytics – In the highly dynamic world we live in with increasingly short business cycles, my businesses need to understand where they stand in near real time and to be able to determine the impact of changes in the environment to their business model and performance and make better decisions based on this information. While we are able to collect more data, we’re certainly not able to process it into useable information quickly enough for businesses to actually use in their day-to-day operations. I expect just the process of working on this initiative to lead to more internal visibility of the key drivers and that the very process of measurement will drive improvement.
2. Flexibility of Infrastructure and Applications – Better analytics will lead to more frequent changes of direction, both strategic and tactical, leading to a need for more flexible infrastructure and applications. This will challenge me and my team to rebuild (or in some cases, build) our platforms in a more granular, more flexible way to allow for these changes and respond to them as quickly as possible. Already the inability to scale (or reorient) our systems emerges as a big constraint in business flexibility, and that concern will have to be taken off the table as quickly as possible.
3. Finding and Retaining IT Management Talent – Frequent changes in direction and scale will require IT leaders with a different set of skill sets – more flexibility, more platform or tool agnosticism with the ability to view business requirements and processes as services to be provided using standard sets of tools. Significant empowerment of business users (by design) to reconfigure their processes within broad controllership lines will be essential, requiring IT to step out of the business of managing simpler aspects of process redesign. This will require a very different mindset, and the challenge will be to find (or build) and retain the right people.

How will 2012 be different from 2011 for you as a CIO?

For me, 2012 will be a year of

1. Broadening (more geographies, more P&Ls) and deepening (more functionality, more interconnectedness) of the standard platforms put in place for the group. I will also need to create appropriate cost-effective support mechanisms for the standard platforms. My team and I will need to succeed in our ongoing implementations, create a track record of successful delivery and ensure that we build momentum for these platforms by measuring and highlighting business impact and benefits achieved. In contrast, 2011 was more about building the base of the standard platforms, creating several quick proofs-of-concept to understand the technology and illustrate benefits and investing in building expertise on these platforms.
2. Increasing uncertainly from the business. I expect more starts and stops as the business responds to market and economic challenges, or moves to address opportunities being created. This will mean an increasing need to find or create flexible business systems. The cost of this flexibility and its impact on the current and future bottom line will need to be quantified and reviewed on a continuous basis. Business units which understand the value of this flexibility and are willing to fund it will reap significant advantages over 2012 itself, and certainly over the next three years, and it will be my job to help them understand this value.
3. Increasing demands on IT. As we move from the more basic deliverables to more evolved needs, demands and expectations will grow. Increasing consumerization of IT and greater understanding of IT in the executive suite will lead to increased pressure to deliver. Now that most CEOs and Directors come from a generation that has grown up with a good understanding of IT, it is significantly harder to expect key technology decisions to be made from within IT or expectations to be set solely by IT. Expected lead times to new functionality (in line with shorter business cycles) will now be significantly shorter, and my teams can expect to work on several smaller projects with defined benefits simultaneously as opposed to larger projects with longer payback periods.

What organizational or industry shifts are you expecting in 2012?

1. As a diversified conglomerate present in many high-growth verticals, I expect several new opportunities and threats, possibly simultaneous, to come out of the current economic conditions. I expect that responses will range from hunkering down to growing aggressively, making common strategies across the group difficult to come by and requiring more nuance to allow for specific market and economic differences globally and across industries. As growth slows in some segments, I expect some consolidation of processes and adaptation to last year’s growth.
2. I expect a shift to basics and more focus on controllership and compliance to minimize the probability of incidents due to rapid change of systems and processes. Specifically there will be a focus on ensuring quality of process, product and service irrespective of internal changes within the organization (which will be mostly focused on efficiency and cost).
3. Rapid increase in customer mobility and the availability of connectedness will call for large-scale redesign of business models, processes and systems to enable shorter reaction times and quicker responses to market and economic conditions. Mobility will fundamentally alter business models in several parts of our business and render some historical advantages redundant – and hopefully create some new advantages for first movers!

"We have 510,461 followers on Twitter!"

"86,224 people “Like” our Facebook page!"

Now What?

How do we understand what customers are telling us?

How do we engage with them?

Sound familiar? Many of us have heard these questions over the past 12 months.

The rapid rise in the use of Social Media for Marketing and Customer Engagement is pushing the demand for new tools to analyze and leverage large volumes of unstructured data. The deep CIO interest in the topic was illustrated by the level of engagement from the CIOs attending the Virtual Roundtable on Getting Value from Social Media and Unstructured Data (you can listen to the recording here).

The rise of this new medium has significantly increased the need for CMO / CIO collaboration. The days of closely managed brand messaging are over. In the past, Marketing carefully crafted and distributed messages through multiple channels in the loudest possible manner and then ran surveys to evaluate impact. The process was slow and measured. It was the same story at Customer service. Marc Brown, CIO at Del Monte recounted how they used to receive a customer complaint about insufficient pineapple slices in a tin via US Mail. A customer went throught significant trouble to get their voice heard. In this new era of Facebook and Twitter, a customer now has a megaphone of their own, giving them the ability to gain attention and influence brands globally and in real-time. Marketing and Customer Service require an integrated set of listening and analysis technology to effectively engage with each customer.

I captured these key areas CIOs must focus on to extract value from customer engagement on the social web:

1. Acquire the right resources: The skills required to deploy technologies for processing and analyzing large volumes of unstructured data are scarce and in great demand. In addition to a deep statistical background, an individual working in this space requires a good understanding of the key business drivers for success. Analysts should be able to identify industry-specific data to measure the ROI for Social Media initiatives.
2. Develop real-time analysis and reporting: Turnaround time requirements must be analyzed to ensure technology solutions are correctly architected to meet requirements. Faster response usually requires higher investment. It is important to strike the right balance.
3. Ensure agility and flexibility: The cost of experimenting with social media is not very high. Technology must allow business users the flexibility to try and measure multiple options in the real world. Further, wse must evaluate the need for capturing and storing information that may potentially be used in the future.
4. Communicate clear rules of customer engagement: The fact that the customer interaction is conducted in public, it is imperative to be very clear about how employees should engage and respond. Further, remember that customer engagement now occurs at all levels and within any function of an organization. Most companies are developing comprehensive guidelines and training programs to try and make sure that every customer interaction is a positive one.
5. Prioritize quality: It is very important to ensure quality of the analysis. Wrong information can result in decisions with a significant negative impact.
6. Manage security and privacy: Customer interactions on the public Social Media platforms like Facebook and Twitter, especially in highly regulated industries, pose a significant risk that must be appropriately managed and mitigated.
7. Build a stronger business / IT partnership: Business and IT teams need to work very closely together to ensure success. Speed and agility can only be achieved by constant collaboration.

Big Data generated in the Social Media space offers a Big Opportunity but also raises some Big Questions.

A recently released study demonstrates how the CIO role has continued to evolve and reinforces the strategic role CIOs play within their enterprise. The 2011 CIO Study: the Essential CIO, from our founding sponsor IBM, draws upon interviews of over 3,000 CIO’s from 71 countries and 18 industries worldwide. I have highlighted three areas that I believe are meaningful for our community.

CIOs and CEOs  are thinking more alike than ever before...

The most compelling finding of the study for me is the significantly increased harmonization of the CIO and CEO agendas.   The study provides tangible evidence that IT is not simply an enabler of the business, but a critical component that drives sustainable and scalable business growth.   Asked where they would focus IT to help their organizations’ strategy in the foreseeable future, CIOs and CEOs shared three top priorities: insight and intelligence, client intimacy and people skills. These areas are a significant part of the raison d'être for the Center for CIO Leadership and you can find our most up to date thinking on skills and competencies throughout our website.  Here are some highlights from the study.

CIOs emerging as leaders...

Business analytics and intelligence were identified as the most important technologies for CIOs looking to increase the competitiveness of their organization in the next 3-5 years.   As CEOs are increasingly relying on CIOs to turn data into usable information, information into intelligence and intelligence into actionable insights, the role of the CIO has become much more visible throughout the C-Suite.           

The CIO Mandates...

The study discusses four distinct approaches to IT leadership based on defined characteristics that line up with an organization’s strategies and goals (mandates). Each of the mandates is articulated along with recommendations to help CIOs excel within each area.

I invite you to download ”The Essential CIO”, reflect upon how your path as CIO has evolved, and upon what areas you are focused on for the future. I look forward to hearing your thoughts about the study and to continuing our conversation…

Each year, the Center team conducts interviews with  CIO members to collect, analyze and synthesize insights, advice, best practices and input on key business competency areas for CIOs to excel as business leaders.   In 2011, we are focusing on three key themes that CIOs have told us represent areas of challenge, opportunity and leverage for making an impact on the enterprise:

• Analytics: a Tool for Customer Centricity
• Security and Risk Management
• Next Generation IT Governance

We spend a few months on each topic, creating a CIO Insights research paper, working with members to write blog posts about the topic, gathering pertinent partner research and hosting virtual events on related subjects.

This is an important element of the Center’s role in collecting advice and insights from peers.  Send us an email if you are a CIO interested in being interviewed as part of the Center’s research on any of the 2011 topics. 

Here’s a bit more detail about the Center’s Three Key Topics of Focus for 2011:

TOPIC 1: Analytics: a Tool for Customer Centricity

Customer centricity is increasingly critical to companies’ strategies for growth, and presents an opportunity for CIOs to take the lead.  Technology is at the core of today’s customer engagement strategy, and now plays a key role in the customer experience.  There is a strong need for improved customer data aggregation, segmentation and analytics to support the execution of customer-centric activities across the enterprise, from customer service, to delivery, to marketing and relationship building.  The customer centric enterprise requires a single view of the customer across the enterprise, which in turn reinforces the need for collaboration among those driving the relationship and connections to the customer (marketing) with those providing the conduit, the support and the information (technology).  Today’s CIO has the opportunity to lead the strategy and enablement for customer engagement – but this comes with a new imperative to partner with the CMO – and other customer facing executives - to deliver on the revenue promise of customer centricity.

Please note that our next CIO virtual roundtable, Getting Value from Social Media and Unstructured Data: The New Unified View, will cover a key aspect of this important topic.  Check the event page for more details on this event on June 22^nd.

For those of you interested in past events on the topic of analytics, see the Center Virtual Roundtable, Partnering to Drive Change through Analytics that took place in March.  Click here* to listen to the recording. 

TOPIC 2: Security and Risk Management

With the advent of the financial crisis, and rapidly evolving influences of information access and transparency, CIOs more than ever have the opportunity and imperative to take the lead in managing risk and thinking about security in a strategic context for the business.  This topic will explore key elements of the challenges and the potential for CIOs to lead their enterprise, including:

• Beyond IT risk management to understand operations, security and enterprise risk
• Creating  a culture that is risk aware, not risk averse
• Playing a proactive role in leading the enterprise to manage risk as a business opportunity

TOPIC 3: Next Generation IT Governance

IT Governance continues to be of interest and challenge to CIOs has they expand their influence as business leaders. This topic will help CIOs explore opportunities and new ways to think about the next generation of IT governance, including:

• Governance to enhance and enable integration and alignment with the business
• Role of governance in  driving impact with analytics and risk management

Which of these topics resonate with you and why?  What other topics are you interested in discussing in 2011?

* Only CIO members have access to the roundtable event recording.  Join Now.

Having implemented analytics myself as CIO in a $1.4b manufacturing organization, the topic is of interest to me. Presenting analytics to transform insights into action for an organization are one of the benefits of having a high performance Information Technology team that is well connected to the business.

From my experience, there are three key elements to successfully implementing analytics. 

1) FOUNDATION - The organization must have a reliable IT solution in place that is delivering on the basics of uptime and meeting the fundamental needs of the business first.  This is critical to having the credibility to drive change and the resources to add higher-level value.  The basics must be in place first.

2) START THE ANALYTICS WORK AT THE TOP – Partner with the executive committee, CEO, CFO, or the highest level executive you can to find and identify a handful of analytics that the management team wants to be publicly known by the workforce at large.  Example: Continuous Improvement goals and attainment levels, quarterly revenue budgets and attainment, new account wins by customer segment.  Pick just a few that will become the cornerstone of the analytic reporting infrastructure.  I would recommend these early picks are easily implemented and are used to accomplish the management goals of focusing the organization on some of the top goals and issues in the company while building the infrastructure to deliver analytics and gaining momentum on the analytic program.

3) DELIVER AND TEST FOR USAGE – Once the early analytic targets are set it is absolutely critical that the goods are delivered and you test for usage.  In one of my early deployments of analytics, we delivered manufacturing performance data (uptimes, quality #’s, etc.) through a screen saver app to every desktop in a $1b engine manufacturing organization.  We had the infrastructure in place to deliver accurate analytic numbers, the information being served to the 3000 employees were the metrics selected by top management for publication, and everyone in the organization used the tool.  People would talk about the metrics and we all stayed very focused on the key events affecting our performance. 

After getting the first install in place, it is a matter of repeating the discovery / implement phase at the top and then proliferating this analytic capability further down in the organization.  In another installation, we developed enough choice that users would have a business intelligence home page on the intranet and the ability to select the analytics that were important to them and that they had access to.  The biggest difficulties to implementation were not around delivery of the analytic information but the exposure of flawed infrastructure or data that became evident as analytics were being developed.  While this slowed implementation of some metrics, it became a positive side effect of the program to expose these issues and resolve them.  An example was the different methods our manufacturing organizations used to calculate uptimes.  Some included planned downtime and some did not in their uptime numbers.  The publication of analytics highlighted the disconnect and forced our team to get on the same page.

A company with analytic systems in place is a sign of a company with a solid IT solution well connected to the business strategy and that the business leaders understand what to measure as important to their company’s future.

**********

Steve Holt is a large enterprise Chief Information Officer whose mission is to lead Information Technology teams to be the IT provider of choice for the organizations they serve through business alignment and efficient delivery of information services.  With 24 years experience as an Information Technology executive who “gets business”, he most recently worked as a CIO for Accuride Corporation ($1.4b). Many of his colleagues from Accuride including two former CEO’s, SVP’s, and GM’s have strongly endorsed his work. In addition to leading IT as CIO, he has had responsibility for corporate strategy development, continuous improvement, new product technology business development, and P&L leadership for three business units.

Steve Holt

www.stevenholt.net

View Steve’s profile

CIO Virtual Roundtable – Wednesday, March 23rd, 2011

Please join the Center for CIO Leadership for an exclusive Center-sponsored Virtual Roundtable for CIOs and other c-suite executives.  The Virtual Roundtable, Partnering to Drive Change through Analytics – features Katharyn White, Vice President, IBM Global Business Services and the perspectives of CIOs that advise Katharyn and IBM on its analytics strategy.  The session will take place on Wednesday, March 23rd, 2011. 

Join the Center for this unique opportunity to hear new research from MIT Sloan Management Review and IBM Institute for Business Value that explores how organizations are applying analytics best practices today, and highlights the business value that the best performing organizations are experiencing.  This session will feature the recommendations and experiences of CIOs who are partnering with their business peers to drive change through the use of analytics.  The discussion will focus on the strategies that are being employed, the challenges encountered and the lessons learned as CIOs look to business analytics to improve both operational performance and customer-facing functions.

To register for the March 23rd Virtual Roundtable or if you would like further information, please contact event@cioleadershipcenter.com.

Click here to view a list of Center events.

Lessons from Leading CIOs

“Data is of no use if it can’t be converted into knowledge.”—CIO, Public Agency

Companies across industries are seeking better ways to leverage the information they are collecting – from and about customers, partners, competitors and employees – to drive business value.  CIOs are increasingly focused on business analytics as a key element of their strategic plans to enhance competitiveness.

The Center for CIO Leadership explored the topic of business analytics and the CIO’s role in building and leading a business analytics competency for the enterprise.  The Center conducted interviews with CIO members to solicit input and perspectives on both the challenges and opportunities their IT organizations face in improving the impact of business analytics. 

Overall, the CIOs interviewed reinforced the notion that when deployed strategically, business analytics can be used to improve both operational performance and customer-facing functions.  To achieve this goal, the CIO and the business must develop a partnership that combines the right processes and approaches with key business objectives, supported by education and training on using business analytics, to evolve business analytics as a driver for value in the enterprise.  The CIOs recommended a set of action steps for other IT leaders to consider, including:

• Building business analytics competencies within the IT team
• Creating processes to test and prove the value of business analytics for the business
• Communicating this value to senior leadership and other business stakeholders

What steps is your technology organization taking to enable the enterprise to unlock the insight and intelligence needed to drive competitive advantage?

Log in to read the complete synthesis, Unlocking the Value of Business Analytics: Opportunities for IT: Lessons from Leading CIOs.  You must be a CIO member of the Center to access this content.  Join now.  Membership for CIOs is free and offers unique resources focused on relevant business themes and CIO's core competencies.