Tossing the CIO around from BAU to Innovation to OT, bring it on …

Evolution never stops, at least for the CIO who has been pushed around with ever changing technology and business paradigms. In the early days the push was to automate internal processes and then the focus shifted to the external world – suppliers, distributors, customers, basically the entire ecosystem. IT did a good job embracing mainframes, client server, browser, mobile, and everything in between. As technology invaded our lives, democratization led to expectations moving to business roles and innovation.

CIOs obliged by taking on additional roles based on their expertise, passion and organizational need to infuse loads of technology into parts of the company for operational efficiency or leadership position in the industry. They helped finance, sales and marketing, supply chain, human resources, legal and compliance, customer engagement, facilities and administration, everyone who asked for technology input, they received a helping hand from IT and the CIO even when the industry kept throwing new disruptions.

If you are not on the internet, you will be dead; if you don’t implement datawarehousing there is no way information will be meaningful; cloud computing is changing the world; social media is necessary for us to invest in – our customers are there; the smartphone revolution is changing the way our end customers engage, we should be on their phone; mobile wallets, digital payments, what about artificial intelligence and chatbots or machine learning; heard that deep learning is the new snake oil which we should invest in…

Connect into the innovation network, drive change, manage expectations, service level agreements moving up with time, outsource what is not critical, manage multi-vendor deliverables, cross-functional projects, and run an efficient department. Every fad raised a bogie which needed to be addressed; every publication and conference also discussed various aspects of how technology will impact the business or change the industry or kill existing businesses with disintermediation. The plate of the CIO overflows and how !

But wait, manufacturing automation took a quiet journey towards implementing PLCs and SCADA; they did not involve the IT folks, they bought their own equipment with automation capabilities, bundled with computing infrastructure, uninterrupted power supply, interface using basic protocols with the machines which evolved slower than the rest of IT. Lagging behind, they survived Y2K and other scares with minimal impact; cheap compute power and algorithms to analyze machine data suddenly catapulted Operational Technology into the forefront.

There are benefits with analysis of machine data, it helps reduce downtime, improve productivity and lower cost of maintenance and operation. Longer life for the machines impacts capital required for renewal of plant and machinery; it made sense to get the IT folks into the room and leverage the humungous data. IT accommodated the new use cases by providing the requisite support to their new customer. Resultant benefits are large enough to raise attention and elevate the need to a strategic level requiring investments.

Many CIOs have taken this in their stride adding to their portfolio of capabilities and services, opening up a new avenue of technological benefit especially since past investments were quite rudimentary and value of data was unknown. Advent of Internet of Things and the ability to create correlations has changed the nature of the beast. Operational Technology is now mainstream and requires skills that IT has had for some time now. CIOs are happily taking on the new thereby adding one more feather to their cap.

It is a matter of time that across other functions like supply chain too, the data gathered through warehouses, vehicular movement, transit points, and traceability with serialization, all will add to the desire and ability. For the CIO this is a great opportunity to spread his/her circle of influence and provide enterprise value. For those who do not or are unable to, they shall probably be marginalized and find themselves struggling to stay relevant. OT combined with IT will drive the business of the future, it is up to the CIO to take advantage.

Communicating Success, Successfully

There is an old Hindi song “The peacock danced in the jungle, who saw it ?”; no one is the wise answer. Now what has this got to do with the CIO and the IT organization ? A lot !

IT is one of those functions whose absence is felt a lot more than its presence. Whether it is a simple email or internet access outage or the impact felt on the enterprise users when billing fails, or an invoice does not get created or printed. The ripples across the organization can be heard louder than the thunder on a wild stormy and rainy day. And what about small incremental development or changes that IT delivers everyday helping the business do some activity or task better, faster, cheaper, more efficiently ? Do these get to the eye (or ear) of the management teams ?

CIOs and IT organizations do a good job of communicating big project kick-offs with a lot of fanfare; the project plans and progress is tracked on some dashboard or report at regular frequencies. They are discussed in management review meetings and focus on timeliness or budget depending on the progress report. User and IT teams debate functionality within the review and steering committee meetings which typically see senior management participation wane as the project progresses. Other priorities take precedence and the resolution of conflicts or issues is left to the project team comprising of a few IT folks, vendor representatives and middle management users present as they are nominated to the project.

If all goes well even with some timeline or budget overrun, the project go live calls for some back patting, an email from the CXO (could be the CIO too) to announce that we are now operational with the new system. In rare cases the Post Implementation Review is conducted by the users or the CIO to validate the base case and benefit if any.

Now the IT organization apart from managing the operations also contributes continuous improvements to the small and large systems working with various internal functions and vendors (hardware, software, development partners, etc.) to address the ever changing needs driven by market forces, internal changes, or sometimes by customers. Many of these could be changes that create significant internal or external impact, but they are rarely on any report or dashboard, leave alone corporate announcements. These typically take away almost 30-40% (figures may vary by company and industry) of the total IT resources. They are deployed and forgotten, moving on to address the never ending pipeline of work.

CIOs should communicate these across levels to demonstrate the benefit, new or improved capability, cost reduction or avoidance they have enabled. To sustain the message of IT enabled sustained enterprise advantage, it is imperative that the users or the IT organization create the visibility. The beauty of the peacock with its feathers in a symmetric formation is to be cherished and enjoyed. If no one knows about it then “IT does not matter”.

Strategic or Operational, the choice is yours !

Recently, I met a CIO who was berating the fact that whenever (which is infrequent in any case) a meeting was scheduled to discuss the strategic IT agenda, the gathering ended up discussing operational issues in almost every case. This was leading to a buildup of frustration, and the CIO was wondering if the business had no interest in pursuing the strategic alignment of IT for their enterprise. As I listened to these woes, I realized that the CIO had a remote possibility of getting there. This was not because the company did not understand or appreciate the value of IT’s contribution, but since the malaise had its roots in the way IT was engaging with the rest of the company.

Every CIO aspires (and rightly so) to create a significant impact to the company with the help of tools and IT enabled processes that give them tactical advantage many a times. IT organizations which are able to create several such initiatives sustain the benefits that IT provides, and creates IT advocates from within the business. However, this is possible only if everything else is working hunky dory, or at least has a jointly agreed review process that allows the organization to conduct a dialogue that focuses on the issues and challenges they face.

Periodic review meetings with different functions (like finance, marketing, sales and production)—singularly or jointly—provides a framework to list, review, mediate as well as track issues that are irritants to daily chores and operations within the enterprise. Over a period of time, as the IT organization resolves issues and engages in an open dialogue, these meetings become a regular way of exploring new opportunities that allow for mutual win-win situations. The assumption is that these issues are resolved to the satisfaction of “users” within the agreed to timelines. Where the formal review meetings are not the norm, any meeting that discusses IT in any shape or form becomes the ground to rage war with the CIO.

My CIO friend suffered from this lapse. He considered it inappropriate to engage the business in operational meetings, as he wanted to discuss only the strategic agenda. His team worked diligently to address operational issues when they were brought to their notice (normally when it was a crisis). As a result, the IT team was always fighting fires, without opportunities for an across the table discussion. This lack of a structured review mechanism ensured that the CIO rarely had an opportunity to table the strategic agenda which he was passionate about.

CIOs should balance the need for operational reviews, along with discussions that look at the long term impact created by innovation and new technology. Failure to engage the business across both planes will result in the strategic agenda being hijacked and loss of credibility to deliver business as usual. Such situations just end up further distancing the Business IT Alignment (See BITA).

CIO reporting: a non-issue

In the last one month, there have been a few surveys conducted by a few research companies as well as IT publishing houses attempting to find the CIO priorities for the future, what drives their agenda and does their reporting relationship has any bearing on the outcome. The research primarily focused on US CIOs. I came across these reports and findings courtesy of some IT newsletters and the editorial board of the publication on their visit to the mecca of IT outsourcing (India).

The survey clearly demonstrates the skew in the responses from CIOs based on whether they report to the top honcho (CEO/Chairman/Board) or to another CXO (even within this there were some variations, though not significant). It was amply evident that CIOs reporting to the CEO have priorities better aligned to business outcomes whereas the others were struggling with operational IT issues and continued to remain technology focused.

The meeting of about a dozen odd Indian CIOs with the publishing house editorial team was a big surprise for them. Some way through the presentation/discussion, it was evident that the Indian CIO has climbed the maturity curve quicker driven by the fact that the CIO reporting into anyone apart from the CEO is almost unheard of (yes, there are exceptions). Turning the US CIOs priorities almost upside down, it was an eye opener for the guests that a show of hands on who the audience reported to, it was a unanimous CEO/Board.

What is the underlying message to the Global CEOs ? If you believe that you do not have the time, energy, or disposition towards spending time with the CIO or managing his/her portfolio, then IT will deliver exactly what you deserve. Innovation will rarely be seen and the IT organizations will continue to suffer, thereby not providing the competitive advantage or even sustained advantage that IT can deliver. Yes, there are exceptions even in the US, but that's what they are even in todays hyper competitive age with slowdown written all over.

The key message to CEOs and CIOs is to stop looking at IT as just a technology play, when your business cannot even imagine working without it. Your business deserves a lot more, so do your employees, shareholders and customers.

Concluding on a lighter note, an executive search company recently attempted to interview a few marquee CIOs for a role in a large conglomerate. All of them declined since the position reports to the CFO !