The View From Here: Convincing the CEO of IT’s Value
October 29, 2008
Sandy Kemsley at Intelligent Enterprise has a nice post up on things that a CIO should say to a CEO over coffee. Actually, she is reporting on a presentation by Forrester Research founder and CEO George Colony, who spoke at the PegaWorld conference.
Check out the post for the specifics on what Kemsley reports that Colony advises CIOs to schmooze about. In general, the idea is that CIOs should push the reality that information technology does not exist in a separate little world from what the rest of the organization. For instance, the first tip is to convince the CEO that it’s “business technology” and not “information technology.”
On one level, this is a small semantic distinction. Such things matter in the big picture, however. “Information technology” is a bit vague and academic. “Business technology” is far clearer and suggests the direct impact of what IT people do.
Conceptually, trying to convince upper management of the importance – even centrality – of IT is a no-brainer. It requires quite an effort, however. IT folks are IT folks because they are technically inclined. Hopefully, people who rise to the top of IT departments have the willingness and ability to deal with the big picture, both in terms of what they do and how they communicate with upper management.
IT departments will continue to struggle as long as what they do seems mysterious. It is the task of IT managers is to stop being parochial and to draw a very clear picture of what the deparement does and, even more importantly, show how it benefits the organization.
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--Carl Weinschenk
So Carl - maybe I can add some more color here. What IT Director’s should be saying to the CEO is that “we are the transport which makes the world work” and to do our best we need to be an integral part of the Operations Practice.
We can provide key value-add in the processing of the company’s blood-flow and provide the security and audit records to sercure the “C” Officers status for their formal external assertions.
IT can also work with Corporate Legal to insire that the companys digital evidence profile is one which will meet the Investor’s expectation’s and the Operating Officers needs.
Properly built evidence models will limit exposure under regulatory framework and meet the stringent needs for protecting the operations of the Entity.
Todd Glassey
[...] | Tags: Carl Weinschenk, George Colony, Sandy Kemsley | My thanks to Carl Weinschenk at IT Finance Connection who pointed me to an excellent article posted by Sandy Kemsley at Intelligent Enterprise called; 8 [...]
Hi Carl, thanks for the link. You can find the rest of my PegaWorld coverage and other topics on my own blog at http://www.column2.com; Intelligent Enterprise just syndicates selected posts.