Sunoco CIO says economic slowdown means adjustments

Peter Whatnell, the CIO at Sunoco Inc, said the secret to running a successful information-technology department is knowing how your company makes money. Success, he said, does not come from running counter to the corporate culture or falling in love with technology. In a lengthy interview with the Wall Street Journal, Whatnell said the economy is having a huge impact on the information technology world.

"Basically you've had to throw away any plan you've put together prior to the end of August and start over again. It's caught a lot of people by surprise and now we have to quickly adjust our plans for next year...,'' he said.

Whatnell also told the newspaper that the rate of change in IT has never been greater, and those changes are at the core of what service IT provides. It is not just outsourcing, but the expectations of the business community in terms of their exposure to easy-to-use, cheap-to-acquire consumer technology in their personal lives like iPhones and free online email accounts like Yahoo Mail, Whatnell explained.

IT departments, he said, have been slow to react to these trends. He also said the economic crisis will require creativity, meaning companies in the next year must consider nontraditional ways of delivering IT. Rather than putting a PC on every desk with a Microsoft Office suite, he said, an alternative might be to buy what you need from a Web-based provider for $50 a year.

"You have to seriously look at that,'' he said

For more insights and advice:
- see this WSJ.com article

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