competitive advantage

Developing a wise technology strategy

Judi Hasson — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 16:55:55 -0400

A technology strategy is just not about determining what servers or networks should be deployed. It requires a framework to deploy a set of business applications. CIOupdate.com advises that there are three things CIOs need to know when developing a technology strategy: An in-depth understanding of the business strategies the company is pursuing; a vision of how technology will add value to business processes; and technology use principles.

Business strategy is key, with the publication noting that "building a technology strategy without understanding the business strategy is like building a dam in a dry gully and hoping it will rain. You might get a lake, but more likely you'll get a muddy pond.''

It is important to choose technology that is efficient, meets the needs of the user and provides a competitive advantage. And the technology principles chosen must be understood by technical and non-technical users, and focused on reliability, consistency, and maintainability.

For more advice:
- see this CIOupdate.com article

DHS finds a way around H-1B visas

Mon, 07 Apr 2008 06:59:59 -0400

The Department of Homeland Security has extended the period for Optional Practical Training from 12 to 29 months. OPT certification allows foreign students to work in the United States without an H-1B visa for a limited amount of time. This will allow non-immigrant students with degrees in science, technology, engineering, or mathematics to work in the United States. That's good news for CIO and IT executives who are finding it tough to find qualified IT staffers in the current pool of workers. "This rule will enable businesses to attract and retain highly skilled foreign workers, giving U.S. companies a competitive advantage in the world economy," said Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff. "By extending the training period by an additional 17 months… we are further ensuring a legal workforce in the U.S. and aiding good corporate citizens."

For more on foreign visas:
- See this DHS press release

Worldwide shortage of IT workers

Tue, 19 Feb 2008 06:59:59 -0500

Here's something you either already knew or suspected: nearly 60 percent of CEOs, CIOs and other C-level executives continue to report that there is a shortage of fully qualified IT staff worldwide. A survey, by the IT Governance Institution, conducted between July and October 2007, reported that 93 percent of 749 executives surveyed said that IT is very important to their overall corporate strategy. Nearly half of those polled said IT service delivery problems are the second most common ones they have experienced with IT in the past 12 months.

"We are seeing an increased demand for qualified information technology professionals throughout the industry," said Lynn Lawton, international president of ITGI, in a statement. "Without a well-trained, fully-staffed IT department, the bottom line is that many organizations around the world are needlessly sacrificing money, productivity and competitive advantage."

For more on IT staff shortages:
- See this Network World article

Gartner: CIOs need business experience

Thu, 07 Feb 2008 06:59:59 -0500

A new Gartner report says that current CIOs need to learn other skills outside of technology. And this should be the year that they begin acquiring non-IT business management skills to keep pace with their changing world. "For the past few years we have detected some intriguing CIO hiring trends: CIO candidates are not required to have formal technology-oriented backgrounds but they must be able to show that they have managed a non-IT business unit," says Ken McGee, a Gartner analyst. "Professional qualifications and competence are still necessary for those wanting to become CIOs, but these qualities will not be sufficient in coming years." There are two reasons for this:

New CIOs need non-IT, business unit executive experience if they wish to get a new CIO job.
New, non-IT duties are being given to more and more 'new' CIOs.

To confirm these trends, Gartner spoke with the heads of IT recruitment at four of the largest professional search firms in the world. They were asked whether their companies were looking for specific education and technical knowledge. The answer was very instructive:"When push comes to shove, it doesn't matter," one executive told Gartner.

Instead, executives want candidates who have management experience and CIOs who have run departments outside of IT. "We have discovered that leading recruitment executives report business unit management experience to be an actual requirement of chief executives looking for CIOs," McGee said. "The ability to leverage technology for competitive advantage to innovate, that is really where the sweet spot is," says one recruiter.

For more on the changing CIO skills:
- See this Computing SA article

Advice from one CIO to another

Mon, 04 Feb 2008 06:59:57 -0500

It's always a good idea to take a look at how your CIO colleagues are doing in their jobs and what kind of ideas they use to make their job work. There are always lessons that you can transfer to your own job. Take the case of Bill Santille, the CIO at Uline, who has been on the job for just five months. He has a bird's-eye view of his own career, including what went right and what he should have done better. He's got a $30 million budget and 110 employees. And he's got plenty of challenges to do the job right.

His most important vision is "consolidation, as economy of scale through size is critical to reduce transaction costs and increase competitive advantage." Nevertheless he's got plenty of other issues on his 'to do' list, including replacing the company's current Web-based front-end with Internet transactions via Microsoft. His advice for CIOs: "Work directly with business leadership to develop annual and quarterly business plans in order to influence decisions that require IT investments and set expectations on the capabilities of your IT organization."

For more on one CIO's vision:
- See this InformationWeek article

A seat at the table

Mon, 29 Oct 2007 07:59:56 -0400

Until recently, the CIO was considered an afterthought at many companies. But a new study at MIT and Harvard shows that 80 percent of the 175 CIOs polled now consider themselves a valuable member of the executive leadership team. How things have changed! The study was released by IBM in conjunction with the launch of its Center for CIO Leadership. Harvey Koeppel, the center's executive director, says that the study shows an increased awareness by other members of the c-suite with regard to how important CIOs are. "Senior management increasingly recognizes technology as central to innovation and competitive advantage. As a result, more and more CIOs are gaining a prominent seat at the table in their executive teams and are playing an active role in strategic business decisions."

To read more about the growing importance of CIOs:
- see the CIO Update article

CIOs adopting new info management strategies

Wed, 11 Jul 2007 20:01:39 -0400

Finding a way to integrate diverse information from many different repositories will be essential for CIOs looking to reap the benefits of highly managed information. According to a new Accenture survey, some 60 percent of CIOs are working to adopt an information management strategy to gain a competitive advantage, and 75 percent of CIOs surveyed expect to have an information management strategy in place within the next three years. Data analytics will be an area of particular focus because it is an area in which many CIOs are still not meeting expectations. Only 40 percent of respondents are currently using BI to seek a competitive edge. However, the survey also revealed that 76 percent of CIOs surveyed will be investing in BI and data warehousing in the months to come and 57 percent see BI as a core component of competitive advantage in the near future.

For more on information management:
- get the full report overview in this CIO magazine article

Global outsourcing: The next wave

Mon, 30 Apr 2007 20:01:38 -0400

Most companies are using outsourcing in some form with varying degrees of success, but done properly and strategically, global sourcing strategies can also create new forms of value for customers and sustainable competitive advantages for the business. To do that, it's important to assess all aspects of an organization's business activities to determine where there are opportunities to leverage outsourcers' capabilities, intellectual property, best practices, global infrastructure or geographic presence. Some of the business and financial benefits of this next wave of global sourcing include lowering R&D costs and shortening time-to-market for new product development processes. But there are challenges in realizing these benefits, including a hesitance to entrust partners with the primary responsibility for processes and operations that are core to the business or directly impact top-line growth. The key is having an organization-wide strategy.

Learn more about outsourcing for competitive advantage:
- read the article at CRM Buyer

ALSO:
- read this on measuring offshore partnerships
- this on why global outsourcing initiatives fail
- and this on how to make outsourcing succeed

Business Intelligence 101

Wed, 14 Mar 2007 20:01:38 -0400

Although business intelligence technology is the best way to analyze discrete pieces of information and use them for competitive advantage, CIOs sometimes have trouble explaining its benefit to others within the organization. But without the ability to explain its benefits and how it works, CIOs have a hard time gaining champions for the technology, which can eliminate data isolation and redundancy, improving efficiency. To combat this issue, more enterprises have launched or begun to consider formalized training organizations known as Business Intelligence Competency Centers. These centers generally are comprised of cross-functional teams of people from IT and business units and set the stage for "evangelizing" BI to end users.

Learn more about using BICCs to promote business intelligence:
- read the article at SearchCIO

ALSO:
- read this on how collaboration increases business intelligence
- and this on protecting your intellectual property
- and this on using BI to avoid useless information
- and this on intelligent business intelligence
- and this on business intelligence and web services

Building your technology infrastructure for tomorrow

Wed, 28 Feb 2007 19:01:38 -0500

All technologies are not created equally. Some are more effective than others at unlocking competitive advantage and improving customer interactions. It's critical to understand how various technologies can be used to give your company an edge in its field. Instead of getting bogged down in day-to-day problems, set aside some time to evaluate what will ensure that business processes are properly enabled by the available information and that complexity is reduced. To make the most of your IT resources, group IT assets by the type of benefit they provide to the organization and view them as a portfolio. All IT tools should increase operational excellence, improve core value and boost innovation.

Read more about building your IT infrastructure for tomorrow:
- read the article in the Trinidad Express