Strategies and Trends for Information Technology Leaders
What should you do when the CEO keeps demanding things from IT and there are no more resources to do it? What should you do when demands pile up so high that you and your team are constantly over-worked and the work just keeps coming? I always talk about how you need to rise above…
At a time when the cost of doing business has taken a harder hit than almost any other time in recent history, one of the greatest challenges faced by most — if not all — CEOs is the ability to remain focused and true to the vision of an organization while surviving financial stress long…
In business as in life, bad ideas are ubiquitous. In life, we often get a chance to grow up, be forgiven, and learn from our mistakes, but bad ideas in business can be devastating and unrecoverable. So, when they begin to take root and start damaging morale, blocking innovation, and destroying value, you must recognize…
State and local agencies are under constant pressure to provide high-quality services to citizens while managing budget reductions. While some economic indicators are improving, agency budgets are not forecasted to recover in the short term. According to an August survey by the National Association of State Chief Information Officers (NASCIO), The 2010 State CIO Survey:…
Pretend for a moment that you are a CEO, and you learn that an asset that costs your company a cool quarter of a million dollars a year is chronically underutilized. Wouldn’t you want to do something about it? Well, with the average CIO commanding $250,000 or more annually in salary and benefits, it would…
With the business world being reshaped by mobile technologies, companies are moving to embrace the highly portable, Internet-linked tablet computer. Nearly half (49 percent) of CIOs in a recent Robert Half Technology survey said their companies will increase the use of tablets in the next two years. The survey was developed by Robert Half Technology,…
Businesses go through several stages of evolutionary development and in each one they demand different things in order to survive and to prosper. In an organization’s early entrepreneurial beginnings, the focus lies in getting customers and generating enough revenue to stay alive. Centralized systems for managing workflow, delegated leadership, and formal business planning lay far…
Technology-driven transformation in the 21st Century business environment puts a premium on the type of model we adopt. Not only are entirely new business models possible they are also necessary for survival. But they must be designed in a manner that allows them to morph into something new on the fly when the environment changes…
The CFO is becoming the top IT decision maker in many organizations, according to a joint survey conducted by Gartner and Financial Executives Research Foundation (FERF). According to the annual study, 2010 Gartner FEI Technology Study: The CFO as Technology Influencer,more IT organizations report to the CFO than the CEO or any other executive. Forty-two…
In past articles I have talked about building your IT-business alignment efforts, credibility and relevance by basing your IT priorities, budget and conversations on the things that the business cares most about. Critical to getting this done is to have conversations with your business stakeholders to understand what is important to them. You then need…