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Corporations have different organizational structures. Not all have a CIO role, preferring instead to have a VP, or Director lead their IT deployments.
You should consider engaging Peter B. Giblett to lead your IT deployment because he is an Information Technology Executive who has more than a twenty year track record of business success:
- Aligns global IT strategy, policies, programs and initiatives with mission-critical business results: Customer service and retention, lead times, productivity/throughput improvement, sales and earnings growth.
- Designs and implements full lifecycle of Business Change: Strategic, business and operational plans and multi-phased and multi-year corporate projects.
- Sectoral experience: Logistics and distribution, management consulting, telecommunications, banking, financial services, insurance, utilities
- Change management experience:
- Personal Results Management: Proactive. Results driven. A superb communicator who will institute bold initiatives and carry them out in order to effectuate positive business results, efficiency and increased profitability
Much has been written recently about the changing role of the Information Services department and strategic implications for the leading IT manager. Peter offers a unique insight into the current challenges facing CIO’s and how to work with the business community in order to meet new world demands.
As an IT person for all of his career Peter has always believed that IT can make a positive contribution to both business results and everyone’s working lives. Over the last 25 years we have always seemed to have been building a foundation, but not delivering a real impact. Well now is the time to do that (or die as a profession).
Current Focus: IS at a Cross Roads
Saying that Information Technology now stands at a cross roads in respect of the leadership of the Information Services department in the average corporation. A new future exists with a totally different focus, specifically in the area of contributing to improved business results. Failure will result in day-to-day activities being managed under the auspices of the corporate operations department, under strict cost control.
The diagram to the right shows where many CIO’s are focusing the majority of their efforts on departmental operations.
To a large extent to challenges of operational systems should be thought of as a thing of the past. Technicians are required to ensure the operation continues to run, but little effort is required to develop new applications. Significant investment has been made into the systems that run the day-to-day operations. Many software vendors are keen to convince us that our systems ‘must’ be replaced to fit today’s challenges. Yet to do that we spend much needed budget to replace an already functioning system, Peter believes that such proposals must be fully justified, before identifying a replacement strategy. Often old legacy systems can be moved onto more modern servers thus the software outlasts the hardware that it was installed on (and that was often the limiting factor).
Peter is not arguing that we should never replace old technology, there comes a time when everything must be replaced, but the average corporation has invested a great deal on its applications, and needs to leverage its investment to the fullest extent. The IT department has an ongoing role to monitor developing technologies and identify new components or services that can be leveraged to enhance corporate operations.
Future Focus: Supporting Business Decisions
Peter is concerned that the average IT leader is not spending enough time focusing on the areas that deliver the best value to the overall corporation. So what delivers best value to the modern business? Peter thinks IT value should be measured by the extent to which Information Services can contribute to business growth.
Agile development and service oriented architecture are part of it – there is requirement to deliver results in weeks, not months, but this is only part of the picture. It is Peter’s belief that Business Intelligence offering is IT’s greatest contribution to the diagnosis and solution of complex market trends, will be central to our value proposition.
On the IT front there is a need to integrate data between applications (both for operational and for business intelligence services). Effective data governance and master data management (MDM) strategies are the strategic impact that will have the largest impact on existing operational systems. It is important to remember that data governance is actually a business responsibility, they own the data, IT are mere custodians.
The Business Intelligence offering will use data derived from operational systems it is possible to identify a greater understanding of our business and its capability. Add to this market data and our business is capable of understanding the corporation’s impact on its marketplace, and monitor this as business conditions change – when understood correctly this can be the early warning system for any impending downturn in our business sector. This is the cycle that drives most value for the business community. The business community has a continual need for information, facts, and figures in order to drive business growth.
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