Thursday, September 13, 2012

Basics of the CIO function

OK,  the primary job of the CIO is to serve the functions and users of the business.  They are the customers and they and their jobs are the important factors - not IT.

  • IT is an expense.  It, in most cases, does not produce revenue.  However, IT can and should provide tools and innovative processes to assist the people who do produce revenue.
  • IT exists to support the functions of the business and NEVER inhibit performance.
  • The good CIO will provide guidance to the business on ways to help the functions of the business increase sales, control expenses and provide better customer service using technology WHERE appropriate.

So the first function of the CIO is controlling costs.

Wednesday, September 12, 2012

CIO - The Primary functions

Like a physician, the first priority of a CIO should be to do no harm.   I have seen some "Rent-a-CIO" folks come in and immediately begin changing everything - without having a clue what needs to be done or what the business needs.

So rule #1: Learn what the business is and what it needs.  The needs of the business, also, fall into two major categories.  First, what essential services need to be always available ( eMail for example ) and second, what does the business need. 

Whatever is running, keep it running.  Learn the people, the applications and the processes that help the people conduct business.  If the essentials need immediate attention ( and most do ), take immediate steps by asking the people there in IT and users what needs to be done and get it done.  In many cases, at this point, it does make sense to bring in a trusted advisor to help with critical processes.

I have also seen companies where the CIO reports to the Accounting Officer and follows explicit directions from accounting without having any idea what the people using the system or systems actually do or need.  So the second rule is learn the business process and involve users in EVERY step of the process of determining what needs to be done and how to implement it.  Remember, they can't gripe about the plan if it is their plan!

The biggest improvement any new CIO can implement IMMEDIATELY is communication.  Don't confuse time wasting meetings or volumes of reports as communication.  That stuff is important to some folks but probably not to the users of the systems or the executives of your company. 

Plan regularly scheduled, brief, breakfasts or lunch meetings to quickly bring everyone up to a summary level on key events and near term plans that affect the user groups.  Also use this time to briefly ( and in English - meaning ZERO acronyms ) describe trends in technology that they might want to consider.  The key of these meetings, though, is for the CIO to listen to what the user groups are saying. 

Ok,  we've got the current stuff running and everyone is getting email and accounts are being posted, etc.  Now what is needed?

1.  What is the business process - forget IT - just what does the business do?  What do the sales people do and what do they use to do it?  This part must include going out and working with the users and department heads.  Listen to the executives.  What is their business plan?  What are the company's goals? 

What can IT do to help these processes?  The answers to this must come from the operations and executive offices.  I once saw a "Rent-a-CIO" blindly agree to implement a new ERP without consulting the user groups at all.  The result of this was a disaster.  Not only did the users not want or use it, they couldn't do their job and reverted to order to paper to old system to new system. 

Only by completely understanding all the processes in sales, ordering and accounting plus the product acquisition processes can any intelligent recommendation be made.  I'm not talking about exhaustive studies here.  Involve the users - let them tell you what they want. 

While we're on this topic, let's talk about structure.  Many companies setup applications as separate from IT.  Tons of paper, memos, requests and meetings go on to perform changes and additions to application systems.  I think that it makes more sense to have applications and systems reporting to the same path.  It simplifies everything as long as the CIO and everyone below realize that they are in business ONLY to support the business - that they have the same customer!

2. IT is an expense. ( period ).  So one thing the CIO can do to help the bottom line is control expense.  Depending on the company and size, routine support of existing systems is roughly 40 - 50% of the entire IT budget.  Find ways to reduce this!

I have recently worked with a medium size business to apply patches to around 300 servers.  So far this has taken 8 months and we're not finished yet.  There are typically 10 to 15 people involved for each step and they attend meetings, exchange requests and spend nights and weekends applying and testing the patches.  Find an automated process for doing this.  Reduce the number of servers by replacing ( as needed ) with more robust systems.

3.  Plan the future.  What is coming?  Who knows?  A couple of things that are clearly going to be changing are:
  • Work environment:  We will need to prepare for many more work at home people who are not employees.  Many companies are going to be using contract employees for a number of reasons and these people will be connecting with your systems.  While you must make this a painless and idiot proof process, it must be secure ( SOX, etc.).  We're already using good quality VPNs with secure connections but we'll need to go further.  The home user's laptop or desktop must also be secure. 
  • IT is moving rapidly back to the "Mainframe".  IBM and others are offering extremely powerful machines capable of handling many users concurrently for web based apps, remote data bases and remote execution of ERP applications.  These systems have huge advantages in terms of cost savings from support.  They offer the opportunity of reducing the number of servers which reduces the amount of dollars for support.  The new systems such as IBM Pure Systems do much more to manage themselves and apply patches and heal them selves in addition to being much easier to distribute and implement applications.
  • PCs themselves are dying!  In a few short years, EVERYTHING will be running on "CLOUD" systems.  For the non IT folk, cloud just means connected via the Internet.  It's similar to the old "Service Bureau" environment where you pay based on usage.  This has enormous savings potential in terms of support.  In the near future your users will be on a pad of some type or a "thin client" ( meaning a pad with a keyboard and mouse ). 

Sunday, August 12, 2012

What is a CIO ?

I hear the title "CIO" often these days, but what does it mean? Chief Information Officer is a position that is essential in any business - large or small. Whether or not it is an official position in the business or is part of the job of the owner of a small business it is very important. Too often today's CIO is a glorified IT manager more focused on technology than on the business. A CIO SHOULD be focused on how to assist and support the business through the use of existing and future technology. The users of technology in his or her business should be viewed as customers and their satisfaction should be the number one goal of a good CIO. Many companies have a CIO but that position reports to either the CFO or HR Director. I disagree strongly with this structure. The CIO ( remember it's an officer ) should report to the CEO or COO. ( More to come ).