The Premier Blog For Learning How To Become A Successful CIO
“Alignment”, “Innovation” – arrgh! Who in the world of IT is not sick of hearing these two words used over and over again? Yes we’d like to be able to help out the rest of the business, but our IT budgets are being slashed left and right. We don’t have either the staff or the … Read more
Achieving alignment between the business side of the house and IT is one of those things that everyone likes to talk about when they are putting together the goals for the upcoming year, and then nothing ever seems to get done about it. A survey that was done by the consulting firm Bain & Co. … Read more
Once upon a time the Supreme Court justice Potter Stewart said that pornography is hard to define, but “I know it when I see it.” In the world of IT it would appear as though alignment with the business side of the house is a lot like pornography in this sense – it’s hard to … Read more
Is it possible that the holy grail of IT, getting our act together with the rest of the business, is no longer what we should be working on? A survey that was done by the consulting firm Bain & Co. sure seems to be saying this. Before anyone goes crazy on me, let’s first make … Read more
Every firm spends loads of money on IT, why do only some (Walmart, FedEx) get a clear advantage from the money that they spend? A team of researchers lead by Dr. Gautam Ray talked with 104 insurance firms in order to get to the bottom of this question. Here’s what they found: the key to … Read more
Where’s the money going? Everyone knows that spending on IT departments and projects has been going through the roof for the last 10 years or so. Umm, does anyone know if the company has been getting any benefit from all of this increased spending? Blame all of this discussion on Nicholas Carr‘s article “IT Doesn’t … Read more
In my humble opinion, one of the key contributors to why so many IT projects fail is because of simple neglect. I guess the best analogy is if you were starting to drive down a highway road. When you started driving, you’d keep your hands on the steering wheel and make sure that the car … Read more
Isn’t that the goal of every IT department – to move from being viewed as a support organization to somehow becoming part of the company’s strategic core? Although we all know that this is what we want, for some reason it sure seems to be very hard to do. Good news – the folks over … Read more
Kuppinger Cole + Partner (KCP) is a European consulting firm that specializes in identity management. So it goes without saying that they spend their time in and out of multiple IT departments on a daily basis. They know all of our dirty little secrets. One of their founders, Martin Kuppinger has been doing some … Read more
I’m not sure if you remember, but way back in 2003 Nicholas Carr wrote a piece for the Harvard Business Review called “IT Doesn’t Matter“. Man o Man did this set off a firestorm in the IT community – it was sorta like someone calling your sister ugly. However, time has passed since then and … Read more