This continues a series of guest columns from practitioners and bloggers I respect. The category - The Real Deal describes them well.
Jackie Bassett is founder and CEO of BT Industrials Inc., a strategic management and technology consulting firm that helps CEOs and CIOs of global companies integrate technology into business strategy. She is a co-author of the book "A Seat at the Table for CEOs and CSOs"
"Why stop? It’s not working – and it will never work.
We need to stop selling FUD to the fearless. We need to stop leading with compliance to justify IT spend (when was the last time you bought stock in a company using compliance as a key motivator?)
We need to stop focusing on emergencies and efficiencies or we become the very definition of a cost center. The only thing a CEO (or CFO) will ever look to do with a cost center is cut it.
“Insanity is doing the same thing over and over, expecting a different result.” - Albert Einstein.
Globalization has just met digitalization and we’ve just run out of time.The average tenure for a CEO at a Fortune 500 company is 3 years. He doesn’t have time for Linux or Vista or patch Tuesday or SOA– he must deliver the results that the Board, the shareholders and the market are looking for.
He needs to deliver what customers want, when they want it and how they want it or he will miss the market. He knows that if he can’t deliver, he will lose customer business to someone who can.
Want a seat at the table? Take the lead here!
Your CEO won’t return your call asking for $100K on WAN optimization but he’ll chase you down the hall when you offer to help build a product that will win new international customers.
IT knows what customers want or at least knows how to figure it out. Customer conversations, requests and insights are right in the network! The right answers are in their emails to your sales teams and their phone calls to customer support.
They’re in every transaction between your customers, partners and suppliers. They’re in structured and unstructured data. They’re right in the hands of IT!
It’s not what keeps the CEO up at night that matters. It’s what gets him up in the morning that matters – the sound of Ka-Ching!
Focus on the many, many ways we can turn IT into a Profit Center. Ka-Ching! No CEO or CFO ever looks to cut their profit center. As Rudy Provoost CEO, Philips Lighting says:
“Technologies are just a vehicle to respond to needs and come up with absolutely brilliant solutions and applications.”
Jackie can be reached at: jackieb@btind.com
