Know Thyself-and Thy Acquisition

Successful M&As are often those that make IT integration a priority
 
Mergers occur for a variety of reasons. Some companies want access to new geographies; others seek a quick path toward new products and services that complement their own; still others believe they can run the acquired entity more efficiently. The key to the successful integration of two enterprises is having a good, honest, accurate view of each company's capabilities, systems, and infrastructure. The acquiring company must understand the other's core business processes and the systems that support them in order to more easily map those processes into its own.[Read full text]

- published in CIO Digest, October 2007

 

Moving IT Forward

What IT leaders need to consider during mergers and acquisitions

CIOs have a complex undertaking during mergers and acquisitions: They often have to reconcile people and systems of multiple companies while being a driver of cost reduction once a merger is completed. Most mergers fail to deliver anticipated value due to risks that are not fully contemplated and mitigated. [Read full text]

- published in CIO Digest, July 2007

 

World-Class IT: An IT Prairie Home Companion

Clients often ask me how their IT performance compares to world-class organizations. The term "world-class" is a bit loaded since it can't be measured objectively, but it can be defined subjectively and used as a standard against which firms can measure performance. [Read full text]

- published in CIO Digest, March/April 2007

 

Out of Alignment

Hugging the business too closely can squeeze the lifeblood out of IT
 
Much has been written about the need for information technology departments to align with the business units within their companies. IT should understand the company's strategic direction, so the thinking goes, and develop solutions to meet those needs. This trend led many IT departments to develop a return on investment (ROI) analysis for each project. [Read full text]

- published in CIO Digest, January/February 2007

 

United IT Revamps Processes, Business Relationships To Help Drive Company Forward

The bankrupt airline is unique, both in terms of its investment in IT, and the inventive collaborative strategy devised by CIO Nirup Krishnamurthy that has contributed significantly to addressing United's dueling needs to cut costs and create revenue-generating programs.
 
September 11, 2001 was a watershed moment for the airline industry. Prior to that tragic event, revenues and profits were climbing like a Boeing 777, marking the most successful period in airline history. Although this rosy outlook had already begun to fade in mid-2001, the prospects of the industry dramatically worsened in the aftermath of that infamous Tuesday. [Read full text]

- published in Information Week, November 9, 2005

 

United IT Employs "Strategic Themes" To Cut Cost, Enable Collaboration

United's IT Department devised a seven-tiered approach to bringing its business units together with each other - and IT - and managed to save money and create new opportunities in the process.
 
A closer look at CIO Nirup Krishnamurthy's Strategic Themes reveals how United was able to re-conceptualize IT's relationship to the business units in a way that integrated the disparate entities' business units making them more collaborative. [Read full text]

- published in Information Week, November 9, 2005

 

In Portfolio Management, Apps Alone Won't Bring Order To Chaos

Tools deal in quantifiable information; they don't possess the human virtues of discipline, creative thinking, or, most important, decision-making.
 
One of the most difficult tasks for IT departments is project portfolio management--and, of course, it's also one of the tasks they most need to get right. The challenge can become particularly acute for companies that have experienced dramatic growth. CIOs can find themselves in the dizzying position of assessing the merits of dozens of projects and services, encompassing hundreds of employees. [Read full text]

- published in Information Week, February 2, 2004

Four Steps To Creating Successful Project Portfolios

The criterion typically assumed to be most important in assessing projects is financial return. But that approach can overlook some huge opportunities.
 
A successful company is much like the human body in motion: The movements of individual parts are coordinated in order to move the entity as a whole in a single direction. One of the most important factors in driving a company in a desired direction is coordinating and prioritizing projects, including most IT efforts. The task of assigning value to projects can be a confusing one, and the key to project prioritization is in prioritizing the criteria. For while decisions about projects are indeed based on a composite picture, that picture will be much clearer if the various analyses are assigned their proper places. [Read full text]

- published in Information Week, May 5, 2003