Sooner or later, you’ll need to hire a new CIO. Here’s how you should proceed.
Article by Martha Heller, article on CFO.com September 6, 2011
Excerpt from the article:
With the burgeoning demands on IT (mobile applications, support of consumer technologies, and the role that data plays in your product or services lines), your need for really good IT is only increasing. This time, why don’t you follow these guidelines and hire the right CIO?
(…)
Step 4 of 5: Be sure to interview on the five pillars of IT.
My good friend, former CIO of Harrah’s, John Boushy, recently turned me on to Peter High’s wonderful book, World Class IT, which I now use to structure my own CIO interviews. Create question sets around High’s five principles of IT: recruiting and developing a great team; building and maintaining a robust infrastructure; managing projects and portfolios; ensuring partnerships with the business; and developing good vendor relationships. Since those pillars pretty much define the CIO role, it makes good sense to organize your CIO interviews around them.
To read the entire article, please visit CFO.com
To learn more about World Class IT: Why Businesses Succeed When IT Triumphs, please visit our book page.
During the Midsize Enterprise Summit West Conference in Huntingon Beach, California, Peter High, President of Metis Strategy, conducted a video interview with organizers of the event on the changing role of the CIO.
In this video interview , Peter talks about:
An attendee from the event summarized Peter’s talk in a blog post to UBM Channel’s ExecITConnect, an online community for IT executives.
Jennifer Zaino writes:
“‘If your IT department isn’t already driving innovation, it should be.’
That’s the message that Peter High, President of Metis Strategy LLC and the author of World Class IT: Why Businesses Succeed When IT Triumphs, shared with attendees at the Midsize Enterprise Summit West in his opening keynote on Sunday. With CIOs having occasion to interact with so many other parts of the organization, there’s opportunity to understand the common needs emerging across the enterprise — and connect these dots to deliver innovations that will be valuable to all constituents.” (read more)
Discover the techniques you can use to transform your IT department and develop into a truly world-class company.
Speakers:
Peter High, President, Metis Strategy, LLC
Watch this interactive webinar to learn:
View the On-Demand Webinar that shares both the audio and presentation given by Peter High:
World-Class IT: Why Businesses Succeed When IT Triumphs
In an industry known for risk aversion, Great American Insurance’s Senior Vice President and CIO Piyush Singh has managed to innovate and transform the company’s entire operative platform, while simultaneously influencing its business philosophy.
by Peter High
09-01-2011
In Summary
Who: Piyush Singh, SVP/CIO of Great American Insurance
What: Singh has transformed the 4,000-employee company’s entire operative platform and influenced the company’s business philosophy.
Where: Cincinnati
Why: Singh’s experiences innovating in a traditionally risk-averse industry provides a recipe for success for any CIO grappling with governance, risk and compliance challenges.
Piyush Singh has been a CIO in the insurance industry for more than a decade, currently holding the title of senior vice president and CIO of Great American Insurance, as well as vice president of its parent company, American Financial Group in Cincinnati. Singh led a large-scale transformation of Great American’s entire operative platform and has had a major influence on its business philosophy. Under his leadership, the company’s IT role changed from that of custodian of a legacy IT environment to respected partner that participates in—and contributes to the success of—the businesses it supports. Great American has implemented a modern technology architecture as a foundation that will adapt for future growth and evolving business needs. CIO Insight contributor and Metis Strategy President Peter High recently spoke with Singh about how he balances his team’s role in innovation with governance, risk management and security—especially in light of the increasing demands of his colleagues and the company’s customers.
To read the remainder of this article, please visit CIO Insight.
Tough market conditions present Australian CIOs with an opportunity to seize the innovation nettle and demonstrate to the business how IT can deliver real business benefits according to an international expert who consults to Fortune 5000 companies around the world.
Article by Beverley Head of iTWire
Peter High, an internationally acclaimed author and founder of Metis Strategy, has warned Australian IT managers that innovation needed to be a priority even when the economy was heading south.
“Do not deprioritise innovation during a downturn. If anything innovation is essential for recovery,” according to Mr High.
Mr High, who has worked with the world’s leading organisations on how ICT can unlock innovation in the enterprise and deliver real, measurable benefits, delivered iTWire’s inaugural innovations webinar. A recording of the webinar, which was supported by Citrix, can be accessed here.
Mr High claimed that a number of IT innovations had gained momentum during the recent economic downturn as companies looked for new ways to tackle computing problems. He said that virtualisation, cloud computing, open source software, energy efficient data centres, unified communications and expanded IT automation had already had a kick-along from the downturn as companies looked for more value from IT investments.
To continue reading the remainder of the article, please visit iTWire, a leading Australian IT-Business news and analysis web site.
To listen to and watch the entire presentation Peter delivered, please access the Webinar hosted by Citrix.
Global Partners CIO Ken Piddington, a Forum on World Class IT participant, highlights the role of World Class IT principle 5, External Partnerships, in an article about how he has aimed to establish partnerships with his vendors.
Article by John Dix of Network World
08-22-2011
“Ken Piddington, CIO of Global Partners LP, an $8 billion energy company in the Northeast, recently implemented an innovative vendor partnership program that he hopes will improve the product and services the company gets from suppliers while helping those suppliers more efficiently serve the company and benefit from the relationship. He recently outlined the plan with Network World Editor in Chief John Dix.”
Within the article, Ken describes an event earlier this year in which he brought all of his vendors together to share Global Partners’ company and IT strategy with them. The purpose of this event was to make sure that the various vendors could better understand how they can serve and align with Global Partners. Peter High, President of Metis Strategy, was invited to the event to speak to the group about the mutual benefit that can be derived when vendors are positioned more as external partners, rather than merely sellers of services, in order to ensure that vendors can deliver targeted, strategic value that aligns to the direction of the company.
In the article, Ken mentions Peter’s participation in the excerpt below:
“Then our CEO got up and presented an overview of where we have been the last five years, how we’ve grown, what his vision is and where we are heading. And we had Peter High from Metis Strategy, author of World Class IT, talk about one of his principles, Principle 5: Develop a collaborative relationship with external partners. And that was very well received, so I thought the night went really well.”
To read the entire article, please visit Network World.
To listen to Ken’s podcast interview with us, please visit The Forum on World Class IT.
How to Build a World Class IT Enterprise: CIO Insight China recently profiled Peter High, President of Metis Strategy, in an interview covering multiple topics related to World Class IT.
07-23-2011
by Yolanda Yan
In the interview, Peter focused how Chinese CIOs can leverage World Class IT principles in an evolving economy and increasingly global world. Some of the topics discussed include:
An excerpt from the article, responding to a question regarding why it is exciting to be involved in IT:
Chief information officers or chief technology officers used to be order takers, leading a support organization within the company. At best, they might automate a process that used to be managed manually, and that might yield some cost savings, but the thought of an IT executive within a company having the wherewithal or even the understanding to help the company drive revenues was not a common thought by any stretch of the imagination as recently as 15 years ago.
Many factors have led to this change, including
As a result, the clever IT executives recognize that they have an unprecedented opportunity to spread their wings, and suggest ways in which value can be created through the use of technology. I often refer to the “strategic perch” that IT executives have within the corporation. They have reason to have conversations with the heads of the divisions of the company (Marketing, Sales, Human Resources, Finance, Product or Service related divisions, etc.) about matters of strategy. In some cases, these business leaders may not be having the same kinds of conversations with each other. If the IT leader can push the business leaders to articulate their plans using common levels of clarity, granularity, measurement, and so on, then the IT leaders can play a part in suggesting where there are common needs that may be addressed through one innovative idea from IT. They can also call out where there are diverging needs that are articulated that must be reconciled. Ultimately, this then positions the IT executive to take a leadership role in innovation on behalf of the organization. This is an exciting change, and it will be the subject of my next book, which I am in the very early stages of writing.
The entire article was published in Mandarin on CIO Insight China‘s web site.
ADP CIO Mike Capone kept innovation moving even during the economic downturn, thereby preventing his IT organization from becoming a cost-cutting target. A new mobile payroll initiative undertaken by his team is now driving new business as the economy begins to recover.
02-15-2011
When Mike Capone became ADP’s first corporate-wide CIO in July 2008, he worked from the outset to be sure that IT was considered a strategic weapon within the arsenal of the corporation.
As someone who grew up on the business-side of ADP (prior to taking on his current role, he had been general manager global HR/payroll outsourcing ), Capone had been a user of IT. He knew he could speak with his new partners outside of IT with a degree of understanding and empathy that a traditional CIO might lack. Only a few months into his post, the economy was decimated. Based on Capone’s moves, IT was not the cost cutting target that it became in many other organizations, where IT was viewed as a mere support organization.
It’s the new normal: Now what? How can you apply yesterday’s lessons to tomorrow’s IT strategy? Focus on transparency, governance, motivation and innovation — the keys to thriving during good economic times and bad.
03-14-2011
If you believe what many economists are now saying, we have emerged from a prolonged economic malaise and the United States is poised for growth. Good news surely, but IT leaders have suffered right along with other executives in the corporate suite during these bad old days. The recent downturn cost a lot of talented IT leaders their jobs.It seems, then, to be an appropriate time to ask: “What can IT leaders do today to prepare for the next downturn?”
Having worked with a great number of CIOs on the principles of World Class IT (introduced in my book, World Class IT: Why Businesses Succeed When IT Triumphs), I have learned that the most successful executives focus their organization’s efforts to ensure that they plan for the proverbial “rainy day,” while simultaneously encouraging innovation. There are four main areas on which these leading executives typically focus:
Duane Anderson took on his first CIO role in mid-2009 when he joined ad agency Marquette Group and its sister agency USMotivation. His first steps? Focus on defining the present and future state of IT and strengthen governance in his organization.
03-03-2011
Marquette Group in Peoria, Ill., is an advertising agency that delivers qualified, local customers to national brands by designing integrated media strategies. Its sister company, USMotivation, focuses on incentive strategies, group travel, and creative communications.
When Duane Anderson came on board in mid-2009 as CIO serving both entities, he clearly needed to be sure to work with his new colleagues to define the present and future state. This was Anderson’s first foray into the CIO role, and he was new to the industry. As a former lieutenant to Tim Stanley at Harrah’s Entertainment, he had been exposed to a high-octane IT department, but now he was in IT’s biggest chair.
Since he was new to the role and to his company, Anderson focused on steps related to defining the present and future state of IT, as well as strengthening governance.
