Career Talk JDR

Archive for 2009

CIO Perspective: Business Transformation, and the Role of Strategic CIO Leadership

CIO Strategies Influence Our Business and Our Customers

The Alcatel-Lucent family of companies possesses a unique set of strengths where strategic CIO leadership may contribute to business transformations in multiple ways:

CIO Leadership internally – (AT CLIENT COMPANY) within, and across our greater family of Alcatel-Lucent companies, to lead collaborative transformations enabling creative innovation of better products and services for our employees, partners, and customers.

CIO Perspective: Business Transformation, and the Role of Strategic CIO Leadership

Strategic CIO-Sponsored Investments Make Service Transformations Possible

CIO Perspective: Business Transformation, and the Role of Strategic CIO Leadership

Productivity + Creativity + Collaboration = Transformation

A CIO who can introduce technology services that enable people to be more creative will be more strategic than one who does not. When it comes to connecting the dots to transformation, many, if not most CIOs spend a great deal of their time looking for opportunities to enhance individual employee productivity and streamline operations. This focus certainly delivers on the promise of achieving results better, cheaper and faster. But it is more akin to updating processes than engaging in meaningful transformation. Some CIOs spend a portion of their time helping employees become more creative. This can be done by ensuring broader access to the information resources they need at the time and place of their choosing – an essential element of the Dynamic Enterprise.

CIO Perspective: Business Transformation, and the Role of Strategic CIO Leadership

Transforming Business Culture into Creativity, Collaboration, and Innovation

There is an emergence of Boardroom-level recognition of having a technology-grounded, business-savvy CIO leader as a competitive advantage – to facilitate innovation of new products and services that are attractive to customers. To inspire higher levels of innovation in an organization, it is essential to leverage communication and collaboration technologies that enable people to work better together, produce more, and deliver “hospitality-quality” service experiences for customers.

CIO Perspective:  Business Transformation, and the Role of Strategic CIO Leadership

The spectrum of influence that a CIO has on business is evolving. Many CIOs today are “mostly operational” – functioning as top-level managers of day-to-day, cost-centered IT assets as well as overseeing the technical staff that keeps a business running. By contrast, more progressive executive teams recognize opportunities to leverage IT investments as an “enabler of business transformation,” which requires a higher level of influence on business change – a unique role that can only be served by a visionary, “strategic” CIO leader.

Is there a silver lining after being laid off?  Well, not that you can usually see when it is happening to you!

Remember from Part 1, that an ideal job- IJ, is a position working for a company that you believe in.  In order to really believe in a company, you must believe in their products, the people they employ and also, their ethics…among other things.

If you show up each day and do just enough to get a paycheck you will ultimately lose that job. If you complain how hard everything is or how wrong things are, you not only bring yourself down but you will also be let go.  If you love your job and feel you are in an IJ now but need to make more money, do not ask for a raise.  Instead do the following:

Companies run on people; people create processes to make work efficient and profitable.  Put yourself in a position to help your company make money (sell more product or service); or reduce cost (lower expense equals higher net profit).  All companies expect you to bring in 5x your salary – make sure you far exceed that to keep employed. 

Work only for a company that you believe in.  Their products, the people they choose to employ and their ethics must all align with your beliefs.  We will call this your IJ-ideal job.

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