Making Transformation Happen

Because we are in the business of providing products and services that make incredible service experiences happen, we are in a fortunate position to assist our forward-thinking customers in achieving their CIO-sponsored, IT-powered business and cultural transformations. Likewise, as with our customers, we leverage these same technologies to achieve our own transformational business goals and improve services to our employees, partners, and customers.

Given today’s economy, limiting the CIO to purely an operational function is not an option. Companies must embrace the innovations CIOs are uniquely positioned to deliver and capitalize on the strategic breakthroughs made possible as they truly create the Dynamic Enterprise.

If you’d like to read the full article, you can also find it at

http://cioleadershipcenter.com/images/Alcatel-Lucent_CIO_Business-Transformation.pdf

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 Leadership externally – (FOR CLIENT CUSTOMERS) as we deliver solutions and services that enable their transformational CIO strategies toward collaboration, communication, and creativity for their business.

From the illustration above, you can see that there is an interesting correlation between CIO strategies within our own company and those of our customers. As with our own company, the stratified forces of transformation also drive initiatives within our most progressive customers. Strategic CIO leadership, when combined with the right tools of collaboration and communication, can incite cross-organizational synergies. Stimulating a culture of transformational change makes relational creativity and collective innovation possible, especially in areas related to designing and delivering hospitality-quality services to customers.

The final part- Part Six- of this blog post to follow…

If you’d like to read the full article, you can also find it at

http://cioleadershipcenter.com/images/Alcatel-Lucent_CIO_Business-Transformation.pdf

Strategic CIO-Sponsored Investments Make Service Transformations Possible

Elevating the new CIO from what has typically been an IT operations management function into a business-enabling role can inspire the creative, collaborative cultures that make incredible service experiences happen. In today’s highly competitive business climate, where all business must compete skillfully for our customers’ attention and loyalty, it’s essential to invest “strategically” in technologies that make better service possible. The new strategic CIO’s unique insight into both business and technology allows, at an executive level, an improved perspective for choosing IT investments that yield the highest impact on achieving the goals of the business. However, in many companies today, the old cost-centered financial model has not yet evolved to fund the strategic IT investments that enable the type of cultural and service transformations needed to compete in this new business era. During budget season, there is usually competition for funds to support strategic growth initiatives. If the business-savvy, technology-aware CIO is not at the table, then timely opportunities for service, innovation, and productivity will be forfeited and the business culture cannot transform.

Part Five of this blog post to follow…

If you’d like to read the full article, you can also find it at

http://cioleadershipcenter.com/images/Alcatel-Lucent_CIO_Business-Transformation.pdf

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.

However, a new generation of strategy-oriented CIOs can do all of these functions and more. They invest their time producing platforms that harness technologies which enable teams of people (including employees, partners, suppliers and customers) to creatively collaborate. It is from this level of activity and investments that true and meaningful innovation result in fundamental transformation.

Part Four of this blog post to follow…

If you’d like to read the full article, you can also find it at

http://cioleadershipcenter.com/images/Alcatel-Lucent_CIO_Business-Transformation.pdf

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.

There are several levels at which a CIO can play a critical role in cultural transformation. One traditional way is to listen to colleagues across all business units, then translate their input into a technology strategy that supports their collective needs. However, although valuable, this is still somewhat operationally focused. A more strategic role would involve the CIO, teaming with peer executives, to infuse technology-powered business objectives at conception. In these early, gestational stages of business strategy formation, a strategic CIO can introduce unforeseen opportunities made possible by emerging technology developments – some of which may be only perceived by the CIO – offering recommendations to the executive team, or perhaps even consideration of new business models.

Part Three of this blog post to follow…

If you’d like to read the full article, you can also find it at

http://cioleadershipcenter.com/images/Alcatel-Lucent_CIO_Business-Transformation.pdf

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.

CIOs are increasingly being asked to participate in over-the-horizon strategic business transformations, while concurrently managing the IT organization and systems that support ongoing business operations. Certainly, a CIO who is exclusively preoccupied with operational platforms and process improvements might not foresee business-changing opportunities inspired by strategic technology innovations. As the evolving CIO role becomes more strategic, with innovation and transformation taking center stage, we see a new generation of technology executives at the helm.

Part Two of this blog post to follow…

If you’d like to read the full article, you can also find it at

http://cioleadershipcenter.com/images/Alcatel-Lucent_CIO_Business-Transformation.pdf