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It’s critical to get a fresh snapshot of the business when deciding where budget resources will be allocated. Here’s a mashup of questions CIOs should be answering before making those decisions, courtesy of Phil Garland, U.S. CIO advisory services leader for PricewaterhouseCoopers, and Craig Symons, vice president and principal analyst at Forrester Research
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CIOs from Hyatt Hotels, health care staffing company Schumacher Group and engineering firm Psomas share their IT spending priorities. A common theme runs through all industry sectors: Each is focused on ensuring that its IT environment is agile enough to handle emerging IT delivery models.
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iPad implementations, healthcare IT initiatives and a major CRM overhaul for UPS are among the projects featured in this week’s roundup of IT Projects: The Inside Scoop, which highlights IT activity across 22 Fortune-ranked and mid-market companies. Information for this feature is provided exclusively to CIO Insight by the researchers at DiscoverOrg.
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With the increasing popularity of cloud computing and the ongoing shift to a network-centric world, the need for enterprise customers to obtain reliable information and assurances about the operations of their service providers has become more intense than ever. Understanding and appropriately addressing the new SOC reports in your technology-related contracts could provide your organization with important knowledge and insight into your service providers’ operations and controls. Here, we help you understand the new reporting structure and provide 10 action items for establishing your SOC framework.
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At Ottawa Hospital in Ontario, Canada, CIO Dale Potter has made it a point to transform a risk into an opportunity. The hospital, which is already 100 percent virtualized on HP and IBM blade servers, has an 802.11n wireless infrastructure in place across its 12-million-square-foot campus.
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This feature covers CIOs changing jobs -- and alerts you to job opportunities at organizations seeking IT executives -- across Fortune-ranked and mid-market companies in the U.S. and Canada. Information is provided exclusively to CIO Insight by the researchers at DiscoverOrg.
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“When the CFO is having a bad day, everyone is having a bad day ...” This variation on an old adage may be especially true in tech departments, given that as many as 42% of CIOs report directly to CFOs, according to industry research. And, apparently, a lot of CFOs are having bad days lately. They’re feeling pressured by rising healthcare costs, as well as the need to control spending and improve profitability, according to the report " CFO Concerns: What Are The Top Challenges Facing Today's Financial Executives," from staffing services firm Robert Half. The report includes survey results from more than 1,400 CFOs. In seeking ways to trim budgets, CFOs are cutting benefits and increasing financial pressures on managers and employees. One encouraging wrinkle in the research indicates that CFOs and their organizations willing to improve workplace morale with perks that don't present a major budget drain. As you plan your IT investment strategies, knowing what's top-of-mind for your CFO can help you decide how best to make your case. The bad news? According to the survey results, technology purchasing is not even on the radar when it comes to CFO priorities. "Although many concerns of financial executives are not new issues, they are compounded by today's economic and regulatory uncertainty," says Paul McDonald, senior executive director of Robert Half Management Resources. "Leaders continue to be tested in multiple ways – they are managing issues for which there are no right answers or proven outcomes.”
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IT leaders like you need to know how to sell. You need to know how to persuade decision-making executives to fund your projects. Relying solely on facts and figures to make your case just doesn't cut it. To take your sales game to the next level, take some inspiration from the world of advertising. We're not suggesting you adopt the antics depicted in the popular TV series "Mad Men" (although a martini and a spiffy suit never hurts). Rather, we're suggesting that you study the tried-and-true methods that Madison Avenue has used for decades to move people to take action, and apply these to your own internal sales efforts.
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Many CIOs take a command-and-control view of IT leadership. They consider budgets and headcount as ways to validate their importance in the organizations. The larger their budget and headcount, the bigger their bravado. This is a dangerous mindset.
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I have a handy set of questions that I use to grill prospective IT vendors to help gauge whether a meeting is worth my time. Next time a technology vendor asks to meet with you, try asking these can’t-miss questions first.
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Imagine approaching the IT investment planning cycle as a learning opportunity – specifically, a transfer of the insights of one generation of projects, support initiatives, or installations (and their internal and external customers) into the next generation.
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Our annual Vendor Value Study aims to provide you with enough objective detail on individual vendor value—based on the input of your peers—to evaluate your current technology providers and consider the options for your upcoming IT initiatives.
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