Sometimes, the best way to fix a broken organization is to stop breaking it. Here's what you're doing to keep your staff from getting real IT work done.
Successful CIOs, like all highly placed executives, must be adept at running an organization that's good at getting work out the door.
Unfortunately, many of the most popular management techniques for fixing poor organizational performance don't work. Or worse.
If you want better guidance, start with Peter Drucker's observation that, 'Most of what we call management consists of making it difficult for people to get their work done.'
CIOs and IT leaders should be key drivers of change management programs. Learn valuable tips for navigating complexity and scaling technology rollouts.
CIOs must be prepared to look beyond the glitz and glamour of implementing new technologies -- and focus on the big picture.
A panel of experts presented this insight and more during the "CIO as Chief Change Maker: Driving Successful Change Programs at Scale" session at the 2023 MIT Sloan CIO Symposium in Cambridge, Mass., on May 16.
The key to focusing on the big picture is to understand and be open to solving problems.
Although still important for brand viability and competitiveness, potentially transformative digital projects and so-called moonshoots appear to be giving way to workstreams that bolster organizational resiliency.
Those tasks? System uptime and cybersecurity and, naturally, cost optimization.
Companies are seeking IT leaders who can be surgical about cutting costs and other critical measures for building business resiliency during a downturn, executive recruiters recently told CIO Journal. Also, financial leaders for leading technology providers noted in earnings calls that customers are optimizing their consumption of cloud software in the face of macroeconomic headwinds.
Ravi Malick has always been a technologist at heart, and via political science, startups and consultancy, landed in his current role at Box
As global CIO at tech supplier Box, Ravi Malick wears two hats. The political science graduate runs IT operations at the cloud storage firm and provides his expertise in the supplier's business operations to help it connect with its CIO customers.
This split is what attracted him to the job, he says. 'I am 50% internal, running IT, security and the normal CIO kinds of things, and then I am 50% external, working with our customers, sales teams, product management and marketing, focused on conveying how to best use our products.'
CIOs and other tech executives are bracing their organizations to remain flexible in a period of unpredictable developments and bounce back when they take a punch.
CIOs and other digital leaders are playing a broader role in helping their organizations deal with fast-moving and disruptive developments, from emerging technologies to damaging cyberattacks.
Indeed, digital resilience, organizational adaptability and business agility surfaced as key themes at this week's MIT Sloan CIO Symposium. Speakers at the annual event pointed to the changing nature of the CIO amid the chaos of change and the potential for that position having greater sway as a result.
73% of Average Supply Chain IT Budget Will Be Allocated to Growth and Performance
As organizations place greater emphasis on supply chain management, Chief Supply Chain Officers (CSCOs) intend to grasp their collective opportunity to invest in growth through new technology investments, according to Gartner, Inc.
In a survey of 499 supply chain leaders from October through December 2022 in North America, Latin America, Western Europe and the Asia/Pacific region, 65% of respondents said they anticipate it will be easier to fund new technology investments with 73% of supply chain IT budgets this year to be allocated to growth and performance enhancements, on average.
Tom Peck, CIDO at Sysco, shares valuable insights into the key role that CIOs play as a transformation driver while managing emerging technologies such as AI.
CIOs and IT leaders need to anticipate global disruptions -- and that process requires looking ahead.
Organizations must be able to adapt quickly to stay competitive in a rapidly changing business environment. Balancing organizational resources and innovation presents a constant challenge for CIOs and IT leaders. The process requires strategic planning, careful analysis and a willingness to take risks.
While businesses today face a paradigm shift in how they operate, they must first become more agile and gain a greater visibility across operations as they embrace modernization.
The business world, like society at large, is experiencing a moment of turbulence. At this year's World Economic Forum in Davos, leaders called it a 'polycrisis' -- a collision of stressors from inflation to recession to global conflict to supply chain crises to the possibility that globalization as we know it will fragment into conflicting regional interests.
How can businesses cope? They have no choice but to adapt, turn on a dime, move at speed and rapidly scale.
When an incursion occurs, IT teams need a recovery plan and backup systems ready to deploy.
Ask a room full of CIOs if their organizations have suffered ransomware attacks and only a few reluctant hands will be raised.
Statistics, however, tell a different story, Jeff Reichard, VP of solution strategy at Veeam, said during a Tuesday panel at the MIT Sloan CIO Symposium.
Attacks are common, according to a January report by the security software company, which surveyed 4,200 IT leaders. It found that 85% of organizations suffered at least one ransomware incident last year.
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