JUST THINK IT - Cardinal Health News & Mediacardinalhealth.mediaroom.com/download/0424 CIO-Tomorrow.pdf · an obstacle to their mission” [CIO Maga-zine] and “Thirty-eight percent

DEVELOPING THE NEXT GENERATION OF LEADERS

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JUST THINK ITMOVING FROM DOING TO ENVISIONING

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Welcome to our inaugural CIO To-morrow event and special pub-

lication.

More than a decade ago, a group of enterprising Central Ohio chief infor-mation officers came together and created an event, then titled The CIO Symposium.

Later, the event was renamed CIO-hio in an effort to attract CIOs from around the state. Several years after, the event again was renamed TechTo-morrow.

Indeed, CIO Tomorrow is the same event. And some of the same chief information officers who first created this event continue to serve as the organizers of our new CIO Tomorrow.

I’d like to personally thank Angelo Mazzocco, chief information officer of COPCP, Central Ohio Primary Care Physicians, who came to me some 18

months ago to gauge Business First’s interest in helping to market and pro-duce their event. Mazzocco was the inaugural chairman of this event in 2002.

Special thanks go to Mazzocco and David White, chief information officer at Battelle Memorial Institute, who is chairman of our CIO Tomorrow event this year.

“I’m very hopeful that we are begin-ning to create the premier IT con-ference for the Central Ohio region,

where we can bring the area’s IT thought leaders together,” White said.

“We will share some very meaningful content and offer great opportunities to network and share intelligence,” the CIO Tomorrow chairman contin-ued. “I’m excited that we have includ-ed other C-level leaders in our confer-ence—it’s not just IT people talking with other IT people.”

Added Mazzocco: “This is an event that is put on by CIOs for CIOs, for the purpose to learn more, network more, and add value to the technol-ogy and information services across Central Ohio.”

“The core planning team is made up of CIOs,” Mazzocco said. “We went out and found some of the most knowl-edgeable IT leaders to talk about top-ics of most interest to CIOs.”

Columbus Business First Advertising

Director Nick Fortine, who is our point person on this event, says CIO Tomor-row is all about preparing the future IT leaders of Central Ohio to be more than just technology leaders. “How do we harness technology to be part of our overall strategy?” Fortine asks. “Today’s technology leader is really a business strategy leader.”

If you are a chief information officer, chief technology officer, or you plan on becoming one, put this event on your calendar. CIO Tomorrow will in-deed become a stepping stone for your IT career. n

Welcome to the ‘new’ CIO Tomorrow

Don DePerroPresident & Publisher

David WhiteCIO, Battelle

Angelo MazzoccoCIO, Central Ohio

Primary Care Physicians

04.24.15 | Advertising Supplement to Columbus Business First 3Developing the Next Generation of Leaders | CIO-Tomorrow.com

F R O M T H E C H A I R M A N

The world continues to move at alarming pace. Change isn’t just inevitable – it’s constant. And nowhere is that more evident than the digital space. That’s why we’re so excited about this year’s conference.

We know just how easy it can be for a company to fall behind. If you aren’t prepared for constant changes in the industry, the learning curve is steep and diff icult to overcome.

CIO-Tomorrow grants you direct access to veteran executives who can share their perspectives, experiences and insights to help you navigate this new area in leadership development.

As the current CIO at a company that opened its doors in 1929 – when the world was much diff erent – I am no stranger to the diff iculties of moving into the 21st century and embracing all that the digital world has to off er. There are daily struggles to address – security vs. ease of sharing information, strict guidelines for gov-ernment clients vs. more relaxed parameters for others, etc. – that require a great deal of agility.

If we don’t have the right leaders in place – leaders who are willing to embrace innovation – we all will have diff icult paths ahead. Ensuring the right education opportunities exist also plays a key role in future suc-cesses. I’m proud to work for a company that values STEM education (science, technology, engineering and math) and is doing its part to help develop future leaders in our field.

Additionally, it is important that we provide opportunities for entry to women and minorities who are under-represented in the digital workspace because a diverse workspace is a strong workspace.

From arming up-and-coming leaders with new skills to ensure their success in a more complicated digital world, to finding ways to keep the momentum going, we hope that you leave here today equipped with the right tools to make sure you are developing the next generation of leaders. n

David WhiteCIO

Corporate InformationTechnology

CIOs tie innovation to business strategy


I began my career as an anthropologist studying tribal behavior in the modern Japanese corporation. Upon return-ing to the U.S., I apprenticed with über-futurist Alvin Toff ler [Future Shock; Third

Wave; and Power Shift ], assisting in creat-ing the national digital strategies for Singa-pore, Korea and Mexico. We discovered the ultimate driver of national competitive ad-vantage is the talent pipeline – specifically an executive cadre who can sense future technology-created opportunities in time to capitalize on them and identify threats early enough to avoid them. Too many executives still have a value-destroying “IT is a black box” or “IT is someone else’s job” mental model. Job #1 for high perfor-mance organizations is developing the next generation of leaders.

I am oft en quoted as saying, “All organiza-tions are on a digital journey – most have no map, no guide and bad shoes.” A fellow futurist has a simple and yet surprisingly accurate predictive model of how a given individual will react to any technology. It all comes down to the birthdate of the tech-nology.

If the technology was invented before you were born, you don’t even think of it as “technology”, you think of it as “just there.”

If the technology was invented before you were middle aged you view it as very ex-citing –something to be engaged actively with.

If the technology was completed aft er you were 35 you view it as “completely point-less, and it tends to make you angry.

Executives now running most organizations are in that third category.

When asked what will determine the “State of the World by 2025”, most futurists would not answer powerful computers, break-throughs in medicine, or even 100percent renewable energy. The number one driver of the “State of the World by 2015” will be the content of people’s heads – the beliefs, desires and ideas that executives have about technology.

The CIO of Tomorrow – actually the CIO of Today – has a major role to play in devel-oping the next generation of business lead-ers.

Much has been written about the impend-ing demise of the Chief Information Of-

ficer. The boff ins at various subscription research firms seem intent on burying CIOs. We are bombarded with statistics like “54 percent of line-of-business ex-ecutives agree with the statement that non-IT departments view the IT group as an obstacle to their mission” [CIO Maga-zine] and “Thirty-eight percent of total IT spend is outside of IT already – heading to 50 percent by 2017”. These statistics are worthless. This obsession with “who spends the money” has to stop. The real issue becomes, “Did the money spent cre-ate supra-normal value?”

One of our keynotes when CIO at Chico’s was the only executive left standing aft er

a private equity purge of the executive suite. The IT organization was viewed as “the value base”. The private equity chief explained, “My dad always said to me, ‘You’ve got to dig it, grow it, or build it; ev-erything else is just fluff .’” IT is not fluff .

Another critical question to ask is not what line of business executives think of IT but the quality of thought on the part of the business executives regarding how to make money/create competitive advan-tage with IT.

A broad systemic issue exists here. Most boards of directors today do not include executives who have a proven track record of managing disruptive technologies to create competitive advantage.

The challenge of managing the intersec-tion of people, process and technology is not a new one. There is a lack of best prac-tices. Attending the “CIO Tomorrow” con-ference is a great way to explore the new way. I hope to see you there. n

Futurists will rely on intersection of people, process, technology

K E Y N O T E I N S I G H T

Thornton A. MayFuturist & Executive Director

IT Leadership AcademyConference Moderator

The number one driver of the “State of the World by 2015” will be the content of people’s heads – the beliefs, desires and ideas that executives have about technology.

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Listening to customers is important as ever

Belief, momentum critical for future IT leaders

As the world becomes more digital and more social, today’s consum-ers live in the land of now – tweet-ing, pinning, posting and streaming

in between texting and status updating. At no other time in history have customers had such an ability and opportunity to aim their voices at companies, and even leaders.

As leaders, we must tap into this territory, lis-ten to what these customers are saying and act decisively. We must instill this move-ment of change in our employees as well as give them the tools to execute. That is what

T-Mobile has been doing for the past two years. And, it seems to be working.

Two years ago, we faced a number of chal-lenges in an industry dominated by a duo-

poly. The wireless industry rules were hold-ing us back. What do you do if the big guys won’t let you play? You create your own rules.

Un-carrier is our response. We are tearing down the rules of wireless and challenging the norms all for the benefit of our custom-ers. These industry moves, as well as IT changes we’ve made, have come out of a focus on the customer. This focus drives T-Mobile leaders and employees to listen, develop and execute.

T-Mobile is dragging the wireless industry kicking and screaming into the future. Our reward? Customers telling us we are doing something right. They recognize we are changing the industry for the better and are choosing T-Mobile in unprecedented num-bers.

The key is to have the common sense to listen to customers. Then, empower em-ployees to turn that conversation into ex-ecutable deliverables that make customers’ lives easier, simpler and better. n

A primary lesson for the next gen-eration of IT leaders is that real success comes from not only de-veloping a viable agenda, but also

getting people behind that agenda with sustainable momentum. While that may seem obvious to some, this is not an easy task. There is oft en much to learn about how that momentum gets established and how it can be assured in the face of tech-nological change, business uncertainties and expanding global influences.

The question that intrigues me, and which

will propel my comments at the “CIO To-morrow” conference is, “What can we as IT leaders really learn from our inventions?” This investigation focuses on how the arduous creation of soft ware, code, op-erating systems, data management, and

overall system and server architecture, can then inform, guide, enlighten, and po-tentially rewire, the “hardware” that is us.

What is it that IT leaders can learn from the fruits of their labor; namely, the creation and sustenance of solidly built, reliable, and innovative soft ware systems? What we will discover is that there is an incred-ible amount of humanity in these systems, a replication of both the machine that is our corporeal self, as well as the aesthetic and spiritual aspects to human existence. And, in the same way that soft ware is con-

stantly evolving, improving, and achieving greater clarity and eff iciency, so, too, must IT leaders be evolving in their understand-ing of their responsibility and obligation to the companies they serve and to greater humanity. n

Gary KingEVP and CIO

Dr. Don MarinelliAcademic Director

Entertainment Technology Management Program

Columbia University School of Continuing Education


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Winning in business, like in sports, requires peak performance. Performance that is superior to the competition, on a sustained

basis. What is the secret to sustaining peak performance? Day aft er day, year aft er year? Is it even possible to sustain peak perfor-mance—or is that an oxymoron?

Yesterday’s peak performance is tomorrow’s status quo. Sustainable competitive advan-tage is just as hard to find in sports as it is in business. The secret is finding ways to redefine peak performances through a sus-tained commitment to innovation. There is always another mountain to climb.

The San Francisco Giants have spent the past decade redefining peak performances.

Three World Series titles in five years. MVP-caliber contributions from every player on the field, finding unique and diff erent ways to win. A 347-game regular season sellout streak. The first sports facility to become a Wi-Fi hotspot and the first to deliver video replays to fans’ mobile devices. The first team to embrace and create an online sec-ondary market for their tickets. The first

Social Media Café. One of the first baseball franchises to pilot pitch tracking, hit track-ing and player tracking technologies. The first sports organization to commit 100 per-cent to dynamic ticket pricing of every seat in the ballpark.

These achievements are a reflection of our organizational mission: “The San Francisco

Giants are dedicated to enriching our com-munity through innovation and excellence, on and off the field.” Innovation is clearly at the core of our DNA. Being satisfied with the way things have been done in the past (aka complacency) is not culturally acceptable at the Giants. If we’re not questioning and reinventing every aspect of our business on a regular basis, we are doomed to fail.

Today’s peak performance is tomorrow’s status quo. Perhaps you can win once on the basis of good fortune or good timing. Maybe twice if you’re really lucky. But to do it three times in five years? That requires a sustained commitment to innovation. n

Redefi ne your peak performances

If we’re not questioning and reinventing every aspect of our business on a regular basis, we are doomed to fail.

Bill SchloughSVP & CIO

San Francisco Giants


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“Executives want IT leaders who can trans-late technology into business strategies,” said David White, CIO of Battelle Memorial Institute. “What can you do to help the busi-ness make more money? How can you tie IT systems to revenue growth?”

In its annual CIO survey last year, global consulting firm Deloitte reported that a sig-nificant majority of CIOs say that respond-ing to new business needs and driving digi-tal strategy are their top priorities for the next 12 to 18 months. Deloitte compared today’s IT leaders to venture capitalists: Venture capitalists “operate in a high-stakes environment where extraordinary value cre-ation and inevitable loses can coexist inside a portfolio of calculated investments. So do CIOs.”

The Deloitte report also said that more and more, CIOs are seeing themselves as part of the executive team: Half of the CIOs that Deloitte surveyed rate themselves “strong and eff ective” partners with their executive teams—a 10 percent increase over the pre-vious year.

Branndon Kelley, CIO at American Munici-pal Power, Inc. (AMP), a nonprofit power and services provider for member munici-pal electric systems, said, “A CEO expects his or her IT leader to bring new ideas to the table. It’s all about wrapping IT around the strategy of the organization.”

Kelley said he learned early in his career that “I could deliver value by first understanding how I could help my peers do their jobs bet-ter. A CIO has to be diverse. You have to be able to understand and discuss finance as easily as technology. You have to be able to talk about value and business strategy…you can’t be just the IT guy who fixes computers.” As an example of adding value, he said, when AMP plans new power plants, Kelley brings predictive analytics to the table, to help de-termine such things as the likelihood of fu-ture outages. “The executive team can see how critical technology is to the business.”

Be strategic about building relationships, too, Kelley said. “Understand what other leaders contribute to the business, and how their operations work. In the old model, the IT leader might have announced, ‘This is what we’re going to do [with technol-ogy] and this is how it’s going to work.’ That model simply doesn’t work any more.”

Kelley recommends making a point of “liv-ing a day in the life of the people you work with. What are your peers’ pain points? How can you help them get to solutions?”

Battelle’s CIO White agrees. “It’s critical that you understand what your clients in-ternally are doing. You may have a tech-nology solution that works technically, but doesn’t work at all functionally.” Battelle is working to develop savvy and well-round-ed future CIOs by putting IT folks into lead-ership cohorts, White said. “Our future

leaders are learning diversity in thought as they learn how diff erent areas of Battelle work.”

Industry leaders and analysts agree that the time is right for CIOs to fully engage with their CEOs and the rest of the execu-tive team. When the technology research firm Gartner, Inc. released the findings of its global CIO survey late last year, it not-ed that “CIOs are being presented with a unique opportunity to become digital leaders.” Gartner VP Dave Aron said, “Be-ing a powerful digital leader and influenc-er takes time, and CIOs need to spend time being digital leaders. The survey data…tells us that, all things being equal, the CIOs with higher performance as IT lead-ers spend significantly less time running the IT shop and delegate some business unit leader engagement. This gives them an extra 5 percent ‘time bonus,’ or a day per month, to engage the board, senior leadership, and external customers.”

AMP’s Kelley said, “I think that in 10 years, the CEO will look at the IT leader, and un-derstand all the things that a strategic CIO brings to the table. I think then that CIOs will be seen as logical heirs to the top lead-ership positions in corporations.” n

“Battelle is working to develop savvy and well-rounded future CIOs by putting IT folks into leadership cohorts.”

David White | CIO, Battelle

What a CEO looks for in tomorrow’s IT leadersTying innovation and technology to business strategy

by Molly CulbertsonReporter | CIO-Tomorrow


Today’s successful CIOs have moved their IT divisions from being the custodians of core IT systems to becoming partners in the strategic

growth of their companies.

“The executive team must see their CIO as an eff ective partner,” said Sally Miller, CIO at Exel. “You want them to know that you’re a strong and key contributor to the business. That means several things: You’re compe-tent in your role, you’re on top of the con-stantly changing world of IT, and you can educate the executive team on what tech-nologies can do for the business.”

Kris Merz, CIO at The Limited, agreed. “Tech-nology used to be in the background of most businesses, a costly expense center. But technologies today can help any business to be successful. It’s really important that, as an IT leader, you can make your voice heard, so that you can bring those new technolo-gies to the business.”

Key to maintaining relevance, Merz said, is “your ability to change. Things change all

the time, both in your business and in tech-nology. Being a leader means really under-standing the business and what’s new in IT. Get out and engage with your peers in the business. Understand what your trusted vendors are bringing to you. What are the solutions you can bring to the business?”

Merz said that she reports directly to the CEO at The Limited, but recognizes that many CIOs do not. “When you’re really a key partner, though, you’re reporting to the CEO,” she said. “If you’re not, if you’re report-ing to the CFO, for example, it’s your job to convince the CFO that you need a spot at the table. This isn’t a personal power thing: It’s about making sure that you’re able to do your job and bring solutions. You’ll be able to deliver better ideas and better solutions if you hear things first hand.”

Ron Frissora, CIO and part of the executive steering committee at M/I Homes, said he is constantly presenting new technologies to vet and approve. By keeping technology top of mind with the executive committee, he said, he can help keep IT relevant. “It’s also really helpful to find business partners internally that you can work with and help provide solutions for. They’ll help sell the power of IT for you.”

John Kish, CIO at Safe Auto Insurance Company, concurred. “If you start by solv-ing a business problem, you’re probably not going to go wrong.” To ensure that his IT organization was solving problems ef-fectively, he said, “I organized application development teams who work directly with business developers in a highly col-laborative way.”

When he first joined Safe Auto a couple of years ago, Kish said, “the backlog of IT projects was prioritized by who spoke the loudest about the projects they wanted.” Now, he said, his IT team prioritizes by fo-cusing on growth projects. “I take a central role in measuring IT projects by looking at opportunity costs: What opportunities will we not be able to take advantage of if we don’t take on a growth project?”

Kish has also made the relevance of IT more evident through accessible data. “We’ve created a data analytics team, and the team has made current data available to anyone who needs it when they need it. We’re also making sure that the folks who need the data understand how to read it.”

By helping their executive teams under-stand the tremendous value of technology and how it can help drive business strate-gies, these IT leaders have changed the perception of IT within their businesses. No longer viewed as simply running costly service divisions, they’ve gained a seat at the table, and have become partners with their executive teams. n

“Get out and engage with your peers in the business. Understand what your trusted vendors are bringing to you. What are the solutions you can bring to the business? ”

Kris Merz | CIO, The Limited

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“Traditionally, IT organizations have done just what the business requires,” said De-nise Zabawski, CIO at Nationwide Chil-dren’s Hospital. “But today, companies are recognizing that technology has the poten-tial to drive business strategy.”

The primary IT function used to be provid-ing back off ice support, she noted, with IT focusing on systems implementation, repairs, and updates. “Of course there is always a critical service aspect to what IT does, but in organizations where IT has been successful at gaining a seat at the ex-ecutive table, that service aspect is paired with thinking and expertise that help move the business forward.”

Gaining a seat at the table is oft en easier said than done, she said. “The executive team has to be able to see technology as a supporter of the strategic plan, rather than just a service.”

The industry a particular IT team is in also has a lot of impact on how executives view technology, she said. “In healthcare, there are so many changes happening so quickly, industry leaders recognize that technol-ogy is the key to keeping up with and even keeping ahead of changes.”

The impact of big data has helped busi-ness leaders understand the power of IT, Zabawski said. At Nationwide Children’s Hospital, for example, the largest pediat-ric accountable care organization (ACO) in the country, “we have to have data to do accountable care well. And IT has to pro-vide the data.” (ACOs bring healthcare pro-viders from various organizations to help ensure that Medicare patients get high-quality care: the goal is to improve health outcomes and reduce costs.)

As IT’s strategic role in the business grows, it’s important “to work smarter, not harder,” she said. In this way, IT can give a company a great advantage. For example, because IT works with every division, “you get to see the particular pain points of nearly every department. And sometimes you can come up with one soft ware solution for pain points in multiple departments: That’s stra-tegic, smart, and saves money.”

Exploiting new technologies can create competitive advantages for the company. Ben Stormer, who co-directs Fuse, Cardinal Health’s year-old innovation center, said,

“Today, you absolutely have to be digital to be relevant. The traditional IT model was all about saving dollars. But there just aren’t many products in existence that don’t have digital components. Investments and de-velopments in new technologies can pro-vide new business opportunities.”

With Fuse, Cardinal Health has created a space for IT to focus on new technologies. Fuse was developed specifically as an in-novation space, because Cardinal’s lead-ership was not satisfied with the speed at which it was developing new technologies in its traditional corporate setting. (The ser-

vice function of IT still resides at Cardinal’s headquarters.)

At Fuse, which is situated away from Car-dinal’s corporate campus, a large open workspace is filled with teams of six or so innovators, working together to test vari-ous technology solutions. “Our systems are lean and agile, so that we can bring successful products from ideas to market ready more quickly,” Stormer said.

For Zabawski and Stormer, and their re-spective organizations, moving their IT departments from service organizations to envisioning organizations has represented transformational change, and also requires the ability of their organizations to continu-ally adapt to a continually changing envi-ronment. The transformation has brought about tremendous advantages: the ability to create, evaluate, and pursue new busi-ness opportunities in an ongoing and stra-tegic way. n

Just Think It: moving from doing to envisioningTo get the most from technology’s potential, area CIOs say, IT leaders need to focus on more unstructured and creative thinking. Those that can’t are at risk of losing their value within their company structure.

“The executive team has to be able to see technology as a supporter of the strategic plan, rather than just a service.”

Denise Zabawski | CIO, Nationwide Children’s Hospital



A Chinese philosopher once said, “If you do not change direction, you may end up where you are heading”.

Considering the two absolute certainties now looming on the horizon, all industries would be wise to re-examine the paths they are currently on.

The first certainty is that the upcoming generation of workers and consumers will be more “digitized” and technology de-pendent than any other time in history. The resulting second is that in order to survive this environmental transforma-tion all enterprises must find viable ways to meaningfully respond to this growing wave of increased expectations, both in-ternally and externally – and that clock is ticking loudly.

We are now at a pivotal moment where things will undeniably be different from

here on out. Going forward, all future leaders must be fully dialed in to the new ways in which true value will be measured, the new tools and methods through which that value can be delivered, and the level of “new knowing” that will now be re-quired in a world where ignorance (i.e., “the lack of knowing”) will no longer be tolerated.

Yes…I do think that most enterprises recognize the emergence of this growing change and uncertainty. Yet, I also think that many businesses are still struggling to cope with these disruptive and com-petitive effects. Simply wishing it all away,

or instead trying to rationalize why the re-charting of legacy directions is somehow not needed, will likely add yet one more certainty……that you and your enterprise will end up as laggards or losers.

The one clear reality that we all now face here is that this is a true “leadership mo-ment”. No more excuses, no more denials. If our expanded opportunities are to be fully realized in the midst of this fast-learn-ing/fast-applying world, we need leaders who can help us not only see the impli-cations of where we are now, but also ar-ticulate viable visions of where we instead could be, as well as help us quickly and

willingly navigate to those new end points by making use of all of the resources at our disposal. That includes talent.

Businesses that are ready to effectively engage our next generation workforce in achieving those new end points will have a head start in overcoming legacy barriers sooner rather than later.

The “CIO Tomorrow” conference is a mean-ingful way to help next generation leaders start to think forward, past the mental bar-riers of what we do now, and instead focus on the possibilities that could exist, as well as how to get there. n

Future technology must meet ever-increasing expectations

Bruce BarnesPresident, Bold Vision

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“In today’s economy, and in an era of pro-found technological advancement, com-panies have to be willing to disrupt them-selves, or they’ll be disrupted by forces outside the company,” said Ben Blanquera, a senior executive at Pillar Technology Group in Columbus. “In order to exist and thrive into the future, companies need to be able to change, and change more quickly than they ever did before. They must be able to innovate, and innovate fast.”

Technologies are advancing so rapidly, he said, “most industry leaders will soon be fighting for survival. Challengers will come from everywhere: from all sorts of start-ups and from other industries.

“I don’t think they have to change 10 times faster; I think companies need to change and innovate 100 times faster than they cur-rently do.”

The good news? “Disruption equals rein-vention: A company that can disrupt itself is more focused and energetic than before.”

Blanquera cited Amazon as a company that has successfully reinvented itself repeat-edly. “Amazon began as an online Barnes & Noble,” he said. “Today, it’s the easiest place in the world to find just about anything you want, and have it delivered to your door.”

Large, publicly-held companies oft en find that such reinvention is very diff icult. “Once you scale, the level of inertia grows. But when a company’s leadership knows it needs to innovate more quickly, the com-pany can change,” Blanquera said.

Innovation—the transformation of ideas into successful products and services—is all about meeting customer needs, Blan-quera said. “The goal is to identify customer needs, identify the right ideas to meet those

needs, then test them quickly—and inex-pensively.”

According to PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), today’s strategic CIOs can help speed the innovation lifecycle by developing and instituting an end-to-end process for in-novation. (PwC calls this the “idea-to-cash process.”) As a key member of the executive team, the CIO can help drive the creation and management of the innovation pro-cess, and put together and implement the technology through which the business ex-ecutes the innovation process.

Forge, the Pillar Technology Group’s inno-vation center in downtown Columbus, was created to help Pillar speed its innovation lifecycle, and to help its large Fortune 500

clients do so, as well, Blanquera said. Forge is a large, open, collaborative workspace. “It’s an ecosystem where all employees are learning all the time. We hire the best peo-ple, and together we come up with ideas, create solutions, test them, refine them.”

Forge has become an attractive place for some of Pillar’s clients to send their best in-novators to work, too, Blanquera said.

“Once there’s an idea that might address a customer’s problem, creative people need to collaborate to evaluate it, refine it, com-bine it with other ideas, throw it out, what-ever,” said Tim Heller, co-director of Cardi-nal Health’s Fuse, which has a vibe similar to Forge. “We evaluate an idea based on potential value, market trends, and how it works with our existing eff orts. Ideas are vetted through our teams; together, we pri-oritize them.” An idea might be put on hold, retested, or merged with other ideas.

“The question really is, ‘How do you en-able innovation?’” Heller said. “How do you inspire passion and engagement, and get people excited about moving the ideas in their brains to the tangible?”

Speeding the innovation lifecycleToday’s CIO must be an agent of innovation: defining, developing, and testing processes for rapid technology solutions

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Heller and Cardinal’s leadership clearly believe that an important part of enabling innovation is to provide an environment where smart people talk with each other and create together. “Here, ideas are shared among others constantly. The ideas are vet-ted every day—and the best ones are ulti-mately turned into healthcare innovations.”

Fuse implements lean management tech-niques, too, focusing on continuous im-provement, efficiencies, and quality. “We’re very product-centric,” Heller said. That is, teams work on products, not projects. “In-novation starts with a problem, and we know that innovation can come from any-where. You certainly don’t have to be an ‘in-novator’ to innovate.”

When a team has an idea that they believe might result in a business solution, Heller said, there is an expedited 48-hour approval process for funding. “Once a team provides specific information about the product it wants to work on, we’ll get a quick answer as to whether it will be funded.” When fund-ed, the team goes to work on the product, taking it through a rapid innovation cycle. “Generally, it takes about three months to prove out an idea,” Heller said.

“We invited our customer advisory group to visit us here at Fuse, and hosted a sort of ‘Shark Tank’ like event. The group threw out some challenges, gave us some prob-lems to try to fix. They went away; we went to work. When we brought the same group

back here eight weeks later, they were floored with what we delivered.”

Fuse has been in existence just under a year. To date, its innovators have created eight startups, including mobile devices, cloud-based software, and medicine dis-pensers that help manage inventory and reduce waste.

At both Pillar’s Forge and Cardinal’s Fuse, the focus is on creativity. (At Fuse, each em-ployee gets some “spark” time each week, spending about 5% of work time on what-ever is most important to them.)

The environment and team structure en-courages experimentation, where teams

work out lots of different concepts and are allowed to fail fast, without penalty. “You have to experiment to innovate,” Heller said. “Some experiments are going to fail. That just leads to more learning.”

This work environment has enabled much quicker idea-to-market innovations. It’s also enabled Cardinal and Pillar to attract some of the best and brightest technology talent from around the country.

“Our goal is to give our customers the tech-nology solutions they want,” Heller said. “Our folks have been finding ways to bring innovative solutions to market much faster than we could in a more traditional corpo-rate setting.” n


Like everything else around us, the role of a CIO has changed. The rate and pace of change is accelerating and so are expectations.

I’ve witnessed and participated in success-ful organizations shift ing from a command-and-control environment to one where employee empowerment and engagement is the new way of doing things – a change of thinking… how things really need to be to have associates that are motivated and aligned with the vision.

The company that values having a motivat-ing environment for associates is moving in the right direction. Even more critical for a great company is aligning individuals to what truly drives their satisfaction. This will attract and retain great people. It’ll keep all associates aligned with the vision as work-ing for something greater than themselves and is much more rewarding than working

on our own art of perfecting our craft where the perfection becomes an end in itself.

I’ve also witnessed a dramatic shift in both the small and large company IT depart-ments as they’ve transitioned from being an executor of projects, to having a place at the table in defining strategy, whether that be participating in a product road map dis-cussion or overall direction of the company.

We all realize that technology is not the end point, but a means to it. The headline here is that technology can be a key competitive advantage to an organization. The chal-lenge is how you can maximize it to drive results. The CIO needs to be thinking about this everyday.

One of the ways to unlocking this advan-tage is having the right people, combined with putting them in a position to make a diff erence.

Pamela Rucker, chair of the CIO Executive Council’s Executive Women in IT recently

stated that a company really needs to know its employees. “The pace of change in technology means that you always have some segment of your staff that wants to learn the hottest new tools, and you need to keep them out front so that they stay en-gaged. On the other hand, you have other leaders that tire of always having to learn a new technology and really want to focus on the business aspect of technology deliver. It’s important for you to know how to man-age both types of people and have the right blend of staff members to keep you tech-nologically savvy and business-focused,” says Rucker.

The successful CIO makes sure he/she is engaged and is an active participant on the executive team. An engaged technol-ogy leader enables an active dialogue and debate to happen amongst the executives – having a clear seat at the table. Aft er the debate, it’s equally important for all ex-ecutives to leave as a unified team - core to keeping a company’s culture in tact. This is especially critical as each executive

connects with their respective teams and provides deeper context to decisions and direction.

Early on in a company’s life cycle, the CIO most likely needs to be able to do hands on development, may be helping define the product, be intimately involved in code releases, and in hiring. However, as a company grows it’s critical that this leader be able to understand how the workflow changes.

Role definition also evolves and gets more specialized. Initially, the CIO is all things tech. It does change over time to focus on internal information systems, includ-ing the business infrastructure. The Chief Technology Off icer (CTO) role will likely evolve later through this specialization and can be seen as the person on point for re-search and development and possibly new product plans.

Ultimately, the great CIO/CTO will be able to attract and retain the right team, be part of a dynamic executive team and be able to shift gears in understanding where technology needs to lead the discussion to help evolve the strategy and deliver on best in class implementations that drive value and help delight customers. n

We all realize that technology is not the end point, but a means to it.


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$10,000 in scholarships awarded

CIO-Tomorrow is designed for CIOs from across the country, and is the

premier annual conference for CIO’s, Business Executives and IT Leaders.

The one-day conference was held April 23 at The Hyatt Regency.

In 2015, CIO-Tomorrow in coopera-tion with Student Scholarship Partner Fibertech, will continue its tradition of honoring today’s students and tomor-row’s future leaders who excel in the fields of computer science and IT fields through scholarship opportunities.

Applications were completed by un-dergraduate students who are a resi-dent of Ohio, majoring in Information Systems, Computer Science, or other Technology-related fields, is at least a sophomore and has at least one year

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CXO Panel - What CEO’s Are Looking For In Future IT LeadersModerator: Thornton May - Futurist, Educator and Author

Panelists: David Evans - EVP & CFO - Battelle Bill McDonough - SVP & CMO - M/I Homes Pamela Springer - Founding Partner - SpringerNav Hugh Cathey - Principal - Columbus-Partners / CRO - HealthSpot, Inc

Panel Leader: Branndon Kelley - VP, IT & CIO - American Municipal Power, Inc.

Marketing Yourself and Maintaining Personal RelevanceModerator: Ron Frissora - VP & CIO - M/I Homes

Panelists: Joe Gottron - SVP, CIO Pharmaceutical Segment - Cardinal Health John S. Kish - SVP & CIO - SafeAuto Insurance Company Kris Merz - CIO - The LimitedSally Miller - CIO, North America - Exel Mike Rosello - SVP & CIO - Alliance Data Retail Services

Breakout Leader: Angelo Mazzocco - CIO - Central Ohio Primary Care

“Just Think It” – The Motto of the IT Organization of the FutureModerator: John Hrusovsky - VP - Navigator Management Partners LLC

Panelists: Gary R. Cavin - Director & CIO - City of Columbus, Department of Technology Tim Hibner - VP of Consulting Services - Quick Solutions/ Fusion Alliance Gregory S. Jackson - Managing Client Partner - Advocate Consulting Ben Stormer - VP, Commercial Technologies, Pharmaceutical Segment - Fuse by Cardinal Health Denise Zabawski - VP & CIO - Nationwide Children’s Hospital, Information Services

Breakout Leader: Moez Chaabouni - Deputy Director, Technology - City of Columbus

Innovation LifecycleModerator: Michael Bills - Executive In Residence, Executive Director The Ohio State University - Center for Innovation & Entrepreneurship

Panelists: Tim Heller - VP of Engineering, Fuse - Cardinal Health Matt Scantland - Co-Founder - CoverMyMeds Ned Schwartz - Partner - Drive Capital James Walz - Mobile Strategy / Services - Alliance Data

Breakout Leaders: Ben Blanquera - VP Growth Hacker - Pillar Technology Bart Murphy - SVP & CTO - York Risk Services Group

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Documents

JUST THINK IT - Cardinal Health News & Mediacardinalhealth.mediaroom.com/download/0424 CIO-Tomorrow.pdf · an obstacle to their mission” [CIO Maga-zine] and “Thirty-eight percent