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The future-ready imperative for the enterprise CIO and IT leader
The partnerships with HBR and the EIU
empirically illustrated two vital facts:
1. Organizations where the CIO was active
in setting business strategy with the
C-suite were more profitable by a 2:1
ratio than organizations where the
executives were not as active. This
highlighted the fundamental shift beyond
IT-Business alignment into leveraging IT
as a strategic lever to drive positive
financial performance.
2. When reviewing efficiency versus
innovation, organizations that focused
on innovative thinking and actions
solved efficiency challenges on a 4:1
ratio compared to organizations that
treated efficiency as the top priority.
For example, those who approached
OPEX pressures with an innovation-based
focus performed far better than those
focused on efficiency.
Dell Services has long recognized that
the world our CIO partners are living in is
undergoing radical change. All of us have dealt
with evolving technology, but fundamental
change in IT leadership is needed in order for
us to be exponentially more valuable now and
in the immediate future.
This research brief covers the history and
findings of primary research we conducted
through partnerships with the Harvard
Business Review (HBR), The Economist
Intelligence Unit (EIU) and Forbes, through
a series of interviews we conducted directly
with senior executives and through multiple
executive-level workshops. We realized that
the best way to plot the right pathways lies
in the hands of leading business thinkers.
This brief knits together the key findings and
insights from our primary research.
The challenges we wanted to address
were determining the right patterns
of behavior for the future IT leader to
adopt now, and which ways of thinking
and acting need to stop, start or be done
differently. Primary research was used
extensively to drive actionable insights
from thousands of executive leaders.
The challenges
we wanted to
address were
determining the right patterns and behaviors for
future IT leaders.
Our research partnership with Forbes delved
into how executive leadership and CIOs
determined how to view global trends as
opportunities or challenges. Research with
more than 400 leaders of large commercial
organizations in the United States examined
awareness and coping strategies for these
new paradigms.
• These executive leaders unequivocally
said they would be making fundamental
changes to their organizations because
of major global trends in population,
global competition and the economics
of business models.
• IT should be helping drive insights from
data and competitive analysis to move
this forward.
• These executives viewed IT as one of the
two major strategic levers for this new
world, with management models being
the other.
• This means 1 in 3 executives and their
organizations are going into the next
three or more years somewhat blind
to what IT can and should do for their
people and companies.
• They believe in the upside and/or need
to react to these changes, whereas the
remainder do not see the need to adapt.
• IT leadership needs to drive these
changes in order for the organization
to succeed.
True alignment and engagement between
the executive suite and IT leadership
coalesces with significant differences in
results. This relationship between the two
drives an innovation-first approach to solve
challenges like OPEX and future-world
preparation. The primary lens for many
CIOs in the recent past – an efficiency
first mantra – is now best delivered through
an innovation-led mindset.
By accessing a tool the EIU built for Dell
Services at www.theitchallenge.com, IT
leaders are able to assess their own alignment
with an innovation-first mindset with their
executive suite. Answers to 17 simple
questions provide indicators to alignment
with your executive leadership. Each question
is weighted to show the economic impact
of alignment to the best practices in each
respective area.
• IT Effectiveness: Average levels of
effectiveness decrease the chance to
outperform competition by -9.0%.
• IT Organization: Average alignment to
overall business leads to a huge drop
of -30% in the ability to outperform
competitors.
• IT Priorities: Average levels of alignment
on priorities - like security being cost
of entry versus differentiating - only
negatively changed the ability to
outperform the competition by a small
margin of -3%.
Review the results presented in this white paper from
Dell Services and EIU at www.innovatebusinessit.com/
economist-research-big-changes-for-it-larger-roles-
for-cios/
By 2014, we were measuring changes not
just in the ways CIOs were adopting this
model of alignment, engagement and an
innovation-first mantra, but also how they
were thinking about responding to large
global trends.
of executive leaders are ready for change
63%of these executives view IT as a major lever
66%of executives are ready to react
The efficiency-
first mantra
is now best delivered
through an
innovation-first
mindset.
Executives indicated they would be much
more aligned using an innovation-first lens
versus trying to be more efficient in 17 out
of the 20 global trends tested.
Innovation is part of the future-ready
undertone we have seen in these primary
research partnerships with HBR, the EIU
and Forbes. The other issue is time. A mere
three years was the window for making
changes of this magnitude.
Review the results presented in this white
paper from Dell Services and Forbes at
www.innovatebusinessit.com/wp-content/
uploads/2015/12/disrupt-or-be-disrupted.pdf
All research partnerships revealed unique
elements of preparing for the future. From
the economic power of CIO and CEO
engagement (EIU) to the potential power
of global trends to open new opportunities
(Forbes), each partnership looked to evaluate
what winning strategies, behaviors and
attitudes looked like.
Once the connection between the
research partnerships with HBR, the EIU
and Forbes became clear, we set out to
use these insights to build prescriptive
playbooks on how to change behaviors
and ultimately evolve to become an
innovation-first company.
In 2015, the CIOs who participated in
our workshops looked at building a set of
coping mechanisms around global trends,
improving alignment and developing a
better understanding of the underlying
need to make themselves and their teams
future ready.
We asked more than 500 executive leaders
to think NOT about the technology stacks
but to concentrate on the elements they
would stop, start and do differently. These
ideation sessions formed the backbone for
our 2015 research.
Our latest research, Stop/Start/Do
Differently: A new framework for evaluating
success in a future-ready enterprise, included
more than 400 executive, management and
IT leaders in large, U.S.-based organizations.
We asked respondents to select which
activities, attitudes, behaviors and ideas
they would stop, start and do differently
to succeed in five common, big-solution
areas: modernization of applications,
employee empowerment, customer
centricity, growth imperatives
and digital transformations.
In effect, more than 1,200 scenarios were
simulated choosing from 100 potential
statements. Respondents were asked about
the success of these big solution initiatives,
(i.e., had they met, exceeded, failed or could
not yet measure the success). Questions
around big global themes and their
competitive preparedness were also asked.
We surveyed
more than 500 executives and
asked what
they would
Stop, Start and
Do Differently
in order to be
successful.
Key findings
Less than half met or exceeded expectations on big solution initiatives
Only 48% of those we interviewed across the
five solution areas believed they had met or
exceeded expectations in their management
of these solution areas. The remainder
either did not meet expectations or did not
know how to measure success. If “meeting
expectations” is the most basic requirement
for obtaining results, then these are tough
areas for executive business leaders as they
have only a 48% chance of success.
The key question analyzed was whether
the behavior patterns of the 48% were
replicable or were the playbooks they used
so unique that they could not be replicated
or emulated.
The right technology is only the cost of entry for success
When we asked respondents the rank order
of the technology stacks they used to solve
each of the major initiatives, we found that
there were virtually no differences in the
ways leaders in business or IT prioritized
their solutions, even when comparing the
successful 48% to the others.
The insight is that success has more to
do with what the 48% stopped, started
and did differently compared to the
technology stack itself as the mark of
why they met or exceed expectations.
What you stop, start or do differently will lead either to success or failure
When comparing the successful 48% to
the others and what they stop, start and
do differently, the gaps show how stark
differences can drive success versus failure.
For example, on big initiatives like engaging
customers, the 48% did two things that the
others did not do: they stopped focusing
on traditional ways of working to solve the
problem and they stopped thinking that
social media was the panacea for all ills.
In terms of starting to do new things, the
top three lists of the 48% were completely
different from the remainder. This group
focused on experimenting with customer
services processes, identified activities
to drive loyalty and discussed customer
opportunities at the executive level.
This story is true in many ways across all five
of the big initiative areas. What you stop,
start and do differently matters.
IT can directly enable business growth in the 48%
For IT to help grow the business, the top
three things to do involve experimentation
with new types of customers, getting social
media to work better and optimizing the use
of outsourcing. IT leadership can and should
help identify big insights around new
customer areas and revenue streams
to help build secure platforms for
deeper integration of social media
in the fabric of the day to day practices
of the organization.
of C-suite leaders in
Fortune organizations
were economically
successful with major
transformational
initiatives.
When leveraging IT, the 48% who met or exceeded expectations had a completely different focus on what to do differently.
STOP
START
DO DIFFERENTLY
Driving modernization is a key role of IT leadership
The top three areas of focus for driving
modernization seem so simple: Invest
time and evaluate the competitions’ use
of innovation; focus on activities that
promote new ways of thinking; and look
for skills sets that are focused on innovation.
This is easier said than done, but it does
show the need to migrate away from
reactivity so that organizations can free
up insights, talents and energy that seem
to have a higher hit rate (in the 48%).
The importance of understanding how
competitors innovate using technology alone
should give IT leadership a place at the table.
Business executives and leaders listed this
as one of the key differentiating behaviors.
Executive leadership understands the
power of technology to deliver, so the CIOs
need to focus on the application of that
technology in how they think and report
on the competitive landscape.
If your key focus is to help grow the business, then conduct an in-depth review of your past processes
The 48% don’t focus on the ideas behind
past successes. Instead, they start
experimenting with new outcomes,
using social media as a tool to develop
market solutions and developing new
ways to streamline the environments in
which they work. The challenge in the do
different category involves changing the
way forecasting models are developed
and asking the CEO more questions. The
IT leader will need to adopt or amplify
skills in these areas in order to directly
help the organization grow.
This puts a new spin on how budgets should
be thought about (forecasting), how IT can
be increasingly streamlined and even how
great social listening tools can be used to
speed up the development of new solutions.
To help enable growth, IT leaders have
to look inside their own environments for
areas they need to stop doing, start doing
and do differently.
Future-ready job titles for the CIO will evolve to include security and digital
We asked respondents for their visions of
what job titles would best describe the CIO
of the future, offering “Chief Acceleration
Officer” as an alternative. While many
responses focused on “Chief Information
Officer” or “Chief Technology Officer,” many
others looked at alternatives, including “Chief
Innovation Officer,” “Chief Security Officer”
and “Chief Digital Officer.” In order to
stay relevant, future-ready CIOs will need
to take a more consultative approach
by examining what to stop, start and do
differently. This would include embracing
the ever-changing needs and expectations
of their respective organizations.
IT should be the backbone for supporting employee enablement
To improve workforce empowerment, the
48% who get expected or greater returns
were far more open to enabling employees
to innovate on their own. IT can offer
support processes and guidelines for this,
but the old paradigm of holding on to
power and ideas through the lens of
the IT function no longer works.
The opportunity lies in enabling the power
of the network of people and disseminating
those positive experiences.
The 48% who met or exceeded expectations on improving customer engagement were set apart from their peers by focusing on experimenting with new outcomes.
Three primary implications
Experimentation and alternatives rule
These two behaviors dominate the positive “do different” and “start” behaviors
of the 48%. “Try it and learn” is the new mantra for the successful 48%.
In five solution scenarios, experimentation and looking through alternatives
constitute 20% of the major differences.
1
Let go and empower others
Whether enhancing customer engagement, empowering employees, helping
drive growth or designing digital transformations, the 48% focus twice as much
on letting departments learn from new ideas or experiments. This means the
CIO becomes the conductor - not the player.
2
Dig deep into the processes before you head to the solution stack
It is so easy to try and do the same thing time and time again and expect
different results. The 48% showed us that success indexes more heavily
(3:1) when focused on thinking about challenging traditional views on
processes, resources and priorities.
3
Take a step back and look at what your organization needs to stop, start and do differently
with processes, ideas and resources in order to find the right path forward before thinking
about technology.
74% of executive leaders, management and IT
believe their organizations are ahead of the pack
in their industries.
Only 13% of executive leaders, management and
IT felt they were vulnerable to startups.
79% saw major global trends as important, but
only 39% had developed strategies to take
advantage of them. In addition, only 22% saw these
global trends as critical to their organizations.
Some other key findings
Please visit www.innovatebusinessit.com to learn more about the strategies and behaviors of other successful leaders.
79%
39%
22%