The CIO Diaries: An IT perspective on business transformation
Limitations of organic growth are forcing companies to look at innovative ways to improve market share and profitability. Business transformation strategies are evolving more rapidly than any time in the past. For any of these transformation plans, be it: M&A, new product introduction, geographical expansion and others to succeed, the CIO office needs to play a key role. Let us analyze some perspectives with which CIO could look at these strategies and proactively work with the business.
Risk Approach: How do we handle IT Risks from this new transformation strategy? Do we have a formal process to identify, assess, manage and plan for risk mitigation? What parts of the business strategy gets effected if these IT risks occur and what kind of risk tolerance business needs to account for?
Cost Approach: After this transformation is put in place, what will be our IT Service cost structures? Will they significantly improve or decrease? Are we going to be in line with the industry benchmark? What will be the Bill of IT for each LOB after the transformation is put in place? Can I do predictive analytics and generate a future state of cost allocations?
Social Media Impact: What will be the influence of social media on our business? The company that we are acquiring has a totally different perception in the market place. What is the blogosphere telling about them and what concepts are being discussed among their Facebook pages?
Project Approach: What is the impact on our Innovation to Sustaining Operations ratios? Does the new strategy bring an imbalance to our time tested IT Strategy on the way we execute our business?
Business Value: What will be true business value that IT can generate to each LOB after the new business transformation is put in place? Is it better than before?
Prescriptive Outcomes: Can I generate constraint summaries and optimized IT Service options under the new transformation? What will be the prescriptive outcomes from an IT perspective to justify the new business strategy?
Once the CIO office is equipped to provide meaningful information on each of the above, CIO will be in the forefront of innovating business transformations than merely implementing them.
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