The eWorld Radar

CIO - Behave like a customer

CxOs will continue to ask the CIO to fix their laptops if they perceive the CIO as the person in charge of the people that fix laptops.

So the first step for the CIO is to appoint an IT manager to do the job of IT management.

And then to behave as if they were a customer of the IT department and not the head of it.

At the next board meeting The CIO should make a point of comenting on a problem she is having with her laptop and how the guys from IT were quick to get on the case thanks to the new IT manager.

The CIO can now get on with the job of digital leadership which of course is not the same as IT management.

Ade McCormack

IT Pad Strategy

Two trends are taking place:

• Customers are increasingly using the web as their preferred route to services / products.
• Apple's iPad doesnt look in danger of relinquishing its dominant position in the tablet marketplace.

Thus it would be wise to take a customer-experience focus and put 'the app' at the heart of one's business strategy. Thus all major business process flows originate or terminate at the app.

This presents a great opportunity for the CIO to lead/shape business strategy rather than being a victim of it.

Ade McCormack

 

What is HR for?

According to Harvard Business Review business and society are careering towards hyperspecialization. This is Adam Smith’s ‘division of labour’ taken to the extreme. I buy that model, but it needs wondrous task design and impeccable task management.

If it is successful then much of your organisation’s head count will disappear out of the door. Outsourcing to super niche individuals and task agencies will become standard practice.

The question then arises as to what the purpose of HR is when the organisation is now only a small cadre  of task managers, brand managers and information managers.

I suggest that HR prepares for this by reinventing itself as a genuine talent management centre because 21st century employees in an innovation economy will be akin to rock stars and top athletes. Those in HR who build their career on industrial-era recruitment, ‘sheep dip’ training and keeping a cap on compensation will, if they are lucky, find themselves on the ‘sell’ side in a low value economic region.

Ade McCormack

Why are you like that?

Imagine two people. One is not particularly educated. One is highly educated but not strong on emotional intelligence. Imagine these two people have been forced to live with each other.
Outcomes from such a coupling might include:

• One accusing the other of arrogance.
• One accusing the other of being ignorant.
• An inability to pull together if mutually threatened.
• Exploitation by a third party who can see the weakness of the link.
• Energy and time wasted through continuous bickering fuelled by a lack of trust.

This is happening every day. The couple are the IT department and the users. The third party are unscrupulous vendors. Many businesses desperately need education and relationship counselling.

Ade McCormack