The Role of Technology in Business 

An interview with a CIO spilling his concerns about his IT department resulted in a great set of tips geared at the IT department for understanding the needs of the CIO. Here are his best pearls of wisdom on how business works for the CIO.

1. It’s all about the stock price: There is a natural conflict between the way an efficient IT project works and how most business executives are measured. Don’t fight it—read, and talk to others about the value of your company so you can communicate better with your boss and better understand and leverage your knowledge for success.

2. Content is king: Who cares about infrastructure and economies of scale? Use a content approach to actually help your arguments to invest in an infrastructure that you know is better. Otherwise the job of the sales team is ten times as hard.

3. A day in the life of the customer: Think hard about what is going on outside. You must nail this down as much as anyone else. Remember, what people say they want as requirements rarely works in the end; it is what people do with the information from the application that is the key. Discover different techniques for garnishing requirements that stick.

4. Your corporate culture: Amazingly enough, many IT projects fail because they fly in the face of the corporate culture with no one realizing it until it is too late. Understand better how to evaluate your chance of success as it relates to the culture of the business and executives you are working with.

5.Profit & Loss 101: Either the IT staff can truly talk their P&L language and understand their pressure points or not. A significant majority of the business-side executives do not feel their IT department staff really understands a P&L statement and their daily pressure points. Therefore, how can they take seriously a recommendation from the IT department to improve their business and/or profits? Think about the key pressure points and how can technology help.

6.Enterprise Applications: Relate enterprise application upgrades and implementations to the business-side’s marketplace, industry, and competitive advantage.

7.What do those marketing people do all day, anyway?: The marketing department spends millions in real and intellectual capital on building your corporate brand. Technology can be a huge help and in some cases can drive brand value. If the IT team does not really understand “brand-building” and this perception exists in the minds of the sales and marketing departments, it is much harder to win budget dollars for IT projects that can help your brand. Learn some key brand concepts as they relates to how technology can have an impact.