Gold Magazine April - May 2013, Issue 25 | Page 63

Gold: It’s surely no secret that companies
can improve their performance in a variety of strategic areas by aligning their
ICT infrastructure with their business
goals. Are there still companies out there
that are unaware of this basic idea?
Maria-José Sobrini: Although there are
very few companies which are unaware
of this basic idea, many of them take bad
decisions. In general when companies fail,
conventional wisdom blames external factors: the economy, regulatory actions, and
geopolitical challenges are but three prime
culprits beyond the control of decision
makers. In reality, however, bad decisions
- factors within the control of companies
themselves - are what overwhelmingly cause
firms to lose their leading positions. Over
the past 10 years, 159 of the 500 largest
companies globally by revenue have been
displaced. And in many cases, company
executives may not have realized the impact
of their own decisions or they may not have
been well informed when they made them.
This observation is supported by a survey of
1,028 executives and 993 junior managers
and individual contributors conducted by
Cisco’s Internet Business Solutions Group
(IBSG). Though many of their subordinates
begged to differ, 71% of executives rated
their performances and decision-making
abilities from “good” to “excellent.” These
included leaders in financial services, where
439 bank failures since 2008 continue to
leave a legacy of economic malaise, and
retail executives, who have seen 37 major
companies file for bankruptcy protection in
their industry since 2010.
The good news is that a revolution in decision-making stands to change things for the
better. Cisco IBSG calls it Decision-Driven
Collaboration.
This new model represents a fundamental transformation in the way leaders
perceive and manage collaboration in the

Those in the IT
community need
to stop acting
like vendors and,
instead, focus on
helping people
solve problems
workplace. It is supported by breakthroughs in collaboration tools, including video, mobility, social
media, cloud services, and cutting-edge analytics.
But it begins with recognition that everyone is a
decision-maker. And while the executives still make
the final call, expertise from all corners of the organisation is welcomed into the process. The ultimate
payoff is millions of better decisions (not just big,
critical decisions, but smaller, daily ones as well) that
are fact-based, highly informed, and ever more efficient and effective.
Gold: Given the speed at which technology is
changing and developing, isn’t there a danger
that companies may need to be constantly investing in new products rather than in their core
business?
M.J.S.: Technology should allow companies to concentrate on their core business and it should make
business process flow much easier. If IT does its job
right, it will be deeply embedded in the fabric of every business process over the next few years. IT and
business groups will work together seamlessly. To
do this, though, those in the IT community need to
stop acting like vendors and, instead, focus on helping people solve problems. We are rapidly approaching an “inflection point” in the industry where we’ll
need IT leaders who are experts in business first and
IT second. IT needs to become a business partner. 
IT professionals and businesses must speak the same
language. Businesses must ask how IT can help solve
its business goals, and IT leaders must help business
leaders achieve their goals.
Gold: In your experience, are successful companies generally open to innovation or do you
regularly come across a mentality of “we have
always done things this way”?
M.J.S.: Successful companies are not just open to
innovation but most of the time they are leading it.

We can see an explosion of new technologies that create new winners and losers in
nearly every industry. In an engagement
with a major global manufacturer, Cisco
IBSG identified three key factors in the
product innovation process that companies must clearly understand and be
able to orchestrate. They must develop a
technology strategy, arrange and manage
ecosystem partners, and prepare and execute detailed plans for managing market
interactions, from initial introduction
through full-scale market management.
How well they deliver on this model will
help determine whether a company will
be a disruptor in its market space or one
of the disrupted.
Gold: How significant are social networks to business today?
M.J.S.: I’ll just mention some numbers
and leave the conclusions to your readers. A whopping 90% of young people
use their smartphones to help them face
the day, often before they get out of bed!
Even before a cup of coffee, young people
grab their smartphone. They’re checking it for e-mails, texts and social media
updates. The phone has become as much
a morning ritual as the toothbrush. The
gap between my generation and younger
ones in how we use technology is getting
smaller. Interestingly, as we older folks are
getting more comfortable with technology (and seeing its value), younger people
are getting less starry-eyed. For example,
more than a third of the young people
that we surveyed suspect that people present themselves differently online than in
the physical world. This year’s study also
found that three out of four don’t trust
Internet sites to keep their data private,
and nearly a