TALKING
‘‘ business
The global pandemic created a wide variety of challenges across industries , and in IT , it caused bouts of ‘ have your cake and eat it too ’ syndrome .
On one hand , business leaders understandably became conservative with budgets , taking a cautious approach to spending during a period of economic uncertainty . On the other hand , these same leaders still wanted to see innovation continue to move forward , aspiring to obtain the ever-elusive yet much-coveted Digital Transformation .
To illustrate , a recent survey from IDG found that 80 % of respondents say the pandemic accelerated demand for innovation . Yet at the same time , many faced this increased demand with shrinking budgets – more than half ( 52 %) said the pandemic had resulted in reduced IT budgets to at least some extent .
This situation could have CIOs rolling their eyes . You can ’ t have it both ways – or can you ?
It ’ s the big challenge facing CIOs right now . How do you continue to innovate in the face of the constraints presented by the pandemic ? I have worked with many organizations , big and small , that had excellent IT roadmaps set up only for them to be smashed back to earth by the wrecking ball known as COVID-19 .
The current situation has caused CIOs to evaluate and prioritize everything . For example , big bang ERP refresh or replacement projects are either put on hold or scrapped altogether as other initiatives with greater organizational impact are competing for the same resources ( labor , time , budget ). CIOs are asking which initiatives are most important at this crisis phase . If there is no clear and compelling ROI , the initiatives are either being deferred or canceled .
Part of the CIO ’ s job is to manage expectations from the business side of the house . I recently talked to a retailer that had ambitions to move to the cloud version of a major ERP software provider , but they had no real business case to make the move . The CIO needs to help their organization understand that this is not like restarting your phone to get the latest OS update – these types of migrations can take anywhere from two to five years and millions of dollars to complete . In other words , it had better be worth it .
With all of these seemingly conflicting circumstances in play , how can CIOs effectively take back control of
their organization ’ s IT roadmap ? Here are three things I advise IT leaders to start with :
1 . Work closely with the business side of operations . In the past , CIOs and their IT teams would traditionally be in charge of technology decisions and make them in isolation , but that has shifted . Today , if you have a need to solve within the business , you can ’ t simply throw an app at it . So , it ’ s
imperative for CIOs to communicate in lockstep with business decision-makers to understand these needs and desired outcomes .
In my many years of working on technology projects , the most successful have been where the business and IT teams worked collaboratively to deliver the business outcomes .
While working for a telecom company in Canada , the organization demonstrated that the recipe for success was to optimize their supply chain and ensure product availability in their retail stores . The business and IT teams worked closely to design the processes and underlying technology to successfully deliver on this
Jennifer Perry , Global Vice President and General Manager , SAP Services , Rimini Street
CIOs are asking which initiatives are most important at this crisis phase .
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