The eWorld Radar

So you think you think you have a digital business?

Most organisations have embraced digital technologies to the extent that some aspects of the business are now reliant on IT. Some organisations in recognition of emerging trends have put the mobile ‘app’ at the centre of their business strategy.

But most of these organisations are still running industrial business models, using new technologies to do old things in new ways.

Digital businesses on the other hand look to do new things in new ways.

Such businesses also have the following characteristics:

• They don’t recruit using job specifications. They build the business around the strengths of the people they have access to.
• Their senior management team are not fantasists imagining that once they have created a strategic plan nature and the market will simply get out of the way.
• They fail fast and thus learn and evolve fast.
• They operate more like a swarm of bees in that they embrace situational awareness, collaboration and real-time decision making as part of their daily activities.
• The boundary between the organisation and the market is blurred.
• They major in information management and minor in information technology management.
• Their people are more akin to artists than compliant organic business cogs.

So be aware that just because your organisation has embraced IT and your staff are e-skilled, this does not guarantee that you are well positioned for the digital economy.

At best you have a hi-tech factory.

Ade McCormack

Are you amplifying the IT Value Chain?

There is a chain that runs from technology and people suppliers through the Procurement and HR functions respectively. It continues into the IT department and via the users to your organisation’s market.

Thus there are a number of actors involved in this IT value chain. They include:

• External recruiters.
• Business development staff of the IT service companies.
• HR staff.
• Procurement staff.
• Technologists.
• Users.

I would also add the IT function leadership and the senior executives associated with the organisation.

But value amplification means more than just sending the HR function a number of resumes that have the same buzzwords as those on the job specification. It means more than beating up suppliers to get the best price. It means more that having users who barely use the IT tools they are provided with because they have no real interest in ‘sweating’ them.

When this happens or worse, amplification turns into dampening. The CIO might be an easy target to blame when the investment in IT seems to deliver headaches more than anything else. And the CIO may be partially responsible but I would argue that anyone involved in the value chain has to take responsibility for this situation.

In many cases it is a lack of trust between adjoining parties in the chain. And this lack of trust in part is because many people along the chain lack both an ability to cultivate trust and a sufficiently mature understanding of IT to really add value.

With this in mind I have developed the eWorld Academy.

Take the test - Click here to see if you or your people need some game raising support.

Ade McCormack

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

Cell Cell Cell

Very few organisations are likely to survive if they stick to a top down command and control business model. Today we need distributed leadership with tools to support real-time situational awareness.

One only has to observe wars taking place around the world. Resource-rich armies are being out manoeuvred by resource-weak (in relative terms) terrorists.

The cellular nature of terrorism allows terrorists to make decisions ‘in the field’ without having to get sign off ‘up the chain’. So they can thus capitalise on the present conditions.

Response times tend to be faster with a cell based model. Terrorists can redesign landmines every couple of days independently of other cells. The military becomes overwhelmed by the myriad of pattern-free landmine scenarios it faces. For each scenario it may take a week to conduct the analysis, design a counter measure and then inform personnel. You can see who is most likely to prevail.

Cell based organisations will give you competitive advantage today. Tomorrow they will be an entry condition, whether the arena is war or business. 

CIO: Help your organisation erode its margin

Click here to read my latest CIO magazine column on a new role for the CIO.

Trust me – I’m the CIO

Why would you trust anybody who:

• Doesn’t deliver when expected.
• Reverts to ‘speaking in tongues’ when probed.
• Rarely talks about or to the business.
• Who has no real insights on core business.
• Who believes Rapport is just a seventies database product from Logica.

If these apply to you as a CIO or your CIO, then you are/have a value bottleneck in your information supply chain. Action is required.

Your thoughts? Please comment below or catch me on Twitter @ademccormack.

Multinational or global?

Ask yourself the following questions:

• Do your people repeat mistakes across different countries?
• Do your customers lament that they have to deal with different business units in different geographies, along with your different local partners?
• Are your global account managers actually global account managers or are they really the local account manager based in the same geography as the client’s headquarters?
• Do you have a seamless technology infrastructure that enables your people to share data, information, knowledge and wisdom across different geographies?

Global clients want global solutions from global players.

If it aint broke, fix it!

In a reactive IT function the usual mantra is if it ain’t broke then don’t try to fix it. Thus if the users aren’t complaining then we are doing a good job. However if the IT function wants a piece of the innovation budget then it needs to make it a priority to look for opportunities to improve the ways in which business is currently conducted.

We are already seeing the consequences of the old school mindset. More and more of the IT budget is being handed to the business users, leaving the IT function to manage the laptops, network and data center.

Business leaders may need to appoint a proactive CIO if their current CIO is reactive. And possibly retitle the latter IT manager.

Towards a 21st Century Business

Check out my promotional video. The guys at Performance Films have done a great job.

Ade McCormack

21st Century MBA

I recently had the pleasure of delivering a module on digital leadership as part of MIT Sloan’s MBA programme. The students were of course very smart and I was pleased that they embraced the topic so well.

I also had the pleasure of meeting a number of the teaching faculty. It was quite refreshing to observe how the academics broaden discussions beyond the usual commercial constraints we in ‘industry’ self impose.

What is most positive is that MBA programmes, having attempted to incorporate IT into the programme, by teaching tomorrow’s business leaders to be database administrators or Java programmer, are increasingly seeing the strategic relevance of IT.