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Sometimes technology is forced into organizations by CEOs and leaders who are directly influenced by suppliers. Many, if not all, CIOs and IT executives succumb to these pressures and regret it later.
This is an exclusive article series co-authored by the CIO News editorial team with Clynton Almeida, offering CIO and IT consulting services for the board of directors and management.In his previous roles, he was Chief Information Officer of Redington (India) Ltd., has been with the company for 20 years.
Most organizations, from large enterprises to small and medium-sized enterprises, have embarked on a transformation journey and made significant investments in IT in order to stay relevant. Be it infrastructure, security, ERP, homegrown software, cloud support, digitization, mobility, analytics, the not-so-new buzzwords these days are robotics, artificial intelligence and machine learning.
But the big question is: Are organizations really undergoing this “transformation”?
While the big picture in the room is rarely mentioned in the corporate world, at roundtables or at conferences, it is obfuscated under the veneer of technology, hype marketing, jargon and promotion. But when one digs deeper, it turns out that’s not actually the case in many organizations. Now don’t get me wrong. I am not in any way denigrating or belittling the benefits of technology, technology is transformative in an absolute sense. The question is, why do so many organizations not experience so much discussion about transformation, achieve limited results on their transformation journey, or in some cases, regress to worse situations?
In candid discussions on the sidelines of meetings or in various private one-on-one interactions with CEOs and organizational leaders, the feeling expressed was that they were not seeing the degree of business transformation expected.
The answer to this question is not simple, for many reasons. I’ll pick some.
Hype Marketing. Too often, leaders get carried away by the hype surrounding a product, technology, or service and want to jump on the bandwagon immediately without fully understanding whether it will actually benefit the organization. Too often, technology investments are made without a clear, well-researched, well-documented business case, resulting in a superficial understanding of the technology. Management needs to translate business strategy and future key competitive advantages into technology selection and implementation factors.
Sometimes technology is forced into organizations by CEOs and leaders who are directly influenced by suppliers. Many, if not all, CIOs and IT executives succumb to these pressures and regret it later. The CIO must have the courage to assess and clearly explain to the CEO, general manager, or leadership team why they should not venture into a particular area or need to proceed with caution.
Not getting the right ROI and TCO. When purchasing a technology product without proper due diligence, it’s surprising that many of the features shown and promised by the product marketing team in demos and demos are add-ons for additional investment. This creates some budgetary anxiety within the system, and then compromises occur, resulting in solutions being watered down and optimal levels of transformation not being achieved.
Not having the right partnership
Be wary of your transformation model when working with vendors. Back in the mid-2000s, I knew of one organization that formed a joint venture with an e-commerce product company without even thinking about cloud computing.This is an exciting initiative and
Before the time is up. The model is that for every sales transaction on the e-commerce platform, the e-commerce SW company will receive a certain percentage of profits. Ultimately, the plan did not take off and caused problems in the relationship. One of the lessons learned is to never share hard-earned profits based on your core capabilities with technology providers who have no skin in the game other than providing the platform or software.
Technology overload. Overinvestment in technology is another factor that prevents you from getting much value from your technology assets. I know of many organizations whose IT assets (whether software or hardware) are purchased, installed and never or rarely used, while their depreciation impacts the income statement every quarter.
If technology is not adopted in the right way, it is a double-edged sword. It can make or break an organization, or even worse, lull an organization into mediocrity and complacency simply because technology is available and forcefully overwhelms employees. In researching many organizations, I’ve encountered situations where department heads and employees had their own parallel shadow systems in Excel or in small homegrown software outside of the technology platform.
The technical implementation is shoddy: This is the reason for the failure of most technology transformations and the long-term ills of many projects. When the gap between the underlying reality and the technology being implemented is large, whether it is operating procedures, business rules, organizational policies, etc., it indicates a serious situation of project failure or inability to fully utilize technical capabilities. technology.
Aligning with the wrong technology partner is another key reason. I’ve seen lazy consultants spend weeks and months engaging in in-depth discussions with users, conducting requirements gathering exercises, and then come up with very sketchy or no documentation. This results in a clear gap between the organization’s goals and the solutions provided.
One of the key factors when deploying technology is to focus on details and consider all aspects of the business. I would say this is one of the most important points in achieving your transformation goals. There are no skins in the game. In most cases, employees are not included in such initiatives, and those using the technology are not involved. This results in disinterest and weak participation from both internal and external stakeholders.
Get organizations involved. Without a strategic link, technology initiatives will do what the technical people think should be done, rather than what is best for the company.
What are the top priorities? Which operating performance indicators are expected to improve and at what rate? ETC.
Putting the CEO in charge defines different levels of involvement in the technology implementation process. Senior executives mistakenly viewed the effort as an IT project rather than a business project.
Some broad guidelines and considerations
Reams could write an article about how technology can be used to achieve quantum leap transitions.However
The most important motto for harnessing the power of technology and achieving transformative results is The convergence of business and technology.
Organizations must strive to achieve the convergence of the organization’s business model and operations with the technology being adopted, and be open to development to take advantage of the technology being adopted. Organizations should adapt to technology-driven business advantages, and technology must have the ability to adapt to the organization’s business model, its complexities, quirks, and unique ways of doing business. This integration will enable organizations to make the leap from good to great at every level, at every process point, at every operation and at every relationship, both inside and outside the organization.
As someone once said: “Change is inevitable, but transformation is a choice.“
About Clayton Almeida:
Clynton Almeida has over 25 years of industry experience as a CIO in organizations across a variety of industries. He has won the Best CIO Award and the 100 Most Innovative CIO Award.
He is currently engaged in CIO and IT consulting services at the board level and management level.
Also read: Dr. Chandran Raghuraman, Chief Technology Officer, Bahwan Cybertek said, As a technology leader, I developed the understanding skills to be one step ahead of others to be able to handle these issues
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