6. CEO CEO CEO CEO CEO CEO
CFO CFO CFO CFO CFO CFO
COO COO COO COO COO COO
CMO CMO CMO CMO
CTO CTO CTO
The CEO wants “one
throat to choke”
60s 70s 80s 90s 00s 10s
7. IT costs
VS
Tech trends
The CEO wants to talk
tech trends not IT
projects and reducing
IT spend
McKinsey
8. Skillgap?
NECESSARY ESSENTIAL
Deep tech Opinionated
Strategic Commercial
Manager Revenue Generator
Get it done Negotiator
The CEO also wants a
new set of skills from
the CTO
11. Who do you work for?
“I work in IT”
Do your IT feel proud to
work fore the company – do
they say they work for the
‘company name’ or do they
say they work in IT
35. Get your IT team more
visible - this is a chance to
break down barriers of the
business and technology.
improve the IT brand –
you will improve the IT
influence
36. Get the right IT genius out
to the customer - if
technology can help with
creating revenue streams
this builds your influence
and again IT’s influence
46. The Recruitment Process
Stop de-selecting by
asking that everyone has a
2.1 or a 1st class honours
degree – these guys have
no degree
47. The moment of Truth…
“Every time a customer interfaces with SAS Airlines we give
them a little vignette of film, and over a period of time we
will give them enough evidence to decide if they are
watching an Oscar winning epic, or a horror story”
(Jan Carlzon- CEO- he turned it from B listing to Airline of the Year)
48. Touchpoints
??
Look at the
touchpoints to every
hire in IT – everything
matters
53. Thank You
Peter.Cosgrove@CPL.ie
@PeterCosgrove
Editor's Notes
Good morning, my name is Peter Cosgrove and I have 30 minutes to talk to you about the business view on IT.I am conscious I am coming to you straight after lunch after a day and a half of presns so would like to keep it fast and relatively light - so I am going to start with a video
SoI’m going to highlight 3 business technology trends and 3 solutions I amy focus a little longer at the end on Talent as it was clear from Fins presentation yesterday that there are a lot of questions on it– number 1
Firstly – the relationship with the CEO
2 years ago 30% of CTOs reported into their CEO, now only 23% do,
compare that to the fact that practically every CFO reports into the CEO, why is this the case, especially with added importance of IT
Well the business is confused – there are no longer just IT Directors or CTOs, there are now CIOs, Chief Mobile Officers and many other acronyms. This can cause the CEO a challenge – they like one point of contact on this or more accurately one “throat to choke” and this does not give them one.
Secondly, the recent McKinsey survey highlighted that the business felt that the number one discussion in the boardroom is about reviewing large IT projects and cutting IT spend but ideally they feel discussions should be addressing forward looking assessments of technology trends.
Also IT professionals recently surveyed felt the most important skill for Directors in Technology was people/ soft skills, but they admitted they were doing little about it. This is critical, as CEOs want CTOs who are influencers, who can increase or create whole new revenue streams and who can help shape the business strategy
You saw wordle yesterday – itts interesting to see that for senior IT roles there is a higher propenstiy of “soft skills” being asked forYou heard Fin yesterday – I don’t want a techie guy I cant communicate with – I’m not sure I tottally agree but…
Graph on most impvs most trained on skillSo they recognise that people skills are the most important but they also agree they dont get any training on thisIt is much more nebulous and it is also something much more difficult to identify a quick win unlike legal training for example
Surveying anecdotally many IT professionals who do not work for a tech company – so say if they work for Lisney, for KPMG, for Musgraves or kerry group – they are more likely to say they work in IT rather than answer the question with the company they work for.This is interesting if you think about what this says – for technology to be front and centre of the organisation we need the technologists to associate themselves with the company brand– this may need to changeSO as you heard yesterday – if you are in IT are you proud of the company you work forAgain someone highligthed yesterday via a question that there seems to be quite a difference in a tech led company and one that is not
So the challenge? CEOS, the Board want opinionated, commercial, influencers as their head of IT, but they often don’t believe they are getting this – this is borne out by the relationship and the 23%
Number 2 - We know technology is everywhere, but the business is asking why things cant be the way they want
We know that 1 year olds accessing ipads and IT have school policies technology for 6 year oldsIt’s a brave new world out there.
However where this becomes a challenge is how IT is now in everybody’s homes in everyone’s pocket and .How can I be master of the universe Saturday and Sunday, and such a dweeb Monday to Friday?How is it I can find out who sat beside me in second class in school, but not know who my best customer is?What’s going on here!
the fact that everyone uses technology in almost everything they do means they feel they know what they need and they want it now.People expect to achieve very simple chores on mobile devices and it frustrates them when IT cannot do this in a business context. The importance of data security, IT audits, compliance, password security is lost on the business user
So there is this feeling in every business and from the CEO that technology should be giving them more of an advantage So how can the proliferation of technology in the business act as a positive not a challenge and improve the brand of IT?
And stop business people asking “why can’t I”
The third challenge - We know technology is everywhere, and we have Companies that SAY they focus on the best talent
but ask yourself what measure your organisations use to measure talent and effectiveness – probably very little, so don’t expect anyone to want to have the best team in place but you. It is now the key differentiatorBut, hiring while critical is a hugely deficient skill and also more importantly something IT professionals dislike.
Bill Gates always talked about others POSSIBLY having better technology but Microsoft having better talent, so they created something and we made it better and he did this with the spreadsheet, the database, the internet etc. One of his contentions was that while Microsoft had innovators, they made a lot more money neutralising the competitors – so they were always clear on the skills they needed – so you do to?
Lets finally not be too arrogant about how good we areWhy will talent become available just when we are looking for it? Just when you are ready to hire is not very linked to when someone may want to work for youHow often do you fob someone off when they may be the next excellent employeeHiring Top talent does not necessarily work when filling a job, a job is about skills not success factors, measure performance not personalityYou need to be very aware of your employer brand and what it says to your potential recruit
7 times more likely to be viewed with a pic than without
CONCLUSION _ You get the IT dept you deserve.If you dont know what drives the business how can you know who to hire in ITSo–do you really know the skill-sets that will help the business thirve not just IT thrive?
So those are three of the key challenges …
Let’s talk about solutions for each of them. Number 1…The research shows that CEOs want credible CTOs/ heads of tech with opinions, who can influence and sell – yes SELL technology. You need the CEO to value what the CTO says, if they don’t neither will the CFO, COO etc. remember their view is vital to the health of the technology division and CEOs want views, commercial skills – here is a thought
Tell the story first to the business then talk about the importance of data! You will capture the room betterThe business do not admire complexity they want a simple message and now more than ever that helps make speedier decisions.
You have heard the phrase facts tell, stories sell, for those of you who never heard this story about the store Target I will recount it quicklyA father is irate when his 15 year old daughter receives info about pregnancy clothes, from Target, on a mail drop. He complains about the inappropriateness to the shop but subsequently apologises as he unfortunately find out his 15 y/o is pregnant. Target looked into their data and it highlighted that she had changed from scented to unscented shampoo and had bought a range of vitamins mainly bought by pregnant women – all of this had generated her profile as being pregnant, so the store knew before the father knew – that’s how data analytics are now tracking us
We don’t just want technologists who understand the business we want products that do the work for us. Many failed IT solutions could besummarised as – the product worked, the business just did not use it correctly but what about products that work if you use it or not
We just partnered with Datahug who provide a crm tool around capturing email traffic – the beauty is there is no manual entries needed from the sales team so it works in the background because everyone uses email -perfect
So there will be a need to sell solutions and understand the user even more than ever before if only to gain influence with the CEO
So how do we use the fact that tech is everywhere to our advantage? And the fact the business people are frustrated with it
The business person wants To hear the language they know – information equals Google/wikicomms is facebook/SMSvideo is skype / youtube – they don’t really care about how the infrastructure works they just want it to work
You see this very simply with channels like Yammer and Chatter – simple Social communication tools that are understood by the business and are for the business – these are becoming really powerful not just for communication but for areas like crowdsourcing – something Dell are using effectively I have seen.
Secondly get your team to be visible – never before have the whole of the business been so ensconced in technology – use it to your advantage, The business wants to talk technology, the CEO is using more technology, this is a chance to break down barriers of the business and technology and speak to the business about the business – If you improve the IT brand – you will improve the IT influence.
Finally, continue to get your technologists out to customers – the rights ones, there is no point getting the genius out there if he creates the wrong image - but clients want sales people who know technology – if technology help with creating revenue streams this builds your influence and again IT’s influence
So it all comes down to ...
Talent.
The DNA that you bring into the room is the most critical thing you do – so what can we do to stop hiring the wrong people and getting more great people?
Steve Ilop, Former CEO Nokia was quoted last year “How is it possible that Apple created the iPhone in 2007 and in 2011, Nokia has nothing remotely similar?”a damning sentence you can say – Nokia felt it had to out-differentiate Apple
it was too proud to copy; whereas Google had Android out incredibly quickly. So until you know what the critical business drivers are you may struggle to hire the best IT talent – are you hiring innovators, or are you hiring business savvy technologists where speed to market may sometimes be the more important driver than innovation.
Once you know what you want YOU need to start looking to tap into the vast amount of networks available to IT professionals (and they are vast) and spend time finding out who those people you want are. Simpl put - when you know what you want – it becomes a lot easier to find it or in this case them
Y don’t have to like social media but you have to go with the trends – mobile devices, I in 7 people in the workd in facebooketcHow is that infused into your hiring strategyRitzys nightclub
You do everything by interview – therefore you are using a very poor assessment tool, and you do it 5 times as opposed to giving some sort of a test – you would not hire a secretary without checking typing speed, there are plenty of tests to give IT, marketing, finance professionals but we do not use them Its about de-selection not selection however de-selecting based on degree would exclude such visionaries such as:Steve jobs, Mark Zuckerberg, Michael dell etcIf you found the perfect candidate would you hire them – no I need to see a few more candidates!You take forever to make a decision because rightfully you worry about hiring but you end up losing candidates who love companies that can move the process alongYou do not put out your best people to hire Reference – nothing highlights better how good they are – work harder to get reliable references, there are ways around companies saying they don’t give out references – we are a small village really – someone will always know someoneAlways be ready to hire – many great people apply to companies they love not positions and companies cannot handle this – you need to!
7 times more likely to be viewed with a pic than without
I’m a business person - I hate to say it by my attention spend have gotten shorter, I do want to be sold to quickly and I want the wow effect –anyone who has read the book The Shallows:, knows that all our attention spans are lessening given the level of tech stimuli we are exposed to
A great book by a great writer – we are asalespeole to some degree
On the screen behind is the Crystal Palace Space Station from the game Entropia – it is entirely virtual and was sold at auction for 330,000 real dollars.You want to tell someone about the explosion of gaming? Tell them the story of that auction. This will give your dry facts about gaming stats the wow effect!
So CEOs want technologists to be influencers – but it may mean you have to change how you think and how you act