CIO Talk Network Podcast

How can IT help sales to inform, interact with, and impress customers? What tools can it provide, and how can it enable sales to use these tools more effectively? Some sales departments might value more sales. How can IT facilitate this goal?  Another sales department might prefer bigger margins on the sales in hand. How could IT facilitate this goal?  How can IT help sales' bottom line? Guest 1:...

Mobile devices of every sort are proliferating and becoming more and more like computers.  In parallel, Internet applications, cloud computing, and the need for 24/7 on demand access with authentication and security are increasing the headaches of managing it all. Does it make sense to outsource, or is it better to keep it all in the enterprise? How does an IT leader decide which option to choose,...

Social media is changing how we communicate, live our lives, and do business. So, how hard is it for an IT leader to rewire enterprise architecture and embed social media at business process and technology levels? You can't just slap these tools onto what's there. If these tools are to become integral to business process, people, and technology, they have to be built-in. How do you do that? How bi...

To realize the full potential of "going Agile," the enterprise must also leverage Agile values, principles, and practices throughout the entire company.  Organization-wide, "Going Agile" requires broad technical, organizational, and process changes. Done properly, adoption provides improved project visibility and offers great benefits: accelerated time-to-market, increased productivity and quality...

With money tight, IT departments in all sorts of organizations are looking for efficiencies and making systematic efforts to reduce non-productive redundancies. In addition to saving money, a hoped for byproduct is that a successful rationalization exercise will also remove disincentives and barriers to shared services, find reasonable levels of sourcing, improve the interoperability of applicatio...

The business success stories of the corporate world are famous for continuously and aggressively seeking out ways to reduce costs and maximize profitability. In order to become bigger and more successful, they consolidate and eliminate redundancies, streamline processes, implement newer lean technologies, institute best practices, and use footprint reducing alternatives like outsourcing. If these...

The "Butterfly Effect" tells us that a small change at one place in a complex system can have large effects elsewhere. If we accept this wisdom, then how crucial is IT budgeting, given that IT influences or affects just about every possible aspect of an organization? How can IT leaders champion and foster collaborative budgeting throughout their organizations? Guest 1: Ron Kraemer, Vice President...

Strict privacy laws and inconsistency in the way they are defined across multiple regions, are a deterrent to the adoption of Cloud Computing in Europe. How do these snags impact global organizations with a presence in Europe as well as the local players? What can be done so that organizations are able to optimally leverage their Cloud computing investments while we all work towards a common globa...

As a world we're vulnerable to malefactors with a plethora of ways to create havoc and uncertainty in our lives and businesses. On the other hand, as a world, we've also elected to be completely plugged in and interconnected. There's an on-going love affair with instant connectivity to anyone, anywhere, at anytime, using any device. While we may still try to erect walls around ourselves, these wal...

What information drives your business? How big is the gap between what you have in quality of information vs. what is desired? What do we mean when we say that we want to compete on information? What is the holy grail for becoming a truly information driven business and how to get there? Guest 1: George Tumas, Chief Information Officer of Internet Services Development, Wells Fargo Guest Bio: https...

The financial meltdown is bringing a new discipline to the investment services industry. Cost inefficiencies and malpractice are under attack everywhere. How is IT being used by IT and business leaders to identify ways to cut costs and improve service delivery and security for average investors while preparing the industry to comply with a new regulatory environment? Guest 1: Rudy Wolfs, Chief Cus...

What started as computer security, morphed into information security, and is now being called "information assurance." This includes the managing of all risks related to the use, processing, storage, and transmission of data, the systems and processes involved, and information in digital, analog, and physical forms. So, the game has changed in scope, scale, and complexity. But can a CIO truly dele...

While most of us advocate energy efficiency and sustainability, it comes with a price tag. For one thing, links in the energy value chain such as production, delivery, and retail, are all facing their own challenges related to an aging workforce, infrastructure, and technology. Additionally, the competitive pressures that are driving down costs, may force suppliers to cut corners. How can IT acros...

Guest 1: Jonathan Schaeffer, Vice Provost and Associate Vice President for Information Technology, University of Alberta Guest Bio: https://www.ciotalknetwork.com/contributor/jonathan-schaeffer/ Guest 2: Stephen J. Laster, Chief Information Officer, Harvard Business School Guest Bio: https://www.ciotalknetwork.com/contributor/stephen-laster/ Guest 3: Deirdre Woods, Chief Information Officer, The W...

State government uses and manages technology.  Local governments do the same.   Government entities in every state share similarities when it comes to providing services to the citizens, so why aren't more of these services shared across all levels of government?  With states, cities, counties, townships, universities, and schools all looking to provide similar services, the time has come for the...

If change is the only constant and even a business cliché, why do so many organizations refuse to embrace it and risk losing opportunities for growth and profitability? It's because change is hard.  So is innovation. But done right, business leaders can reap huge rewards.  How can IT leadership use its unique position on the leading edge of technology to scan the horizon and spot emerging trends,...

While we work to optimize business performance through IT, politics has crept in at the middle management and even average technology worker levels, even though average workers usually dislike/avoid politics and politicians. How do we deal with this silent killer? Guest 1: Atefeh (Atti) Riazi, Chief Information Officer, NY City Housing Authority (NYCHA) Guest Bio: https://www.ciotalknetwork.com/co...

The role of CIO Role came into existence because technology became increasingly intrinsic to doing business and being competitive. However, today's CIO often has to juggle many different skills: the financial acumen of a CFO, the strategic understanding of a marketer, savvy shopping skills, and the people skills of an HR executive. Will CIO's become extinct? ...Or will their jobs just be absorbed...

Innovation has provided the customer relationship tools we routinely use to learn more about our customers, provide transparency as required, or interact with them in real time, both ways.  Now that we're collaborating with them to give them these things they want/need, what about pushing the envelope? Encourage them to dream even bigger, demand even more, and then we innovate to surpass even thos...

Finding ways to quickly build capacity or ramp up the capabilities of business in conjunction with IT, in order to enable them both to nimbly respond to market changes, is rather like training a couple of pachyderms to perform a ballet. How does such a delicately orchestrated dance impact the economics of IT? How could it affect IT budgeting, allocation, sourcing, or procurement? And, in turn, how...

We justify positive Return on Investment (ROI) for new IT initiatives to make a business case, but what are we doing about discovering and measuring negative Return on Unawareness (ROU) and Return on Negligence (RON)? After all, isn't the net value IT brings based on the ROI - (ROU + RON) formula? Guest 1: lna Kamenz, Vice President and Chief Information Officer, Thermo Fisher Scientific Guest Bio...

What are the secrets for gaining unswerving customer loyalty? ...A good product or service that provides good value for time/money! ...building personal relationship with the customer! ...resolving customer complaints quickly! ...open and frequent communication with customers to be sure they are happy and stay that way! ...Now, a quick poll: Are we leveraging IT to do enough of all of the above, i...

A versatilist survives by being able to do everything. A competitor survives by being better than others. A chameleon disappears into any environment. All are survival strategies of sorts. But what exactly is it that defines a CIO who can be plugged in anywhere and be successful, survive and thrive? What are the elusive, defining qualities of the essential CIO? Guest 1: Marlin Mackey, Chief Inform...

If business people still base 40% of their major decisions on gut feeling, isn't that a bit like gambling? With big money riding on a decision, why is it so hard for business and IT leaders to make decisions based on BI and the numbers? Is it because some data may be missing, or that we don't have one version of the truth? Why exactly does the gut win out over the head and BI? Guest 1: Stuart Kipp...

When does it make sense to go with a private, internal cloud? Once the decision is made to go with a private cloud, how do you decide if it should it be built totally from scratch? If you plan to outsource some aspects, how do you choose the right vendor? How do you plan a private cloud implementation from beginning to end and avoid any problems that might darken your cloud investment? Guest 1: Ch...