CIO Talk Network Podcast

The success or failure of IT is usually attributed to the BIG decisions made by the top brass. However, the relatively small decisions made by the IT crew and mid-management as part of day to day operations also have a snowball effect in the overall effectiveness of IT. What can we do to foster an environment of effective IT related decision making along the chain of command for best results? Gues...

Using 'Cost Savings' as the sole determinant for justifying IT's value, actually undermines its true value. Today's IT leaders need to be "Show 'em the money!" kinds of guys. What does it mean to be an IT leader, driven to bring TOP LINE growth to your organization? Guest 1: George F. Chappelle, SVP & CIO, Sara Lee Corporation Guest Bio: https://www.ciotalknetwork.com/contributor/george-chappelle/...

Cloud computing is a new technology that promises virtually unlimited processing bandwidth, with access to data from anywhere on any device. Is it ready for commercial adoption? What are the key user needs driving this initiative? What are the advantages and what are the gotchas? Guest 1: Dr. Daniel D. Frye, Vice President, Open Systems Development, IBM Systems & Technology Group Guest Bio: https:...

In global outsourcing, it is not uncommon to have multiple vendors to reduce risks. But, can we rely on competitors to work together as one happy family, and deliver on their respective expectations? Guest 1: Dan Mahlebashian, Chief Contracting Officer, IS&S, General Motors Corporation Guest Bio: https://www.ciotalknetwork.com/contributor/dan-mahlebashian/ Guest 2: Les Mara, Business Process Outso...

Research indicates that when tested, almost half of all disaster recovery plans fail, resulting in harm to a brand, customer loss, losses to competitors, and loss of valuable company data. What steps should companies take to ensure successful disaster recovery? What are the accepted best practices? Guest 1: Pat Hanavan, Vice President, Product Management, Symantec Corporation Guest Bio: https://ww...

Data centers are the vaults where we store mission critical information and intellectual property that users may need to access on quick notice but which also need to be protected. What does it take to successfully 'virtualize' a data center? Is it a smooth ride? If not, what issues need to be addressed? Guest 1: Mark Bregman, Executive Vice President, Chief Technology Officer, Symantec Guest Bio:...

Vendors! Global enterprises! It seems like everyone is embracing virtualization! Meanwhile, the analysts who keep track of such potentially IT-world shaking technologies are intently watching related and emerging trends. What are they seeing? Stunning successes or treacherous ground? What should IT decision makers know before they bet the bank on this new paradigm? Guest 1: Phil Edholm Title: Ente...

For IT to be truly successful at delivering value, the non-IT members of an organization must know and trust IT enough to adopt the positive changes IT can foster. Just how effective are the various internal communications methods such asbrag emails, speeches, 'town hall' meetings, etc., currently being used to promote IT? Can we do better? Guest: David Johnson, Global Information Officer, Jones L...

When we go to a global burger chain (you know who!) anywhere in the world, we expect the same experience and product quality and get what we expect. Organizations who have embraced IT outsourcing at a global level have similar expectations. However, for the most part, the expectations are not being met and the cultural differences are used as scapegoat. Can we do better? How? Guest 1: Kevin M. Cam...

How we negotiate the IT services or software licensing related contracts has a significant impact on how IT meets "getting more done with less" expectations set by executive management. How do we plan and carry out such negotiations for success? Is outsourcing such contract negotiations a good option? Guest 1: Tim Cowen, Chairman, IACCM. General Counsel, Commercial Director, BT Global Services Gue...

While Enterprise Virtualization technology has tremendous potential what does it take for an IT leader to get it introduced and adopted in his/her organization in a planned fashion? What are the challenges and possible remedies? Guest 1: John Deane, SVP, AIM Management Group. Chief Technology Officer, INVESCO Plc Guest Bio: https://www.ciotalknetwork.com/contributor/john-deane/ Guest 2: Jon Prall,...

Business and IT are changing at a warp speed. IT leadership is on its toes playing catch-up with a mandate to make IT lean and do more with less. On top of that, we have the baby boomer exodus which will be leaving IT departments with an acute manpower crunch. If you are an over worked CIO who has had enough already, you can imagine work life 5 years from now. If you are a CIO aspirant, assess if...

Rising costs in India are pushing US and European organizations to shift their focus to China for their outsourcing (IT and BPO) needs. Is outsourcing really all about just getting lowest cost option? Could this mindset be a recipe for failure? Guest 1: F. Warren McFarlan, T.J. Dermot Dunphy Baker Foundation Professor of Business Administration, Harvard Albert H. Gordon Professor of Business Admin...

The airline industry has been through a rough ride. Cost cutting measures go only so far. How is IT contributing towards making airline companies more sustainable, agile, and profitable? Guest 1: Gerry Coady, VP and CIO, Frontier Airlines Holding, Inc. Guest Bio: https://www.ciotalknetwork.com/contributor/gerry-coady/ Guest 2: Santiago Ontañon, Executive Vice President and Chief Information Office...

Continuous Quality Improvement (CQI) in IT mandates that we implement standardized processes to ensure predictable execution and results and reduce error probabilities. Innovation on the other hand requires us to break the mold and think out of the box and even make mistakes. How can these two co-exist in an IT organization and deliver optimum value? Guest 1: William H. Morgan, Executive Vice Pres...

Some claim that while the IT shared services model looks good on paper, it's a nightmare to implement and doesn't produce the promised ROI. Is this true? What is the actual success rate of implementations, and have they yielded real value? What is the optimum mix of people, processes, and technology needed to make the IT Shared Services model work? Guest 1: Ewald Comhaire, Director, Global Infrast...

Innovation is the mainstay of sustainable competitive advantage and success in today's fast-changing world of business. However... can creativity in IT alter the conventional balance of 1% Inspiration and 99% Perspiration, to improve the ROI of the innovation? Guest 1: Frank Modruson, CIO, Accenture Guest Bio: https://www.ciotalknetwork.com/contributor/frank-modruson/ Guest 2: Michael Schrage, Adv...

The stresses of rapidly changing business needs, globalization, and a need to create competitive advantage through IT are bringing out the best and worst traits in today's CIO while balancing work and home life requires an almost a superhuman effort. Is the concept of "Emotional Intelligence" an over hyped fad that imposes just another benchmark for CIO's to struggle with, or does it make sense? S...

Organizations are aggressively moving forward to make their IT dynamic by introducing virtualization to their server, storage, application, and desktop environments. How are we planning for this? What are our specific goals and priorities? Given that we are touching almost all areas of Enterprise IT at the same time, are we setting ourselves up for failure? Guest 1: Phil Edholm, Enterprise CTO and...

How an IT audit is carried out and how we best leverage internal/external IT auditor(s) determines the fate of organizations facing compliance mandates today. An increasing number of compliance initiative failures and the reported inadequate empowerment of IT auditors suggests that there are issues that need to be addressed. Are there issues? And, if so, how do we address them? Guest 1: Anne McCro...

Business transformations are inevitable in order to stay competitive. They bring along complexity and IT has to deal with that complexity after the game plan is in place. As a result, there is a high implementation cost for transformations in IT and non-IT disciplines. What if IT was invited while planning such transformations? Guest 1: Robert Fort, CIO, Virgin Entertainment Group's North America...

CIO decision making today is based on extensive "due diligence" performed leveraging multiple information sources as well as tools that aid the process. Still, the results are less than stellar. Is it possible to rule out the gut feel? Guest 1: Susan Cramm, President Valuedance and Former CIO, Taco Bell Corporation Guest Bio: https://www.ciotalknetwork.com/contributor/susan-cramm/ Guest 2: George...

Data storage requirements are growing exponentially, consequently, the need for scalability, simplicity of management and performance is forcing organizations to look for new solutions. This may be good news for vendors, but will today's solutions actually meet tomorrow's needs? Guest: Paul Massiglia, Chief Technology Strategists, Agami Systems Guest Bio: https://www.ciotalknetwork.com/contributor...

When increasingly complex IT systems and applications must be modified by globally dispersed technical teams due to a deluge of requests from a variety of stakeholders, we call it "change" in today's world. Managing this change is not easy, and unmanaged changes have cost organizations a fortune. Surprisingly, there are still a lot of companies who don't have a formal control mechanism defined. Ar...

Healthcare is expensive. Limiting rapidly rising prices and lowering costs are on everyone's agenda. IT innovation promises to help by offering solutions to handle supply chain inefficiencies, providing better monitoring and scheduling solutions, and preventing prescription errors that can result in deaths. What is the current state of the art? Guest 1: Rich Gius, VP and CIO, Atmos Energy Guest Bi...