The Meadows Sales Technology Corporation Blog

The CIO is facing the challenge of becoming a true analytical thinker when it comes to dealing with financial numbers because he or she comes from the IT world. They judge and make decisions based on their “business sense” and vision but frequently without real data analysis or quantitative research modeling. This may bias their understanding of certain indicators such as ROI, potentially leading to inaccurate estimations and possible wrong decisions. A sound knowledge of financial math will enable CIO's to create better decisions for their enterprises. Therefore, math is important not only for CFOs but for CIOs as well!

Enterprise resource planning (ERP) has long held a stranglehold on corporate IT investments and has remained a critical topic of pressured, long-term decision making for the CIO. Whether to adopt SaaS vs. on-premise ERP becomes is a major decision for a CIO. SaaS has become increasingly popular because of its emphasis on rapid implementation time (averaged at 11 months vs. 18 months for on-premise). However, SaaS implementations are less likely to deliver expected business benefits and more likely to exceed budget that on-premise initiatives. Panorama Consulting Group reports that companies have begun to see the errors of their ways in managing ERP systems and have taken small, but important corrective actions for their future. This strategic shift was realized because of the advice of independent professional consulting practices. Thus, CIOs should reach out to highly qualified CIO advisory firms to accurately assess, identify, and implement the most effective and customized ERP strategy for their particular enterprise.

Reviewers have been showing mixed attitudes about the “groundbreaking iPad.” It may serve as a great entertainment and business tool but recent buzz confirms that people question its practical usefulness as a web browser. The Apple iPad does not have Adobe flash support which is used to view digital media on major websites such as YouTube, Hulu, and Facebook. Many potential users consider the iPad a bigger iPod touch they cannot easily carry around. Flash marketing manager Adrian Ludwig has complained about Apple’s lack of flash support, “Apple is continuing to impose restrictions on its devices that limit both content publishers and consumers.” Whether the iPad will be successful is yet to be determined, but it will be a few months before the market judges the success or failure of Apple’s iPad.

The modern CIO must focus on developing into a dynamic leader to be tactically effective in this day and age. It is crucial for the CIO to assume a prominent position as leader of his team rather than just being a member. Michael Whitmer saw a decline in his enterprise's performance that may be correlated to lack of attention to his own leadership. Any IT executive looking to fulfil the role of the CIO needs to weigh out and align the benefits of staff camaraderie with the benefits of projecting effective leadership and authority. The CIO should put forth his ultimate efforts at effectively fulfilling the critical leadership his team truly needs. Thus, a sufficient guideline for the CIO to follow in the modern age is to step back from the specific roles and processes that revolve around IT and stick to basic concepts of leadership and influence. The CIO of an enterprise should leave day-to-day IT operations to his team and focus on becoming the leader to whom his team can look for inspiration, vision, and guidance.

There has been a steadily increasing amount of pressure on CIOs to deliver cheap and readily available business intelligence tools. Business intelligence (BI) has ranked number one as the technology that will have the most impact in the next few years. This poses somewhat of a challenge for the CIO because his career path is based from information technology roles and CIOs don't typically come from business oriented backgrounds. It seems it is time for CIOs to expand IT's capabilities and help the business get its BI wants and needs, where and when possible. CIOs should begin to align themselves more closely with business intelligence as it would result in their developing into a much more valuable as well as powerful executive in any given enterprise.

The modern CIO is faced with adopting a more business minded way of thinking. This is a challenge because the CIO (and especially his staff) loves technology but must embrace business to advance (IT-Business alignment and integration). Organizations as a whole must work on integrating information technology (IT) with business as this ensures common commercial objectives. We can see examples of major success utilizing IT/Business integration focus strategies with Eastern Mountain Sports (CIO - Jeff Neville) and UK-based Specsavers (CIO - Michel Khan). In this advancing day and age it is becoming almost imperative for CIOs to begin to construct and implement strategies to lead IT and business onto a single, common path.