Chapter 4

Real-World Case Studies

This chapter presents case studies that exemplify chief information officers (CIOs) that have enabled their organizations to truly use information technology (IT) as a strategic driver while at the same time providing the necessary supporter functions. Thus, these cases represent stories of how these CIOs have approached the challenges of the job and have sustained a successful track record. The cases were conducted using personal one-on-one interviews; in one case (Cushman & Wakefield) we were able to interview other C-suite colleagues, which provided a view from those at the same level as the CIO.

The interview protocol was made up of nine major questions:

Our case studies covered six different types of corporate CIOs:

BP: Dana Deasy, Global CIO

Dana Deasy has been global CIO of BP for five years. Prior to this, he held CIO roles at Tyco International, Siemens, and GM. His decision to join BP relates to his belief that “you don't know how the world and management really work until you get out of your comfort zone.”

For Deasy, working for Siemens was the first step—venturing into a multinational conglomerate—and he attributes the attraction that BP had for him to his international experience. Part of the value proposition he brought to BP was his experience in working with different organizational models. By models he means centralized, decentralized, or as in BP, what is known as a federated model. This means that the firm uses both forms of centralized and decentralized designs. Most important, he attributes his cross-industry experience as the reason BP had confidence in his ability to relate to the oil and gas business. Deasy also explains that not having experience in that particular business might have been seen as a disadvantage, but during his interview he explained why his prior experience could be very beneficial to BP.

Deasy feels the most important trait that supports his success is his ability to communicate. As he stated to us, “If you can't communicate, you can't create vision, and if you can't create vision, you can't get an organization to move.” Deasy relates the ability to establish vision with the emotion of excitement—visions become reality when people get excited about what you are saying. Deasy's method of creating excitement has always been through storytelling—stories that vary depending on whom you are talking to. Deasy will speak in technology-specific terms when he is engaged with his organization, but is careful not to speak too much technical jargon in front of executives or the business. In other words, to be a successful CIO, you need to be able to dynamically switch from technical to business speak on demand, depending on your audience.

Deasy also discussed the importance of balancing the counsel you receive from others with your own sense of what is the right decision. Thus, successful CIOs need to know when to listen and when to act on their own. This is especially true when you need to deal with difficult issues that otherwise you would defer to your management team. To a large extent, Deasy suggests that you must know when to get involved in the details, but at the same time allow others to make decisions.

Another important factor for CIO success is the ability to deal with ambiguity. Looking back on Deasy's career, it is clear that in each of his CIO roles, there was not a clear road map that defined his position. Indeed, in each job he was the first to hold the role as a corporate or global CIO, so there was no history for the position. While this creates great opportunity, it also puts pressure on the new CIO to clearly develop a road map to demonstrate how they can bring value to the business.

Deasy explained that his role at BP is substantially different from others because of the complex federated model. This means that his team, while they report to him, also has close ties and responsibilities to the business units for which they support. So, he uses a different set of skills that are more focused on influencing people to get on board, as opposed to setting the direction; what he labels “purposeful direction.” Therefore, leading without the real authority is a true challenge for him.

Earlier in his career, Deasy admitted that he depended much more on the superiority of his technical skills. Technical skills were the basis of authority in the IT world, which was further supported by the fact that IT was segregated from business decisions. This resulted in a mentality that allowed him to feel that he could control outcomes through his technical expertise. This obviously changed as he became more engaged as a CIO.

One of the most salient triggers for Deasy's evolution and change was his experience at Rockwell, supporting the space program. During his tenure there, Deasy was involved with the Challenger disaster. He was responsible for the IT that supported the help desk. As he explains, “It was the first time in my life that I ever had to deal with a real crisis.” Deasy had to step up and really understand what it meant to live through a crisis. The experience pushed him to have the confidence that he could make a difference.

According to Deasy, the most successful CIOs constantly challenge themselves as well as their own IT organization, whereas the least effective IT leaders are those who feel they know everything. These individuals tend to alienate others and are rarely open-minded enough to deliver what the business needs.

Perhaps the most important part of our interview with Dana was his final takeaway—what he calls the “four P's.” These four P's are the characteristics that CIOs must have to be successful. The first P is patience because CIOs will be told often that their plans will not work—you will be challenged for sure. CIOs also need perseverance, because you will have setbacks—projects that will not work out the way you expected. The third P is performance. CIOs must get results, or eventually management will lose confidence in them. Finally, successful CIOs are passionate about their jobs. With all the pressures and complexity of his job, Deasy made it clear to us that he loved being a CIO.

Merck & Co.: Chris Scalet, Senior Vice President and CIO

Chris Scalet was CIO at Merck for almost 10 years. He was responsible for a number of operations within the company. His original team started with 50 people but eventually grew to over 600 staff members that run facilities around the world. Scalet's CIO functions expanded outside IT to also include shared service responsibilities in human resources, travel, credit card, real estate, corporate security, and aviation. In effect, Scalet's organization that had operations responsibilities became part of his domain.

Scalet attributed his expanded role to his experience in the manufacturing sector, which influenced his appreciation for how IT functions could also help with automating other areas. Additionally, like Scalet, the CEO was a huge advocate of Six Sigma, so it was logical for the CIO to be selected to expand best practices in other domains. When Scalet joined Merck in 2003, the IT function was decentralized and had little governance. Sixty percent of IT reported to their respective division president. As a result, there was huge duplication of functions, so Scalet set out to create various shared services functions, which made the IT organization more cost effective and optimized performance. The effort resulted in closing 85 data centers, for example.

Scalet feels that he had an unusual opportunity with Merck to get visibility at the enterprise level—that is, he had a “seat at the table (the executive team),” which catapulted him into executive conversations pertaining to how IT could add strategic value to the organization. Also, by being given responsibility outside IT as well, Scalet was able to better align with business needs. An ideal CIO, according to Scalet, is one who is a businessperson first with a great understanding of IT issues. CIOs also need to understand IT architecture because this skill will allow them to adjust IT infrastructures to meet the needs of the business as well as the dynamics of the market. Scalet feels strongly that “CIOs should understand that IT is really about information.” CIOs need to put information where users can get to it quickly, which will allow them to make better decisions. Application software continues to become more of a commodity; thus, it will be how you provide the information that will set CIOs apart in the value that they bring to their organizations. Indeed, Scalet believes that providing data faster not only saves time but speeds up decision making by 30 to 40 percent.

Scalet's relationship with his CEO was excellent, but his conversations with board members were very different. “Topics at the board are almost always about general business,” says Scalet, “so CIOs need to always keep this in mind.” Inevitably, Scalet realizes that an effective CIO must report to a CEO that appreciates the complexities of IT as well as the role in general. Furthermore, successful CIOs must realize that 80 to 90 percent of their job is people related, and they need to comfortably interact with all levels of management. IT decisions also need to be made in the context of the broader interests of the company, and as a result CIOs must respect the input and feedback they get from their peers.

Scalet also feels that good CIOs gauge the industry and anticipate scenarios that can benefit the company. They must bring these issues to the other executives or the board and present it in a way that helps the team make informed decisions. For example, in Scalet's world at Merck, he needed to constantly think about the effects of mobility on the pharmaceutical industry, the impact of cloud computing, and the IT capabilities that could reshape information back to customers.

Covance: John Repko, CIO

John Repko had been CIO for Covance for over eight years when we interviewed him. Covance is one of the world's largest and most comprehensive drug development services companies with more than 12,000 employees in 65 countries. He has since become senior vice president and CIO of Tyco. Repko is unique in that he also had been a practicing certified public accountant (CPA) for nine years and a Six Sigma Master Black Belt prior to moving into the IT leader position at GE. We've found that very few CIOs have that financial process background and dual capability. Repko's IT organization consists of about 800+ resources worldwide, of which 300 were employees, with the remainder being outsourced contract labor. Repko's role as CIO was not limited to IT, but also included the interface to Laboratory Technology, which is especially mission critical given Covance's leading position in the drug development services sector.

What was also unique about Repko's success was that he initially joined Covance in 2003 as vice president of global applications, and from June 2005 until January 2006 served as interim CIO before being appointed as permanent SVP and CIO.

Repko stated that his time at Covance could be broken down into three major “chapters”: Chapter 1 was the challenges of getting out of the existing third-party IT contracts that were hurting the company and limiting IT's effectiveness. Chapter 2 involved the transformation of the IT management team and specific systems that were not working properly. Chapter 3 was to initiate more effective IT projects, including a data center consolidation and a key clinical application.

His focus was to transform the organization, and this required the replacement of many staff positions. Repko moved to Covance from GE and brought a number of his prior GE colleagues over to Covance to assist with the transformation. Repko's new IT organization was more centralized and was able to prematurely terminate an expensive outsource contract with a major Tier 1 provider. Thus, Repko's initial plan was to bring more of IT back under in-house control. There was also little IT governance at Covance at the time, so Repko had to initiate controls that served to bring “order” within IT at the company.

Repko believes strongly in hiring people that he knows and trusts and then building a team around a known management team. By bringing in the right talent, Repko was able to launch five major system transformations involving a new enterprise resource planning (ERP) system as well as providing the right technology to support Covance's toxicology business. Repko worked to ensure effective outsource partnerships with HCL and Accenture, feeling that these particular companies were leaders in project implementation that were relevant to Covance's needs. This relationship also allowed the IT management team to spend more time on business matters as they partner with these providers to drive successful outcomes. Repko was as active with Covance's board. The Covance board meets five times annually, and Repko has attended four of those five meetings for the past several years. Furthermore, Repko had two directors from the board who had IT backgrounds and acted as advisers to him between meetings. He met privately with them before presenting to the board, so this process really allowed him to be prepared to discuss complex business issues with the remaining board members.

In terms of Repko's relationship with his C-suite members, he iterated the importance of leveraging one's relationships. In particular, it was the CEO who recruited him, and thus it gave Repko access to the key people in the firm. It also gave Repko the ability to get his CEO to understand the salient issues for him to be successful at Covance. Repko has a philosophy to be direct with his colleagues and likes to bring value quickly—and “with a lot of supporting data.” At Covance, this meant speaking directly with the leadership and scientists in the company, requiring Repko to do several world tours in his first three years on the job! Winning support from the other executive members requires a one-at-a-time philosophy with a straight-shooter mentality. As a result, no one thought of Repko as a yes-man—something that was very important to his C-suite colleagues.

Repko's prior experience at GE was the critical part of his career growth. At GE, Repko assumed more than 10 different roles. Although Repko never had direct dealings with the GE board, the interrelationships with the GE management teams prepared him well to deal with senior management at Covance and at the board level. Indeed, GE was excellent training for developing your career. The bottom line for Repko is that GE taught him much about how to get things done.

Repko feels that one of the biggest mistakes made by other CIOs is their lack of self-confidence and fear of hiring really good talent—in some cases more experienced than themselves—below them. For example, in Repko's organization, five members were former CIOs. “It is hard to focus on key things if you do not have the right talent in place.” Another concern offered by Repko is to not accept mediocrity in performance of staff. He recalled a time when he waited too long to take action on a key staff member, which he later regretted. As he stated, “If someone is detracting from your objectives, they should not be on the team.” Repko suggests that up-and-coming CIOs surround themselves with lots of partners. The CIO should ensure they develop a relationship with all of the C-suite members, especially the CEO and the CFO. Another key suggestion he offered to us was the importance of building talent and loyalty within the organization. Finally, CIOs must always have detailed knowledge of the numbers, so having solid training in budgeting and accounting is critical. As Repko explained, “A CIO has to be in total command of his/her numbers.”

Cushman & Wakefield: Craig Cuyar, CIO

Craig Cuyar has been CIO of Cushman & Wakefield (C&W) for almost four years. The company is a global commercial property and real estate services firm. When Cuyar came to C&W, IT was at the bottom of the pyramid, so his main focus was to get IT at the strategic level—as an enabler. Cuyar compares this concept to Maslow's hierarchy of need theory, in which one cannot reach self-actualization until you satisfy one's basic needs first. Therefore, the IT organization cannot become an enabler if it cannot provide the basic support functions like e-mail, or as we say, “keeping the lights on.” The challenge at C&W was to rethink the core values, which was that IT was limited to support services, and transforming that into a strategic mission as well. Unlike the other CIOs we interviewed, Cuyar reports directly to the CFO, which is a controversial issue in the CIO community. However, Cuyar has direct access to the CEO and other Board members.

Unfortunately, when the economic crisis hit in 2008, much of Cuyar's strategic desires had to be put on hold, simply because of constraints faced by the meltdown of real estate globally. Cuyar has spent that time reviewing the overall IT architecture and has now begun executing his original strategic plan. Cuyar enlisted Ernst & Young to help formulate their IT strategy. Cuyar designed his strategy to first address the implementation process. He began by moving to a global outsourcing of the service desk and the desktop support functions. Other IT functions are going to IBM and Tata Consultancy Services (TCS). Currently, the IT function has 200 employees and an equal number of outsourced resources, which represents about 1.5 percent of C&W's worldwide 14,500 employees.

Cuyar sees a huge amount of work evolving into a shared services model and to perhaps use this to differentiate C&W in the market. While C&W is not the largest firm in the business they seek to be known as the highest in quality and as such the IT function must be consistent with that mission.

Cuyar has quarterly meetings with the other members of the executive management team. These meetings are mostly focused on ensuring that the IT department continues to be aligned with the goals of the business units. As Cuyar states, “These meetings are designed to ensure that we are aware of past performance and [that] we are equally cognizant of the wants and activities of the services and functions required of IT.”

Cuyar sees the major strength of IT is that it cuts across multiple disciplines of the firm. As a result, IT always has a good pulse of what is driving profitability in the company. The only other organization that has a lot of information about the organization is finance, but not at the same level of detail, so when you think about it, “IT really has the best overall understanding of the business and its drivers of revenue and net income,” according to Cuyar. The weakness that Cuyar sees is the reporting structure he has to the CFO—for which he feels identifies his organization too much as a back office operation. Fortunately, Cuyar went through a review process with Ernst & Young, which ultimately allowed IT to describe how the operation could help transform the business. The result of that study allowed the business units to see the driver aspects of IT, which otherwise would not have been disclosed within the finance function. However, it is important to note that Cuyar does not criticize his CFO and apparently there is a dual objective to get both IT and Finance in better positions to drive business value; from this perspective, IT and Finance have a common objective. In terms of his relationship with his CEO, Cuyar paraphrases it as “budding.” This is simply because the CIO is a relatively new role in the C-suite. Cuyar's exposure to the board is limited at this time and he hopes that the role of the CIO will continue to evolve at the company. Cuyar's organization does have multiple “line” CIOs around the world, who have dotted reporting lines to their business CEOs. This allows those relationships to become closer aligned to the driver factions that have an effect on the day-to-day challenges of those local businesses. However, Cuyar's role in New York deals more with the global heads of the firm.

Cuyar felt the most important part of his success relied heavily on his communication ability and feels it is at the center of his leadership style. As he pointed out, “It's not about doing things right but doing the right things and knowing what they are.” Cuyar feels that another important trait of a successful CIO is to be a good listener, which ultimately helps with a person's communications skills. Having benchmarks are also critical, the most important ones being time, headcount, and sound financials.

CIOs, according to Cuyar, have three core areas of responsibilities: (1) operational, (2) transformative, and (3) business strategy. Those CIOs that tend to struggle have trouble with doing all three. Lesser CIOs tend to gravitate to an operational focus, and fail to lead their organizations strategically. As a result these CIOs never transform the IT role and ultimately fail. Furthermore, the three variables are complex—to some extent Cuyar feels they tend to exist in economic cycles—for example, what he experienced during the downturn in the economy resulting in his need to refocus how IT could drive operational excellence to reduce costs.

Prudential: Barbara Koster, SVP and CIO

Barbara Koster is a senior vice president and global chief information officer at Prudential Financial, Inc.

She joined Prudential in 1995 as CIO of the company's individual life insurance business after a 20-year career at Chase Manhattan Bank. She became global CIO in 2004 and was promoted to senior vice president and head of Global Business & Technology Solutions at Prudential and a member of the company's Senior Management Committee in 2010.

One of the most important projects Koster has worked on at Prudential was establishing Pramerica Systems Ireland, Limited, a software development subsidiary located in Ireland that develops software and other systems solutions and provides client contact services to Prudential's businesses around the world. Most recently, she launched a data center in Japan that provides cost-effective and enhanced technology services to the company's businesses in Japan and around the world.

Koster has won many awards for excellence and innovation in business and technology. In 2011, she was named one of the “Fifty Best Women in Business” by NJBIZ. In 2008, she was listed among the top Executive Women of New Jersey and named CIO of the Year by the Executive Council. She also has been named a Premier IT Leader by Computerworld magazine, a Top Twenty Financial Management Technologist by the CIO Forum, and one of the Elite Eight by Insurance & Technology magazine.

Koster's recipe for success is to deliver business-driven technology solutions that are developed through strong business partnerships and a thorough understanding of business needs. The underlying philosophy she follows is to find creative ways to integrate technology into business to support its strategy and goals. And Koster firmly believes the best way to understand business goals is to be an attentive listener.

What we found unique about Koster's management style is her commitment to talent management to ensure that her staff is properly trained and is given opportunities for continual professional development. She also leverages technology to promote work-life balance and alternative working arrangements—giving employees flexibility to do their best work. Indeed, one of the shortfalls in most IT organizations today is that they have failed to implement appropriate plans to replace their retiring talent. However, at Prudential, where the turnover rate for IT specialists is relatively low, succession planning strategies have been developed and managers are attentive to making sure IT specialists have a broad range of technology experiences. Koster also encourages her leadership team to develop partnerships with colleges, universities, and nonprofit organizations to attract diverse new IT talent into the organization and encourage young people to pursue careers in IT.

Koster reports directly to the Prudential vice chair and works in close association with the chairman and CEO. As a member of the executive management team, Koster is uniquely positioned to integrate IT with business strategy.

“Being able to take risks and feel confident about your convictions is crucial to the CIO role,” advises Koster. “The time has never been more right for CIOs to be strategic, but we must always remain aligned with the business and aware of its challenges and opportunities.”

Procter & Gamble: Filippo Passerini, Group President and CIO

Filippo Passerini has been with Procter & Gamble (P&G) for over 30 years, working his way up from the initial position of systems analyst in 1981. Passerini, originally from Italy, has truly worked for the company in a global capacity, having roles and responsibilities in the United Kingdom, Latin America, Europe, and the United States. Today, Passerini is not only the CIO, but holds a unique senior position as group president of Global Business Services. The role represents the integration that Passerini has accomplished with the business—an extraordinary partnership that has created a natural process of solving business challenges through constantly evolving innovation—innovation that is closely aligned with the business.

Passerini's philosophy on the role of IT is very clear: IT must assist the business to transform, and as such must go beyond just enabling IT; rather, IT must help the business to maximize its performance. The success of this transformation is accomplished through Passerini's leadership model that starts with the ability to collaborate effectively with internal business partners. The vision that Passerini presents to his team is simple: transform the way business is done at P&G. Specifically, the goal is to create a competitive advantage for the company via progressive business models. Passerini feels strongly that you cannot adopt technology just for technology's sake, “You have to start with the end in mind—what's in it for the business? It's about creating distinctive, breakthrough business models and then using technology to enable them. It's not about technologies; it's about how you use them to drive value for the business.” Simply put, technologies are really only a means to an end.

Passerini's use of personnel is consistent with Langer's driver theory, implementing a process that moves IT personnel into the actual business units. He calls such IT staff “service managers.” Passerini expressed his philosophy about achieving success, believing strongly that CIOs should not be afraid to make mistakes, rather to focus more on what they learn from their setbacks. Passerini shared a setback he had in the United Kingdom early on in his career that taught him “it is always possible to turn an issue into an opportunity.” Indeed, that setback created a huge opportunity because he demonstrated his ability to weather the storm and ultimately achieve success. The concept fits the analogy of “lots of people can sail a ship in calm waters, but you're not a true captain until you navigate through a storm.” Our takeaway here is simple: being impressive during pressure periods conveys a sense of confidence from your colleagues. It certainly paid off for Passerini. However, he notes that you cannot make the same mistake multiple times, for sure.

Passerini also discussed some of the “soft” yet important attributes for the successful CIO, which he defined as passion for the job, ability to closely track progress, anticipation of changes in the market, and effectively utilizing Big Data to guide the business. Passerini's close relationship with his business peers reflects the importance of these soft skills. His business colleagues often reach out to him to help solve market challenges and seek the creation of new business models in a joint effort with IT, so it's not about IT's providing a technology to enable the business, but having IT as a true partner to drive the transformation of the business. Passerini provided an example of the success of this collaboration. P&G used traditional focus groups to determine consumer needs IT (enabled virtual technologies for these focus groups), which help to reduce cycle time and speed innovations to market, while resulting in a significant cost savings.

Passerini believes that there has never been a better time for CIOs, “I feel that we're at a unique point where the stars (business needs) and the moon (enabling technology) are aligned for the CIO to play an unprecedented leadership role in the business.”

Cushman & Wakefield: A View from Another Perspective

At Cushman & Wakefield we had the opportunity to speak with two of Craig Cuyar's colleagues in the C-suite, the CFO and the senior VP of human resources (HR). The questions we asked them related to the following six areas:

The CFO

The chief financial officer (CFO) of C&W had prior experience with hiring and managing a CIO. When he came to C&W he realized that the current CIO of 25 years could not drive IT globally. He stated that there were many things wrong and Cuyar had to realign IT and create a platform that could drive strategy. It is important, according to the CFO, that CIOs focus on practical things and stay away from the IT “gizmos.” He also recommends that CIOs speak “plain English.” Much of this advice relates to his past experiences with IT leadership and their organizations. So the CFO was clear that most CIOs need to overcome the history of poor experiences that many executives have had with IT organizations.

As a result, the CFO feels that the most important thing for a “transitional” CIO to accomplish is “do things,” that is, get as many little things done as possible. In this way the CIO can begin to create his/her reputation of getting things done as opposed to just talking about it. The CFO also recognizes the importance of the CEO's buy-in. As previously stated, the CIO at C&W reports directly to the CFO, so working together to determine how best to bring value to the CEO is critical for success. The strategy in this case then is for the CFO to be an advocate for the CIO position.

According to the CFO it is best for the CIO to first ensure that his/her strategy is in line with the CEO, but also to be consistent with the rest of the business heads. As he states, “You know you can talk to the CEO and get the overall strategy, but it is equally important that the [CIO] go into each of the businesses.” The CFO also feels that the CIO needs to clearly define the “key drivers” that are impacting change at the firm. His comment reminded us how the word driver is a common phrase used among CFOs. CFOs also need to see the existence of defined processes—which needs to comply with Sarbanes-Oxley. Indeed, CFOs are focused on governance and it is helpful when CIOs present well-defined controls that satisfy the audit responsibilities of the CFO function. The CFO of C&W related his own experience with defining finance strategy to the board when he first came to C&W in 2008. As he stated to us, “I made it known [to the board] what my overall vision was and then how this defined my strategy.” The CIO must develop those same skills. In cases like C&W, where the CIO reports to the CFO, both the IT and finance visions need to be integrated into one strategy, even if they have unrelated parts.

Interestingly, the CFO did not emphasize the importance of the CIO to put everything in a financial perspective. Rather, CIOs need to explain, whether discussing a driver or supporter, how IT participates with the business, and what the related costs need to be to support it. However, the CFO did disclose his fears about how many CIOs get caught up with the technology itself and completely lose focus on the return on investment (ROI) of their projects, so he did not want to diminish the importance of the CIO's need to understand financial investments formulas.

At C&W, the board is very quantitative, so ideas are fine but they really do look at the details. The CFO explained to us that it was not unusual for the board sessions to cover multiple detailed spreadsheets that explain every financial aspect of the business. This differed from the CFO's experience with other boards—he found most of the past boards to be more concentrated more on qualitative measures than at C&W.

The CFO values his relationship with Cuyar. Notwithstanding the challenges and setbacks they have had in the business, ultimately the new uses and application of IT at C&W are beginning to take effect. This is best represented by renewed interests from other departments. The CFO stated that at the last board meeting, HR discussed plans to use the one source of data that had been devised by Cuyar for other departments.

The decision of what kind of CIO to hire is complex. It's like hiring a new CFO—there are all different types depending on what a firm desires. The CFO highlighted the importance of understanding the goals of the position; do you need an operational CIO, a transformational CIO (support to strategy), a CIO that can complete a specific task or major project, or one that is strategic? This opens the conversation about the longevity of the CIO. If you hire a CIO for a specific reason what happens when that objective is reached? The CFO stated simply, “This really needs to be determined up front.”

We asked the CFO the question: “Does IT contribute to the overall business strategy?” The CFO responded, “We are not an organization that is at that point.” The CFO believed the company is in “catch-up” mode because of how far they fell behind. Thus, the firm is not at the point where they can expect IT to provide realistic competitive advantage; rather, they first need the support side to operate efficiently.

The CFO feels strongly that one of Cuyar's greatest strengths is his patience, particularly in the way he handled the delays in the IT plan due to the downturn in the economy. Furthermore, Cuyar did an excellent job in assessing his staff and rethinking the skills sets that were necessary to bring the IT organization forward. Of course, he also established the right rapport with the business, which ultimately helped support the transformation that IT desperately needed. Ultimately, what Cuyar brought to the company was proper governance. He formed a council of businesspeople who assist IT in determining the next steps, as opposed to just making decisions on their own; it also sent the right message to the management team that IT could function in a vacuum. Thus, the council reviews many things and participates in many IT decisions. This resembles Lucas's Garbage Can model discussed in Chapter 2, where the organization devises a group that determines what IT projects are to be approved. It resembles an operating committee for IT projects. These committees should be composed of various operations personnel from each business concern, which is exactly the approach taken by Cuyar.

The CEO at C&W is not an IT “savvy” executive so while Cuyar communicates with him, the CEO does not attend many board meetings unless there is a very specific IT issue that needs to be discussed. Therefore, the CFO provides most of the communication of IT issues to the board. Because of this process, the CFO has to be sure he articulates IT needs as a separate entity, not to be confused with finance. Because the CEO is not IT savvy, the CFO is careful to keep the conversations about IT at a basic dialogue. This does not suggest that the CEO is not approachable. The CFO has arranged quarterly sessions with Cuyar to ensure that IT has a seat at the CEO table, and they continually practice the “speak” that is necessary to relate a technology issue to the CEO.

The CFO believes that Cuyar's efforts will lead to a substantial IT transformation at C&W over the next three years. After that period, the newer technologies will begin to take hold and become productive tools for the field personnel. The CFO feels that “Craig is going to be involved in driving our business [and] making technology a business enabler.” The CFO recognizes that the competition is way ahead. C&W is the third largest firm in their industry, and if they are to grow it is essential that the driver side of IT emerge according to plan. He also relates the slow adaption of IT to the age group of the field personnel, citing that many of the field staff are engaged in a personal business, doing things the old way. Their staff ages range from 55 to 65, so there will be a turnover, which will require the business to adapt the needs of younger, more IT savvy field personnel.

Human Resources

The HR executive discussed some pragmatic needs from the CIO position. Specifically this included the reliance of “platform” decisions to deliver much needed data on employment issues. By platform, the HR executive means the systems that need to deliver information. It also relates to the need to accumulate the necessary data from appropriate internal and external sources. During our discussion the HR executive used words such as usability, ease of data entry, and sophisticated spreadsheet requirements.

To get this information, the HR executive admitted that the CIO function is more important than ever and certainly is a critical member of the C-suite. However, there is now a need for the CIOs to know more than just their own discipline, that is, they must understand the intricacies of the other functional areas as well. This is not a unique responsibility at the C-suite, according to the HR executive, “It is very similar for me as head of HR; I work with legal and finance [for example] in everything I do.” So the CIO needs to be up to date on all of the contemporary technologies that can help each area and provide the right executive direction to the other C-suite members. In other words, the CIO needs to provide an inventory of opportunity and then present it to business heads in a way that “thinks about the market and the competitive frame, and thinking beyond the task at hand.” As an HR executive “I need to be a good listener and I think the CIO has the same challenges, serving multiple facets of the business in different ways.” According to the HR executive, the CIO is still the leading technical adviser in the firm, and as such must present the vision of how IT can make a difference for the business and what the risks are for taking no action. Additionally, he feels that the CIO must be in tune with the market—what other firms in the industry are doing and what appears to provide a competitive advantage or as he says, “I think it is also being up to speed on all the different technologies that are critical and being used in other organizations.”

The disappointments of IT typically occur when the technical aspects of the solution do not go smoothly, according to the HR executive. He provided an example that related to an electronic performance product that had “hiccups” in the database and lacked the necessary support from Oracle. Problems like these hurt IT because it leaves a poor impression on the IT brand. “It also hurts my reputation,” explained the HR executive. “It's more to me than a platform, when the hiccups happen, or the deadlines are not met, it reflects on me as well.” But the CIO also needs to be careful not to jump in too quickly or prematurely offer solutions without truly understanding the abilities of the organization to assimilate technology changes. This particularly resonated with the HR executive because he too wanted best practices in HR, but found that he needed to have realistic expectations on how staff transformed their use of technology. As he explained to us, “You should be able to gauge where the status of the organization is at that point and its appetite for change.” Thus, there are ways of moving the organization along rather than pushing it especially when the organization is not ready for it. This, then, according to the HR executive, is crucial for CIO success and certainly fatal if mishandled. These comments from the HR executive resonated with us, as they are consistent with Langer's responsive organizational dynamism (ROD) theory, in which cultural assimilation is critical for absorbing new technology innovations.

The HR executive feels the most important thing for the CIO to do at the C-suite is to listen—listening in terms of priority and where the sense of urgency is in the business. In many ways, he stated, “Listening is being able to deliver, so you need to listen to where that low hanging is so people can see that you can execute.” Furthermore, the executions must be done timely, and this above all will provide the CIO will early success stories that will inevitably build confidence from the other C-suite members.

The relationship the HR executive has with the CIO is excellent, clearly feeling that Cuyar is not one of these leaders that blame the problems on the technology or on others. The HR executive was clear on Cuyar's value, “Craig and I talk all the time. One thing I like about him which aligns with my thinking is that he never takes no for an answer, so for him there seems to always be a solution for me.” So good is their relationship that both HR and IT leaders meet monthly and include select members from their staffs to attend, so from our perspective there is real integration between the two departments.

In terms of the department relationship with IT, the HR executive stated that supporting IT from a talent perspective was very much standard. He did not perceive IT staff as unusual or apart from how he supports other departments. He has an HR team that focuses on IT needs and did not foresee any changes in how HR supports the IT department.

The evolution of the CIO role will change for sure according to the HR executive. “It's getting tougher [especially] with the younger generation coming into the workforce with different needs and the challenge of accommodating them.” And yet at the same time, per the HR executive, the organization must maintain controls and security. The clash of consumerization and controls will continue to be at the forefront of management challenges for the CIO, he explained. For example, just debating how effective an iPad can be for us is exciting until we start discussing the security challenges. The solutions here are not obvious, and many times the CIO bears the bad news, explained the HR executive. The other area of conflict highlighted by the HR executive was the policy on saving data, which inevitably relates to access of information for employees and customers. This became a huge issue especially for departments that did not understand the legal ramifications (confidentiality for example). And with the technology ever changing, the CIO needs to constantly be up to date and must interact with every aspect of our business, so “yes, the role is evolving for sure,” explained the HR executive. Another way he articulated the issue to us, “The uncertainty in the technology makes the organization want to protect itself.” Most important though from the HR perspective is that the CIO cannot do this alone—it is not a sole IT responsibility. How disclaimers should work and the effects of this for example on each of our businesses can vary, thus “the evolution is really the broadening of communication across the company.”

The HR executive feels overall that the IT evolutions will have positive impacts on further formalizing the CIO role at C&W. His advice for CEOs seeking a new CIO is to be aware of the importance for these individuals to have outstanding listening and communicating skills. His list of good CIO attributes also includes:

• Experience working with senior management teams.
• Worked at a public company.
• A good culture fit in general.
• Ability to see the whole picture.
• Someone who could likely report to the CEO.
• Is technically proficient.
• Possesses strategic vision.

Conclusion

The case studies in this chapter showed remarkable consistency in the way successful CIOs defined their success. Not surprisingly these successful attributes are often defined as the “soft” skills, and often not the focus of up and coming IT managers. These necessary soft skills can be divided into two categories, (1) personal attributes and (2) organizational philosophy. The next sections summarize the components of each of these categories based on the feedback presented in this chapter. The 24 components are further expanded in Chapter 5.

Personal Attributes

We define personal attributes as individual traits that appear to be keys for IT leadership. They include the following 11 traits:

Organization Philosophy

We relate organization philosophy to issues that represents the way the organization should operate. It should include the following 13 objectives: