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New Year’s Resolutions for CIOs

Ten must-dos for the year ahead.

By Susan Cramm

December 01, 2003 — CIO — At this time of the year, most businesspeople are feeling a little ragged. The holiday season is a mad dash, as preparations and parties start colliding with current-year commitments and the coming year’s attractions. With all that going on, it’s easy to lose perspective on one’s career progress and even harder to identify the smart moves that will make a difference going forward.

In the hope that you will find a few minutes of peace in the next few weeks, I take this opportunity to share some insights in the form of New Year’s resolutions. The following is the antidote for my "Ten Mistakes CIOs Too Often Make" column published earlier this year and is inspired by clients, friends and readers who have mastered the ability to maintain focus and optimism in the midst of the daily grind.

1 Spend one day a week with the "one level down" and the "front line." Seek information that will broaden your perspective and ensure that you live and lead in the real world. "One level down" is the code phrase of a grocery retail CIO who believes that if you want to influence the opinions of your peers, then influence the opinions of their direct reports. Another great source for insight is the frontline employees of your organization.

2 Fix the top service issue. Delivering the basics establishes the watermark for your organization’s credibility. All your other accomplishments will suffer if you are unable to deliver a level of service consistent with what your business delivers to its customers. Stop ignoring it or excusing it; there are a million good reasons why your service is the way it is, but none of them matter. Analyzing the underlying root causes and formulating a workable improvement program will require heavy involvement on your part.

3 Deliver 5 percent annual efficiency gains. Every executive is expected to deliver efficiencies without waiting for a mandate from above. Beyond the one-time benefits of consolidation, the only way to deliver efficiency in a responsible manner is by reducing demand or the cost of delivering each "unit." Although efficiency programs require an understanding of your operational costs and underlying cost drivers, many organizations derail their efficiency programs by spending too much time on comprehensive cost analysis. Your IT managers usually know the systems that take the most time to support, the customers who are the most demanding and the services that constantly require exception processing.

 

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