Neochange | Driving Effective User Adoption

Over the past quarter, I have had the opportunity to talk to many software executives at various events. These software executives understand that customer success with their software reflects directly on their brand. In fact, many would argue that brand equity is just as critical as product to compete in global markets. Some would say more.

Who on the other side of the fence feels the same way? What I mean is who is most affected by the degree to which enterprise software is utilized on the buyer side of the equation? Who has the most to gain or lose in terms of reputation from whether a company achieves effective usage with their enterprise software?

This should be a difficult question to answer, since user adoption is complex and requires joint-ownership of change leadership. What we find as we work with global companies is the IT department is bearing most of the responsibility for the success or failure of enterprise software. Even with software-as-a-service!

This newsletter is focused on the role of the CIO in the IT Adoption discipline. Specifically we discuss how a lack of effective usage impacts CIO credibility. We have a new opinion paper for you and a great interview with Tom Halbouty, CIO at Pioneer Natural Resources. Let us know what you think?

Point of View - Interview with Tom Halbouty, CIO of Pioneer Natural Resources

We had a chance to speak with Tom Halbouty, CIO of Pioneer Natural Resources, an independent oil and gas company. He shared his thoughts on IT Adoption ownership with us. Here's what he had to say:

Do you believe that the CIO role is at risk of becoming "shelf-ware"?

No. Somebody in every business needs to be accountable for aggregating technology to ensure that it works seamlessly. IT environments are increasingly complex with the range of monolith ERPs, best-of-breed systems and so on. Someone needs to manage web services, ensure that all these systems flow together. The role may get called something different, but it will always exist.

What role should the CIO play in improving the discipline of IT Adoption in their company.

Should play a huge role. The most important thing to remember about IT adoption, is that you build a high degree of credibility delivering the little things and the big things. An example of a little thing is the printers not working. The big things are where most of the CIO's spend their time, things like the integrity of application delivery. Another important area to note is just how important the credibility of your people is to IT adoption. Everybody who runs one of my groups has high credibility with their business partner. Because they are respected they can get the requirements needed to build useful IT. To get this credibility within IT it is extremely important to hire business savvy individuals that understand the vocabulary of the business and have a deeper sense of connection with their customers.

You mention that credibility is key to enabling IT Adoption, can you elaborate on CIO credibility?

Really depends on whether the CIO is brand new to the company, but either way CIO success is all about credibility and communication. A new CIO should get out and listen to their internal and external customers and determine whether the IT organization has enough business intuition. What the CIO needs to do is ensure that the right talent is in their organization to project credibility and communicate effectively. If the right talent is not in the IT organization then the CIO needs to find the courage to make difficult changes. One important attribute to look for in your staff is the servant leader mindset. People that are willing to serve others, drive issues to closure, people who are concerned with making the customer successful. The CIO can become the CEO if he/she focus less on competing with his/her business peers and focuses more on coaching them to success.

What would be the impact of more CIOs becoming CEO?

Companies often fail because the CEO does not know the limits of their organization's capabilities. To some degree they are removed from understanding how adaptable the company's processes and people really are. If we assume that we had a business savvy CIO versus a technically savvy CIO. The CIO becoming CEO would probably bring a more realistic understanding of the companies limits and would therefore tend not to over commit the company to new business acquisitions etc. or over promise to wall street.

Recently I came across an article that claimed very few CIOs progress to the ranks of senior management. What struck me the about the article was the author felt very little explanation was required to support his assertion.

Quite a bold statement I supposed, considering how critical IT is to the rhythm of business. But after some brief digging into studies that track CIO success the author's claim didn't seem so outlandish.

To what degree is this lack of CIO success connected to two other statistics that are very familiar to us at Neochange?

It is hard to imagine that these two sets of statistics are not related. Whether it is fair or not that CIOs are blamed for a lack of benefits realization, it is obvious that this situation has a significant impact on their credibility.

This paper discusses how CIOs can get trapped in a vicious cycle of exclusion once their value is questioned. Further we discuss how CIOs can ensure they are at the forefront of business strategy by leading the IT Adoption discipline within their company.
Read More

Industry Statistics

The following insights / statistics were obtained from industry publications focused on IT investments and value realization.

According to a survey by Cranfield School of Management over half the 1,000 business and IT managers surveyed were dissatisfied by the value delivered by IT. Even more tellingly, 31% didn't have a clue about IT's influence either way - Computer Weekly

Only 53 percent of global companies have developed a strategic plan to deliver IT value - The Butler Group

Only one third of companies measure success in terms of alignment with business objectives and only a quarter carry out an ROI calculation based on business value delivered - Computer Associates

Webinar: The Role of Enterprise Software in executing Enterprise Transformation
William Malek, CEO of Strategy2Reality, former Director of Stanford's Advanced Project Management Program and co-author of "Executing Your Strategy" joins with Neochange to discuss the critical role Enterprise Software plays in the successful execution of strategy change.

PlanView Annual User Group Conference - Austin, TX, November 5th - 7th, 2007
Neochange will moderate an Effective User Adoption discussion with Planview customers Qwest and Wellpoint.
More

Software Business 2007 - Santa Clara, CA,�October 2nd - 3rd, 2007
The annual conference focused on current strategic business, financial and technology issues and growth opportunities facing top executives of software companies. Neochange discussed the three critical investment decisions facing software companies that wish to compete using effective usage.
More