OC CIO Roundtable Minutes 01-14-10

1993-2010
Southern California/Orange County CIO Breakfast Round Table
January 14, 2010meeting

Present: Robert Bobojco, Scott Campbell, Larry Godec, Jennifer Curlee, John Mooney, Hicham Semaan, Andy King, Jeff Reid, Jeff Hecht, William Zauner, Sean Brown, David Mann, Dave Phillips

We welcomed Scott Campbell, First American Trust, and Hicham Semaan, Quickstart, to the meeting. The minutes of this and other meetings are available online at the Peer Consulting Group’s website, www.peergroup.net, with links to other material, when available.

The following have volunteered to introduce topics in 2010:

1/14/10 IT alignment with the CEO/business Sean Brown/Robert Bobojco
2/11/10 e-Collaboration, with web 2.0 Jim Sutter
3/11/10 On-demand computing Jeff Reid
4/08/10 Developing an IT strategy Rich Hoffman
5/13/10 IT Governance Carmella Cassetta

We still need volunteers for the rest of the year. Check the updated spreadsheet that I will send to you in the next few days for unassigned topic suggestions.

Topic: IT alignment with the CEO/business

Sean Brown, RJTCompuquest, introduced Robert Bobojco as our guest speaker and subject matter expert. Today’s economic climate presents an opportunity for IT to evaluate its alignment with the business. The question is HOW – how do we develop a strategy which is aligned? How do we get the CEO and CIO to be aligned? How do we get a statement of direction? How do we document alignment? Alignment is a continuous process, and a perception that can be measured. If IT is not aligned, it is regarded as a cost (which can be reduced), not as a business enabler. Business strategy is about growth, customers, market, competition, operational efficiency, performance analysis and decision support. IT strategy is about platforms, budget, TCO, vendors, initiatives, projects, resources and skills. We need a translation process to support the business strategy in a structured, methodical way, to create IT strategy, objectives, initiatives, projects, solutions and capabilities. But IT strategy not only supports the business and the market and customers, it must also anticipate technology enhancements, and software and hardware vendors release strategies and capabilities.
Robert’s slides lead us through an alignment process and I recommend that you take the time to review them in detail. If you follow the process that he describes, you can end up with a proactive IT, working on tangible improvements, which are outward focused, and become regarded as a business enabler and partner. It is up to you to take the initiative. Robert's slides are at http://www.slideshare.net/occio .

I asked each attendee to tell us if they were aligned with the business and if so, what was the most important step or problem that they had to overcome to become aligned.

Larry Godec, First American, felt that his IT department is aligned with the business, and with the CEO. In the last 6 months, First American created a business strategy document. The one reference to IT was the IT infrastructure strategy and resulting cost savings from embracing the virtual server concept. Robert’s presentation was very good and it reminds Larry to go back to each Division president to make sure that IT understands their goals and objectives, and is positioned to support them.

Jennifer Curlee, Surefire, has divided up IT into groups reflecting the way the company is organized – one supporting the customer interface, another the manufacturing groups in the company, and herself and local staff supporting the financial and management group, including the CFO and the CEO. The biggest problem thwarting the alignment process is the reluctance of the divisions to talk with one another.
John Mooney, Pepperdine University, agreed that alignment is a process, not an event. Playing catch-up is not good, so sometimes you are ahead of the game, and sometimes you are not, so it’s very important to build a highly agile capability within IT. It doesn’t work well if IT takes total responsibility – a division should own the project(s) designed to support it, and be enabled by IT.

Hicham Semaan, Quickstart, said that he wears two hats in his company – CEO and CIO. As CEO he sees that he is part of the problem! The CIO’s problem is the need to communicate with the other executives, to develop relationships, to become friends, so that everybody understands that we are all on the same side of the table when it comes to solving problems.

Andy King, Exemplis Corporation, said that he has found that the more his IT department is aligned with the business, the less stressed he is. The biggest problem he has is to get face time with the CEO to make sure that he is aligned. Then he has the problem of staying aligned with each business group. He liked the presentation and the formality suggested by the process that Robert described.

Jeff Reid said that the biggest problem he found with alignment was the change of CEO. The new man always changes the business strategy, objectives and plan, which means that IT has to be nimble to get back in alignment. The process is a continuous one as companies either sell parts of the company, or acquire new companies, and expect IT to be able to handle both options with relative ease.

Jeff Hecht, Word & Brown, said that his company is a very interesting place to work at, as the owners are forever acquiring things, or changing things. They don’t have a formal strategy, but they do have underlying principles – always focus on customer service, be the best at what they do, and keep improving. As a result IT has to focus on being nimble, agile and to implement infrastructure changes in anticipation of need.

William Zauner, JAMS, hopes that his IT function is aligned with the business. They do go through an annual budgeting and plan cycle, which starts with presenting a draft to the CEO for discussion. They need to do a better job of making sure that they aligned with the other divisions and business managers. For some reason, it becomes the responsibility of CIO to make sure this happens.

Sean Brown, RJTCompuquest, thanked Robert for an excellent presentation. He has found that the best way to make sure you are aligned not only within the company but also within the industry is to reach out to other organizations to see what they are doing, and feed that back within your own organization. It takes work but is worth doing.

David Mann, Word & Brown, also thanked Robert for his presentation – he got a lot out of it. He thinks that they are aligned but it takes a lot of work, not only on the technical end of things but also the political aspect, because everyone is trying to compete within the company for relatively scarce resources. Open communications becomes the key.

Scott Campbell, First American Trust, said that he is responsible for supporting the commercial banking division in First American, and they have recently got a new President, so the issue of alignment is immediately before him. He enjoyed the presentation especially the tangible, structured nature of the approach, and the need to meet and work at a peer level with the other division managers to make sure that they are meeting their requirements.

Thank you, Robert, for a very good presentation and handout.

See you on February 11, 2010 – 7:00 a.m. in the RJTCompuquest conference room at:
940 South Coast Dr., Suite 260, Costa Mesa, CA 92626.

OC CIO Roundtable Minutes 12-10-09

1993-2009
Southern California/Orange County CIO Breakfast Round Table
December 10, 2009 meeting

Present: Chris Andreozzi, Jennifer Curlee, Michael Tasooji, William Zauner, Sean Brown, Joe Cracchiolo, Carmella Cassetta, Dave Phillips

The minutes of this and other meetings are available online at the Peer Consulting Group’s website, www.peergroup.net, with links to other material, when available.

We have volunteers to introduce the following topics, starting in January:

1/14/10 IT alignment with the CEO/business Sean Brown
2/11/10 e-Collaboration, with web 2.0 Jim Sutter
3/11/10 On-demand computing Jeff Hecht/Jeff Reid
4/08/10 Developing an IT strategy Rich Hoffman
5/13/10 IT Governance Carmella Cassetta

We still need volunteers for the following:
Web 2.0/Web 3.0
Go Green with ?
Service Catalog
CIO longevity (or lack thereof)

Topic: Unified Communications (UC)

Chris Andreozzi, Knowledge Centrix, gave us a great interactive demo of what UC is, as you will see from his slides “What UC is what U get”, or more or less! It used to be that video conference was all U got, but now we have office voice mail, phone voice mail, office e-mail, texting, instant messaging, social media communiqués, etc.. Depending on what communication and messaging systems you integrate, UC could make it better. Basically, UC makes real time systems (like instant messaging) share information with e-mail and voice mail over the same network, using VoIP to cut down on traditional phone bills, and reduces travel costs. Not all organizations are seeing the ROI – perhaps because they don’t know how to attach a $ figure to them - but lots are seeing real benefits. I recommend you take a look at Chris’ slides and read the article in the Sept. 15th CIO magazine. To start a UC project, you will need at minimum Microsoft Active Directory, at least 1 server

A number of the members had experimented with UC projects. Joe Cracchiolo used Office Communicator for internal use, and Microsoft MPLS for external usage. William Zauner looked at Cisco a few years ago, but settled on Shoretell because the licensing costs were far less. He is impressed with Microsoft products for the integrated solutions. Care must be taken with Exchange as the growth is huge – you need to set voicemail retention policy early on.

Thank you, Chris, for a great interactive presentation. Chris' slides are at: http://www.slideshare.net/occio .

See you on January 14, 2010 – 7:00 a.m. in the RJTCompuquest conference room at:
940 South Coast Dr., Suite 260, Costa Mesa, CA 92626.
It’s opposite the Carl Strauss Brewery on South Coast Dr. If you are driving N on the 405, take the SOUTH COAST DR EXIT, and turn RIGHT on South Coast Dr. If you are driving S on the 405, take the FAIRVIEW EXIT, make a LEFT over the freeway and turn RIGHT on South Coast Dr. Turn LEFT on Greenbrook, and immediately right into the parking lot of 940. Proceed to the 2nd floor to Suite 260.