InformationWeek
Defining The Business Value Of Technology
November 17, 1997
Faster Than Ever
ill this constantly accelerating pace of change go on forever? The shor
t answer is yes; the longer answer is contained in this profile of CIOs (or their immediate subordinates) at nine of America's largest and most successful corporations. Even across a wide swath of industries, several common strategies for dealing with change emerged: taking calculated risks, leveraging vendor expertise, simplifying, and hiring people comfortable with change.
Above all, these executives emphasize speed-even at the expense of perfection. "If you don't have your major Internet initiatives already running," says Peter Solvik, CIO at Cisco Systems, "you're already way behind."
It's a sobering thought. But the good news is that the technology, when identified and managed properly, can soften the impact of the transformations it has wrought. Intranets, for example, bring big change to the business, but they're easier to use and faster to deploy than client-server or mainframe applications.
The IS executives profiled are: Mark Gransee of Eddie Bauer, Mike Radcliff of Owens Corning, Denis O'Le ary of Chase Manhattan Bank, Sue Unger of Chrysler Corp., Mark Mastrianni of General Electric; Ken Brame of Service Merchandise, John Andrews of CSX Technology, Peter Solvik of Cisco Systems, and Cynthia Spangler of Federal Express.
While the IS executives profiled here work in a wide variety of industries, they all share a common passion for mastering this new, relentless pace of change-and for turning it to their advantage.
Story's authors: Clinton Wilder and Jeff Angus
Read it on the Web at: techweb.cmp.com/iw/640/40iupoc.htm
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