InformationWeek.com

Welcome Guest. | Log In| Register | Membership Benefits

August 17, 1999

Your letters to my print column and this E-mail forum ask some serious questions about managing information technology in today's world. Since today's world is essentially absurd, my serious responses may sometimes sound a little whimsical, and my occasional whimsical ones, serious. In any case, if you want to participate, write to me at lovelace@home.com. I'll respond to those letters that I can. I reserve the right to edit for size and content. Just sign your E-mail the way you want it to appear online.

Dear Herb:
I am currently working with some cutting-edge stuff at my company, but I really want that silver bullet for myself. I am looking for a job where I can work from home on a laptop with a docking port, perhaps go into the office twice a week, get paid close to the 38% top tax limit, and travel no more than 2% to 5% of the time.

If you have any ideas let me know.

Rupert

Dear Rupert:
You have my word on it. If I find two jobs such as you describe, I will be sure to give you input on the second one.

Dear Herb:
I'm a salesman, and in the good old days before voice mail, I could often reach the CIO, senior VP, executive VP, etc., early in the morning or late in the afternoon, presumably before/after his secretary had arrived or left for the day and he was answering his own phone. However, with today's proliferation of voice mail, it is very hard, if not impossible, to reach even midlevel managers, let alone senior staff. I'd rather talk to the nastiest "gatekeeper" than a voice-mail system, because I feel with a little "sweet talking," there is at least a chance I can get put through to the person I called.

I know the idea is to say something in the first 30 seconds that will pique the prospect's interest, but on voice mail it's much harder to do. When you have a prospect on the line, you can control, at least to a certain extent, the conversation, ask leading questions, etc.--things next to impossible to do by voice mail.

I'm sure you, as a CIO, get many calls from salespeople. What does it take for you to answer or return a cold call from a salesman?

Just sign me,

On Hold in Itasca

Dear On Hold:
I used to personally return all the calls I received. I figured the person on the other end of the line was just trying to earn a living and, who knows, maybe I would be interested in what he or she was selling. Slowly, I moved away from being so conscientious in my telephone etiquette.

Maybe it was talking to people who would not take "Thanks, but I'm not interested" for an answer. Or maybe it was not having enough hours in the day to get my work done, let alone play telephone tag. Or perhaps it was realizing that, in fact, I was rarely the person who can determine whether we could use the product being pitched.

Upon reflection, it is not clear to me why it is so important for a salesperson to talk to the CIO. In most large IT organizations, the CIO does not tell his or her direct reports that a product must be evaluated, let alone purchased. Sure, if you are lucky you can score a meeting with the CIO, and then what? Most likely, you will just get handed off to the person you probably should have called in the first place.

I think it makes the most sense for you to work through the CIO's executive assistant in trying to get attention paid to your product or service. The assistant knows the right person for you to talk to in the organization. You'll be a lot more efficient in deciding whether it is an account worth pursuing and a lot less frustrated than if you spend your valuable time trying to reach someone whose priorities may be significantly different than yours.

Dear Herb:
As an IT veteran (20 years at several companies), I generally I like your column. I think that you are right more than wrong and, in a good-natured way, you raise some points to ponder. However (there's always the "but"), I think that your column "IT Dollars Need Equality"on how dollars are completely fungible, whether for IT or any other project, is both right and wrong.

Yes, the money is the same, but you are wrong on the vetting and allocation process. Financial measures are important, but they are the second criterion, not the first. The first is the strategy of the company and how the project aligns with it.

If a company has infinite resources, it doesn't need strategy, but given that most companies are constrained in some way, the best approach is to maximize the constrained variable, be it people, money, or time (or something else). By focusing only on cost and return, aside from the fact that it can lead managers into voodoo math, projections five years out always look like hockey sticks and have more in common with never-never land than reality. By going that route, it is possible to drive a company into the ground and away from where it needs to be in terms of core competencies and strategic vision. Look at typewriters, for example, which IBM sold off a long time ago, even when the Selectric was king, and I am sure good projects were being floated to extend its position.

I teach a course in MIS issues and strategy. One of the classes is devoted to resource allocation (look at the process--that will tell you where the power is in any company). My recommendation is this: strategy first with financial underpinnings--not the reverse, which would be a recipe for disaster.

Regards,

Peter

Dear Peter:
You make some good points. Financial analysis without attention to strategy is, indeed, a recipe for trouble. Strategy without financial analysis, however, is wishful thinking.

More than one company has put itself on the road to disaster by concentrating on "strategic vision" instead of tending to operational excellence. You quoted the IBM Selectric story as an example of a good strategy. If I remember correctly, it was a response to excessive overhead costs and a desire to get cash. Remember that Lou Gerstner, when he came to IBM and saw the bureaucratic mess he inherited, said the last thing he needed was a vision. Instead, he concentrated on the basics of good business: paying a lot of attention to the value he was receiving for his investments and his administrative costs.

In the same vein, I stand unrepentant and fully supportive of three rules:

1) Each IT project should clearly identify its benefits and how they will be measured.

2) The most effective metrics on which to measure an IT project are those that are simple to understand and easy to monitor.

3) The cash spent on an IT project is the same size, color, and texture as the dollars spent on anything else in the corporation, and should be treated accordingly.

Dear Herb:
I read your "IT Dollars Need Equality" column with great interest. As the only dedicated IT employee in my company (100 employees, seven offices), getting the idea across that IT investments can be managed can be a formidable task. To this end, I stapled the executive committee distribution list to your article and dropped it in the president's inbox.

The only feedback I've received came today, when one of the VPs confronted me and demanded to know what IT was. Neither he nor the president could figure it out.

Keep up the good work; maybe you could prepare a primer for the nontechnical to help them deal with the fact that most of their companies rely rather heavily on computers, and it might be in their interest to get some idea of how they're used.

John C.

Dear John:
Thanks for sharing your story. I would have loved to see the expression on your face when you heard the VP's comments.

One of the projects on which I am working is a guide for nontechnical executives to the wonderful world of computers. It actually might be useful for them to have some idea as to the facets of this strange profession upon which their businesses depend so heavily and which also just happens to cost them a bunch of money.

Dear Herb:
Do you think a successful sales and marketing person who has risen through the ranks over the past 17 years in hardware and software vendors and an IT user organization could take on the role of a CIO?

Vincent W.

Dear Vincent:
You've raised an excellent question. I think it would make a great topic of debate at an InformationWeek conference.

Depending somewhat on the industry and the company culture, in my opinion, the answer is yes.

A CIO has to function primarily as the translator of business opportunities into technology implementation plans and the communicator of technology capabilities for development into business strategies. Anyone who can do both effectively--and that means having the necessary knowledge and creativity--will be able to do the job.

Dear Herb:
I am an intranet developer at a Fortune 15 organization and find it very frustrating and time-consuming to have to battle the multiple-browser problem each day. Do you agree that in a semi-controlled environment, such as an intranet, an organization should standardize on one browser to achieve maximum productivity and efficiency?

Andy H.

Dear Andy:
It is certainly easier for intranet developers if they know that there is only one brand and release number of a browser out there in their user community. Then they'll have no concerns about different types of audio players and page formats, etc. However, changing every browser in a large company at once may be difficult to justify since, for the most part, the pain of the developers may not be foremost in the minds of the budget-crunchers.

If a company has a large installed base of several browsers/versions, then it may make sense (in other words, more likely to be accepted) for there to be a policy in which a standard browser is picked and the rule made that any changes to a desktop environment (new operating system version or office suite) require that the standard browser be installed.

Herbert W. Lovelace is CIO at a multibillion-dollar international company. Herb practices his day job under an alias and has changed the names of colleagues to protect the guilty.