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CIO Values: Stephen Bozzo, CIO, I-800-Flowers.com
Focus almost all of your energy on aligning with the businesses you support.
3 Min Read
Career Track
Stephen BozzoCIO1-800-Flowers.com |
How long at current company: Six months
Career accomplishment you're most proud of: Building a solid IT team at 1-800-Flowers.com. It may sound simple, but this has allowed some very strong performers to blossom in unique and creative ways, thereby enabling us to strengthen our most important mission: aligning IT with the business.
Most important career influencer: It's impossible to pick only one. Geryl Darington, CIO of Bear Stearns; Steve Sheinheit, CIO of MetLife; and Chris McCann, president of 1-800-Flowers.com, have all been tremendous influences on my career.
Decision you wish you could do over again: I enjoy reading management books and try to adopt them as best I can. One book recommended an aggressive management style that neither takes into consideration the feelings of the employees nor gives them the respect they deserve. Adopting these practices was a mistake, though I quickly abandoned them and learned from them as a result.
On The Job
Size of IT team: 125
Three top initiatives for current year:
Migrating to an agile architecture using SOA best practices, letting us bring product to market quicker, provide state-of-the-art products, and improve the quality of IT delivery.
Revamping the 1-800-Flowers Web site; adding a new look and feel will enhance the customer experience and make checkout easier and quicker.
Upgrading new warehouse management systems for two of our key businesses, enabling us to handle increased volume and provide best-in-class IT services in our warehouses.
How I measure IT effectiveness: I generate a set of metrics, including project statistics, for senior management to review on a biweekly basis.
Vision
Goals for the coming year: To enable our businesses in all we do, in a manner that delights both our internal and external customers.
The next big thing for my industry will be ... agile architecture using SOA technologies, more extensive use of Web 2.0 technologies, and ironclad business alignment.
Advice for future CIOs: Focus almost all of your energy on aligning with the businesses you support.
Personal
Colleges/degrees: Pace University (BA), Polytechnic University (MS), Carnegie Mellon (Program for Executives)
Leisure activity: Ballroom dancing, golf
Last vacation: Cruise
Best book read recently: Good To Great, by Jim Collins
If I weren't a CIO I would be ... an entrepreneur.
About the Author
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