Ten Survival Tactics for Your First Year on the Job

While there is considerable debate about the exact shelf-life of CIOs, one thing is certain: It isn't long. Getting a CIO job is tough enough, but holding onto it can be even tougher

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Track IT spend to EBITDA. "At the end of the day, it's all about money," says Eric Goldfarb, CIO of PRG Schultz International, a recovery audit services firm. "The goal of the CEO is to increase revenue, so you need to align IT to that goal." One method Goldfarb suggests is to track overall IT spend to earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) over the last five years, set the historical trend, and then set a goal to increase that ratio by 10 percent every year. "That would get the CEO's attention," he says.

Go for the money. Now that you've set your IT spend to EBITDA ratio targets (or some other relevant metric), you need to find opportunities to make some decent money with little investment. "Of course this varies by business, but you can always put a little money into a cash flow management or sales force automation system," says Goldfarb. "You're looking for small doable projects that will have good payback in the first year: a high return on a low investment. Every company has a few opportunities like that." During Goldfarb's first year on the job in 2002, he and his team consolidated a number of data centres and pruned the number of systems and processes by 25 percent, significantly improving the cost structure of the company.

Hit the help desk. "This is very tactical, but it has always worked for me," says Goldfarb. "Jump to the help desk; it's how the world views the IT department. Make sure those people are stellar; get them some customer services training and create a learning organization." While help desk improvements are not going to bring you the revenue of other projects, they will improve the overall standing of your department.

Hire your own finance manager. When Eric Bloom took over IT at Endo Pharmaceuticals, he saw that the company's R&D division had hired its own finance manager. At first, Bloom saw the move as superfluous, figuring that he could manage the budget himself. However, he soon saw that the back and forth of budget negotiations was eating up a major amount of time - time much better spent leading IT. "Hiring someone in IT who can communicate with the finance department will eliminate 99 percent of your budget problems," says Bloom. "Do it as early as you can during your first year and you'll turn a perceived weakness into a strength. That's a huge advantage."

Ask the business for advice (and write down what people say). That a new CIO should talk to the business is a given; what they should say is not. Bloom suggests that you ask your business peers for their thoughts on how to invest in IT. "Whether you listen or not is up to you," says Bloom. "But not asking implies that you believe they have nothing to offer and builds a wall between you and the business." When you ask their advice, remember what they say, because when you do act on their advice, "they'll be your best friend forever", says Bloom.

Martha Heller is the managing director of the executive recruiting firm IT Leadership Practice at the Z Resource Group