The customer is getting a lot of press these days -- customer service, customer intimacy and customer relationship management -- to name a few. In fact, if a company isn't using the word customer in its message it's downright behind the times.
This issue is our biggest ever, and believe me we cover a lot of ground. We look at notable topics and issues on CIOs' and IS executives' minds today:
Maybe it's that Y2K is getting way too close for comfort. Maybe it's that the GST isn't far behind. Maybe it's just that the last vestige of the holiday season's good humour has finally bid us adieu. Maybe -- if you're a Sydneysider like me -- it's the Sydney Kings. Whatever the reason, there's a weariness in the air when I speak with many CIOs.
In this era of horizontal organisations, collaborative computing and cross-functional work teams, many companies are taking a closer look at how information flows throughout the organisation, where it resides and how an employee in division B would find a piece of information even if it lived across the country in the brain of a colleague in division C.
When it comes to IS management, life isn't as simple as it once was. In recent years, as IT use has grown more widespread and entrenched, permeating almost every aspect of every enterprise, the CIO's job has become increasingly sophisticated and complex.
In today's business world the customer is king, but here's the rub for IS: The customer is everywhere.
We are not alone. No, I'm not subscribing to the theory that aliens from outer space are walking among us; I'm referring to the increasing globalisation of business.
It's possible to have too much of a (supposedly) good thing. The information age is more than living up to its name. Today, good, bad, useless, unwanted and unwarranted information is available to anyone who can click a mouse or punch numbers on a phone.
This was too good not to run, so I'm foregoing my space this month to bring you what I'll call the CIO's 10 commandments -- but they're not mine.
The Web. E-business or e-commerce (take your pick). Intranets. The word is that you have to "be there or be square" (or more precisely behind the eight-ball) -- if you're in business and want to stay there.
It's increasingly clear that in today's information-intensive world that "business as usual" will no longer be tolerated -- not by employees and especially by customers. The minute someone else figures out how to do it better, faster and more economically, let's face it -- your company's eating dust. And the responsibility to out-think a competitor is falling more and more on the CIO.
Pssst, want to fuel your business's growth? Sure you do. And there's certainly no scarcity of advice. It seems like everyone's talking or writing about how to do it. Having streamlined their organisations during the inwardly focused re-engineering era, executives are looking outward again for ways to expand.
Let's face it the CIO job is tough -- in fact, one of the toughest jobs around. It's also quite important. Not only are CIOs responsible for investing enormous amounts of their companies' money in complex and tricky products that require technical expertise and change management skills to implement, but they also have to understand their companies' business, market and competitors as well as anyone in the organisation.
The Top Ten list of quotes following the first CIO Informat conference (with apologies to David Letterman)
The IS staffing crisis isn't a local phenomenon, it's worldwide. And you don't have to look hard for proof.