IBM in it's continued love for investing a lot in research and development added another feather in their hat last September 1, 2011 at the Press Briefing held at the Mandaluyong Ballroom, Shangrila Makati. I was excited since this was in the line of the programs I was running for my day job and true enough I had some great inputs from experts in the industry who had experience from the ASEAN, Philippines and US perspective. This study was conducted over a four month period from October 2010 to January 2011. I learned a couple of things specifically on the roles of CIO's (Chief Information Officers) and how it is essential in the structure of a corporation.
Mr. Giuseppe Bruni, ASEAN Business Sales & Delivery Executive, IBM Strategy & Transformation, IBM Global Business Services talked about the importance of CIO's as resulted from the 2011 CIO Study. The ASEAN perspective was somewhat different from what the Global perspective is but there are quite a number of similarities. "With technology becoming both an enabler of competitive advantage and embedded in every facet of the enterprise, the role of the CIO has never been more essential." says Mr. Bruni.
CIO's play an important part in running companies. It shows on the technology and innovation that they bring to the table. CIO's must think business first just like the CEO's. In their centennial year IBM is bringing to the table a research that includes the best CIO's in the US and elsewhere in the world. They wanted to show the importance it plays in the structure and survival of the complex organization you are in. They initially gave importance to the CIO position in the 50's and 60's. Almost all these critical positions and its studies were started by IBM at that time. Today they take Business analytics and other significant studies to another level. They started interviewing real deal CIO's from different companies and started asking about three key takeaways.
- How the CIO's role become fundamental
- How CEO's and CIO's way of thinking should be very closely aligned
- How to be successful and how CIO's need to identify and communicate their mandate weather it would be to have leverage, expand, innovate, pioneer it or transform.
It was a pleasure to also meet Mr. Rodney Regalado, Country Executive for Global Technology Services, IBM Philippines gave a small talk about how this study reflects in the Philippine Market. He also gave a funny anecdote about so called government experts that were not quite experts at all. I beckon more studies on the regional perspective should be done so it would reflect the real comparison between local conditions and those which has been done by first world countries. We'd be able to see where they are succeeding and we are failing. I'd like to make that a point of comparison so to speak.
They sampled around 3018 CIO's around the world to get this data with the mandate that not one is better than the other. Rodney Regalado of the C-Suite Study Series campaign mentioned some basic facts on what this data actually means for the local Philippine market. The services business in the Philippines is where IBM eventually wants to play. They want to make and support infrastructure, give importance to basics and immerse people in situations that can add value on current businesses. It was really enlightening for people like me in the Programs Management field.
Mr. Cort Isernhagen, Vice President, IDC giving us a few ideas what to ask in the press briefing. He asked a couple of hypothetical questions about the industry's insights and the impact of this study to various existing public and private corporations.
IDC a third party firm who works in analysis and market research said that they make stern conclusions on studies about how corporations would be able to use these fields to create products quickly and what similarities the CEO and CIO should have in order to achieve it. It's one of the ways that a corporation would be able to add value to "current services" and know the industry per ce so they in return can support more and over deliver. They advised me to try and show more value even if the client corporation doesn't need it even on a very limited project such as IT infrastructure projects.
Giuseppe Bruni, ASEAN Business Sales & Delivery Executive, IBM Strategy & Transformation, IBM Global Business Services; James Velasquez, President and Country General Manager, Rodney Regalado, Country Executive for Global Technology Services, both from IBM Philippines, and Cort Isernhagen, Vice President, IDC
They predicted that the Philippines is more focused on the basics right now but will veer away in the next few years specially in the banking and mobile communication industries. CIO's and CEO's should be aligned in this integral transition. IBM realizes that business intelligence and analytics will continue to stay as top priorities for businesses and industries. CIO's must stay pro active and IT must be presented as a "cool" thing again. This is still part of IBM's goal of a Smarter Planet!
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