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Editor's Notes

1. What are the key business trends and CIO priorities for 2009? Business, societal, government trends analysis: CIOs are being driven by pressures to keep costs down, innovate faster and manage business risk. The must-do’s (business continuity, data security, privacy and keeping pace with the business) have taken precedence over the “want-to-do’s” (satisfying stakeholders, CRM, knowledge management, and e-enablement). For the third year in a row cost pressures are the number one concern. Systems now need added security, redundancy and faster development, But these break the budget. Business executives now realize just how dependent they are on IT, so business risk management has moved to No. 4. The impact of September 11: be more cost effective, yet reduce business risk. The two are often counter to each other. CIOs may need to add more redundancy to address business risks, which increases their costs. The goal of creating a single view of customers dropped significantly due in part to the disappointing results early adopters have had implementing CRM. CIOs are rethinking how to squeeze promised benefits out of their sunk costs. Surprisingly, the call for greater transparency does not seem to be having an effect. Either the impact is coming or IS already does such a good job of providing transparency (through ERP) that the problem has been essentially licked. Concern about personal data privacy appears in the top-10 for the first time. This high rating may be due to the penalties imposed by recent legislation, specifically the Health Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) and the Gramm-Leach-Bliley in the U.S. and the European Privacy Directive in the EU. CIOs are in their third year of relentless cost pressure while having to deliver faster innovation and better business risk management.
2. What are the key business trends and CIO priorities for 2009? CIOs are focused on providing executive leadership, demonstrating value and improving governance. Leadership shouldn’t be confused with “strategizing” which has become just part of the job. Surprisingly, reducing total IT costs is fourth priority, higher than it's been in the last two years, but still significantly lower than the priority of business cost reduction. Effective CIOs have been successful in teaching their business colleagues that investing in IS can bring much bigger savings on the business side. Another difference this year is in the approach of working with business peers. In the past, alignment with the business was done through committees. Now CIOs are taking a portfolio approach to governing IS. This means understanding the kind of leadership the business needs to properly guide use of IT. And who should be involved at all levels and in all aspects – the CIO – as in January Premier IT Governance report. It appears that this year has been one of hunkering down and getting one’s organizational structures in place – prioritizing projects to get greatest value, house guidance where it makes the most business sense, put an architecture in place and to protect the company from the new terrorist threats. Internet-based cyber-crime is also in this mix, even though it is not spelled out specifically. Clearly, although not a short-term play, architecture is seen as an infrastructure investment that pays dividends longer term. On the other hand, strategizing and leading the IS team have both slipped down the rankings. An explanation for both is that strategizing and leading one’s own organization are now just part of the CIO’s job. CIO management priorities are executive leadership, demonstrating value, and improving governance.
3. What are the key business trends and CIO priorities for 2009? Technology analysis: Systems now have to be secure from internal and external threats, integrated and provide greater data availability. There is a bifurcated message. One is response to the external environment (leading to more security and privacy), the other is to making the internal environment more efficient and data more accessible (portals, messaging, integration). Forward-looking CIOs are using the slow economy to implement e-enablement. Web services, network management and storage management are also addressing integration and data availability issues. Security enhancement tools have the highest technology priority, well aligned with the data security concerns of the business. Applications integration, middleware and messaging have climbed steadily to 2nd priority, as cost-effective means to leverage legacy systems to be more agile and support, or at least not constrain, business innovation. Enterprise portal deployment is another cost-effective approach to making data in various systems more easily available to employees, business partners, and customers. Storage management deployment has been climbing as a priority as more enterprises see the opportunity of reducing costs and making data available internally. CIO technology priorities are secure, integrated technology supporting greater data availability.
4. CIO Management Priorities Analysis: CIOs are focused on providing executive leadership, demonstrating value, and improving governance. The top three are all outward from the IS organization, not inward, and executive relationships are critical. Emphasizes the maturation, business criticality and complexity of the CIO’s role. In some ways, it's a good time to be a good CIO and there is a great need for CIO leadership, although leadership isn’t to be confused with ‘strategizing’ which has become just part of the job. Surprisingly, reducing total IT costs is fourth priority, higher than it's been in the last two years, but still significantly lower than the priority of business cost reduction. Effective CIOs have been successful in educating their business colleagues that investing in IS can bring much bigger savings on the business side. Another difference this year is in the approach of working with business peers. In the past the aligning with the business was done through committees, but it was not on a formal portfolio basis. Now that the governance moniker is indeed taking hold, which means that CIOs are taking a portfolio approach to governing IS, which means understanding the kind of leadership the business needs to properly guide use of IT, and who should be involved at all levels and in all aspects – as in January Premier IT Governance report It appears that this year has been one of hunkering down and getting one’s organizational structures in place – to prioritize projects to get greatest value, house guidance where it makes the most business sense, put an architecture in place to see the forest from the trees, and to protect the company from the new terrorist threats by figuring out how to deal with the more security-conscious world. Internet-based cyber-crime is also in this mix, even though it is not spelled out specifically.
5. There are many benefits companies today can receive from the deployment of RFID solutions. Inventory Levers Impacted Inventory days on hand Safety stock Transit inventory including yard inventory Recurring inventory carrying costs Promotion management Variables Benefits Visibility of real time information Volatility in supply chain Lead time reduction Supply chain throughput (increased cross dock). Shrink Levers Impacted Error related shrink Internal/external theft Variables Benefits Tracking and tracing high value items Real time information flow Reduced human error Labour Levers Impacted Labour productivity Supply chain throughput Variables Benefits Time to complete manual processes (receive, sort, put-away, pick, ship) Validation and audit processes Assets Levers Impacted Utilization of assets Depreciation of charge on distribution owned Total distribution of asset base Detention penalties on 3rd party assets Brand management Variables Benefits Increased throughput Tracking and tracing assets Fewer assets required – lower asset base and depreciation charge Transportation Levers Impacted Freight costs Reverse logistics costs Variables Benefits Outbound load density through better information, planning and improved throughput (cross dock).