How the 2012 CIO 100 winners fight risk with innovation
- 27 July, 2012 13:20
- Comments
What's the worst that can happen? Ever ask yourself that question?
Most of us have, at one time or another, taken a quick mental tour through the scariest scenarios we can imagine. We wonder what we would do, how we would cope. If we happen to be CIOs, we start working on a plan to head off that worst-case scenario before it unfolds.
That ability to envision risk and solve problems before they crop up was something we noticed again and again in our CIO 100 Award winners this year. "Squashing looming business risks stands out as a key theme among the winners," Senior Editor Kim S. Nash writes in our cover story. "Many of this year's winning projects demonstrate how CIOs lead the way in changing how colleagues work, thereby mitigating profound risks to the company."
In some cases, IT made a life-and-death difference on oil rigs or fire trucks or in hospital emergency rooms. In others, we saw failing business models revived, corporate reputations saved, customer loyalty restored or competitive threats vanquished.
At Boeing, for example, CIO Kim Hammonds used IT to unclog a severe order backlog and boost production by 40 percent over the next three years. It was the largest IT project in company history, taking more than 500,000 man-hours and rolling out 35 new applications across global manufacturing, engineering, quality management and supply chain operations.
Yet you don't need to be the largest aerospace company in the world to see dramatic business results from innovative IT. At Christiana Care Health System, CIO Randy Gaboriault put interactive visualization software to work in an emergency department bogged down by pen-and-paper workflow processes. "Even if it's seconds of friction out of the process," he notes, "it speeds up the time between knowledge and action."
One expert quoted in our story makes the point that CIOs are in the best position to identify serious business risks because you see your companies as a collection of processes. That unique helicopter view gives you a greater responsibility to drive change, which is where innovation always starts.
Throughout this issue, which marks the 25th anniversary of our CIO 100 Awards, you'll find many stories about innovative projects and their IT champions. How I wish we could write about each one. Instead, I invite you to check out the full array of CIO 100 honorees in our sortable database.
Read more about innovation in CIO's Innovation Drilldown.
Recommended
Join the CIO Australia group on LinkedIn. The group is open to CIOs, IT Directors, COOs, CTOs and senior IT managers.
- Bookmark this page
- Share this article
- Got more on this story? Email CIO
- Follow CIO on twitter
- Defending Against Increasingly Sophisticated Cyber Attacks
- Key Factors in Modernising Backup and Recovery
- Webroot® SecureAnywhere™ Business - Endpoint Protection Overview
- Why Encrypt? - Securing email without compromising communications
- IDC Technology Spotlight: Easing the Transition to a Virtual End Point Infrastructure
-
Why change management doesn’t work
-
Larry Page wants to see your medical records
-
Dual-Persona Smartphones Not a BYOD Panacea
-
After two-year hiatus, EFF accepts bitcoin donations again
-
CIOs struggle to deliver timely mobile business apps: survey
-
Advanced Malware Exposed
This handbook shines a light on the dark corners of advanced malware, both to educate as well as to spark renewed efforts against these stealthy and persistent threats. By understanding the tools being used by criminals, we can better defend our nations, our critical infrastructures and our citizens. This ebook will provide readers with a new understanding of the rapidly developing cyber threat landscape and practical insights into how they can protect their data and computing infrastructures. Download now. -
World Quality Report - The State of Quality 2012
The most comprehensive assessment of the current state of enterprise application quality and testing practices available from around the world. With our 1550 respondents, Capgemini, HP & Sogeti bring you the full report. Download today. -
Saving Time and Money with Savvy Use of Flash in Automated Storage Tiering
In a sluggish economy, getting the best ROI on every IT dollar spent is the top priority for almost every business. Storage budgets in most IT environments continue to remain flat or are capped as a percentage of the overall IT spend, while data storage requirements continue to grow at an unsustainable pace. Download now to learn about the benefits of using flash in automated storage tiering.
Get exclusive access to Invitation only events CIO, reports & analysis. 
