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  • Managing relationships with vendors - Part 2

    According to Dr Tim O’Neill, co-founder and director of business intelligence specialists Avolution, probably the biggest mistake an organisation can make when dealing with suppliers is to outsource the systems architecture. “This is why there’s so many untold billions of dollars-worth of failed IT projects out there,” he says. “Outsourcing the architecture function is fraught with danger.” In order for projects to be successful organisations need to maintain a healthy degree of cynicism and effectively force vendors to earn trust.

    Written by David Binning • 05 May 11 13:07

  • Managing relationships with vendors

    The IT choices a company makes can mean the difference between business success and failure. Whether it’s access to information, communications between staff, partners and customers, HR, inventory management, operation and monitoring of equipment and other and assets as well as business security, IT has managed to make itself indispensible at virtually every organisational level. Yet it would seem that for many organisations, this awareness often fails to translate into properly thought out and well-executed strategies for managing the vendors that supply the technology.

    Written by David Binning • 04 May 11 16:03

  • NAB private Cloud builds new paradigm: Part 3

    The development of a greenfield private Cloud is facilitating NAB’s IT revolution, but compared with more traditional banking platforms the new technologies is not without challenges.

    Written by Rodney Gedda • 15 April 11 17:33
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    The Power of IT Drives Businesses Forward

    One of the most overused terms I've heard in the past few years as CEO of an IT consulting and staffing firm has to be the word "alignment." Think about it. How many times have you heard phrases like, "IT must learn to align with the business" or that "smart CIOs know that in order to succeed, IT must align with the business"?

    Written by Marilyn Weinstein • 20 Jan. 11 07:19

  • SOA Grows Up -- and Out

    Not too long ago, IT organizations turned to service-oriented architecture primarily as a way to integrate enterprise applications. But now large companies are using SOA to create components that can be combined and reused as services across multiple applications.

    Written by John S. Webster • 09 March 10 06:04

  • How to Improve Your IT Planning in 2010

    Since we're nearing the end of the 2010 planning cycle, it's as good a time as any to review how we plan projects and whether our processes are as effective as they could be. IT planning never truly ends and tends to eat up more time than we think. As a result, CIOs and their teams have an opportunity to lead the charge to get leaner in planning.

    Written by Chris Curran • 08 Dec. 09 07:23

  • CIO Summit 2009 Roundtable: The global financial crisis and IT transformation projects

    As part of our coverage of the CIO Summit 2009, we bring you the whole CIO panel discussion. Topics include the effect the Global Financial Crisis (GFC) is having on CIOs, the role of trust in an organisation and collaboration with the business.

    Written by CIO Staff • 11 Aug. 09 05:27

  • What You Should Do About Tainted Goods from China and Other Global Supply Chain Risks

    The US government warnings about tainted imports from China are ominous and ongoing. In July 2007 poisonous chemicals were found in toothpaste. This was just a month after imports of farm-raised Chinese seafood and lead paint in Thomas the Tank Engine toy trains were detained. And May had seen contaminated pet foods sicken and kill thousand of US cats and dogs. Now its humans, when earlier this month every parents' nightmare became a reality: Melamine contaminated infant formula poisoned more than 50,000 Chinese infants and resulted in at least four deaths.

    Written by Katherine Walsh • 25 Sept. 08 09:50

  • Being an Effective CIO Means Focusing on Business Just as Much as Technology

    When I started in IT at insurance company MetLife in 1970, my background was as far away from insurance as you could possibly imagine. I was an engineer, and I had studied towards a doctorate in solid-state physics.

    Written by Bruce J Goodman • 21 April 08 08:29

  • Mergers and acquisitions: What do CIOs need to know?

    According to the Boston Consulting Group, between 1992 and 2006 around 58.3 per cent of all mergers and acquisitions (M&As) not only failed to create shareholder value but actually destroyed it, resulting in a net loss of 1.2 per cent across all transactions.

    Written by Janice McGinn • 14 March 08 15:00

  • Process Trip

    When Rich Phillips became COO OF Maritz Travel about two and-a-half years ago, he sat down and took a hard look at the big industry picture

    Written by Laurianne McLaughlin • 04 Feb. 08 13:07

  • The Extreme CIO

    To call Clyde Thomas a high performer would be an understatement. As CIO and executive vice president of global operations and technology for eFunds, a $US600 million financial services company, Thomas logs nearly 70 hours a week on the job. He oversees five data centres in the US and two abroad, managing 450 people who serve 6000 users overall. He is responsible for the company's software engineering, call and data centres, and security. He is also building new enterprise projects in China and Eastern Europe

    Written by Matt Villano • 03 Sept. 07 12:04

  • Divide and Conquer

    IT is splitting up. It's not petty squabbling that's causing the break-up. No, this is a sign of maturity. CIOs in larger organizations are dividing their staffs into two major groups: one that negotiates with the business on IT strategy and IT project choices and manages the delivery of those projects (among other management consulting-type duties), and a second group that manages the infrastructure and delivers new applications (among other traditional tactical IT duties)

    Written by Christopher Koch • 06 Aug. 07 13:22

  • Nine Things CIOs Wished You Knew About Their Jobs

    CIOs get bombarded with requests; everything from vendor cold calls to staff needing project approval to board members digging for cost-cutting ideas. And despite the deluge, IT execs must learn to keep their staff, executives and customers happy. Keeping smiles on all those groups requires that good CIOs know every role in the business, but how many people really know the role of the CIO?

    Written by Michelle Finch • 18 July 07 10:57

  • Coles Execs on the Record

    The Coles takeover triggered an unprecedented public discussion of the strengths and weaknesses of its IT capabilities

    Written by Beverley Head • 04 July 07 15:01

  • CEO Fletcher and CIO Mahler: Two Takes on Coles IT

    CIO magazine's Beverly Head asked Coles CEO John Fletcher and CIO Peter Mahler about the company's IT and the controversy that arose during the takeover. Here are their answers:

    Written by Beverley Head • 04 July 07 13:50

  • Coles CEO Defends CIO and IT Team

    In June, Coles Chief Executive John Fletcher went to bat for his CIO and the company's IT team via a letter to the editor after a comment piece appeared in The Australian Financial Review, which mooted that due diligence briefings had revealed "allegations of IT cost overruns and implementation delays which are said to be threatening the transformation of Coles' supply chain . . ." In a timely interview, Fletcher talks with CIO magazine's Beverley Head about the company's IT and his take on the controversy that arose during the takeover.

    Written by Beverley Head • 04 July 07 14:00

  • Coles CIO: The Greatest Challenges Aren't Technical

    The relationship is much more sophisticated these days, throughout the corporate world. In Coles, technology requirements are defined by the business and IT working together, based on the business's strategic objectives.

    Written by Beverley Head • 04 July 07 14:38

  • The Enterprise Gets Googled

    Can you imagine an IT environment without applications to roll out? You're going to have to if Google's plan to conquer the enterprise works

    Written by Ben Worthen • 08 June 07 11:00

  • Nail Down BPM Success

    The problem: You need to simplify people-intensive business processes such as managing approval for loans or ensuring proper billing for insurance claims. The answer? Most commonly, companies look for an automation solution, based on workflow management, document management or business process management (BPM) tools

    Written by Galen Gruman • 05 June 07 11:49
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