“Too often I see other CIO’s fall into the buzzword bayou or geek speak ghetto…our presentations should focus on the business issues and be easily understood!”

SCOTT STRICKLAND
Global CIO
D&M Holdings

Scott Strickland, CIO, D&M Holdings, has 20 years of information systems and is responsible for all Information Services at this dynamic company. He and his team have transitioned to a cloud infrastructure, implemented a common website platform across 72 countries, established consistent financial reporting, and transitioned to a global supply chain planning solution.

Challenges in technology to meet enterprise needs in 2013 and expectations

Our biggest challenge is transforming the business while we run the business. We have two transformational programs running in 2013 but our service level for customers in those regions and others can’t be impacted while we execute these critical initiatives. My wish list for 2013 includes:

a) Vendors who can truly partner with us. This means they function as part of the team, and are focused on delivering what our business partners need.

b) Stability from my existing install base. Not only have we experienced a significant natural disaster each year like Japan earthquake in 2011, Hurricane Sandy in 2012, that impacted operations, but we have experienced non-disaster related outages from our Tier 1 partners.

c) The maturation of the social media space. As enterprise technologies here evolve there will be some clear winners and losers, with actual business cases and results associated with each.

The areas in business environment where solutions do not yet exist or not up to the mark, and which if existed, would've made job easier

Traditional software vendors like Microsoft, Oracle, and SAP do not have cloud solutions that are as robust as newer software vendors. In many cases the traditional vendors have compensated for this by purchasing smaller cloud based software companies but haven’t done a good job integrating them yet. I’d like to see our traditional vendors either develop a truly best in class cloud solution or integrate the new-co’s solutions more quickly. A solution offering voice, video, IM, remote access, and remote collaboration that are cloud based would be great!

Technology Trends Impacting Enterprise Business Environment

Developing and delivering an enterprise social media platform is currently top of mind. A platform that works for Marketing to listen and engage their consumer on all web and traditional channels, for Sales to generate and track leads from multiple channels and close business, and for internal knowledge workers to post and collaborate is something I’ve been closely following.

My roles and responsibilities as a CIO

My original role has evolved from delivering technology needs as defined by the business to collaborate with the business to introduce technology to meet needs they can’t articulate. The original CIO role of delivery specialist and cost manager is now expected – differentiation requires understanding the business needs without being told and communicating the “art of the possible” to them. In addition, I’ve found my team is one of the few truly global functions in the organization and this allows us to drive business collaboration across regions where it may not naturally occur.

Lessons learned as a CIO

In Japan they have a term “genchi genbutsu” which means “go look, go see.” As part of the concept of kaizen continuous improvement, it refers to the concept of going to the factory floor and seeing the problem for yourself. CIO’s need to be visible and engage with their businesses, they should “go look, go see” when there is an issue and talk to the business owners directly. I also encourage my fellow CIOs, especially those with global roles to over-communicate. Too often I see other CIO’s fall into the buzzword bayou or geek speak ghetto…our presentations should focus on the business issues and be easily understood.