Balancing In-House And Hosted SaaS Solutions

Stuart Scott, CIO, Tempur-Pedic

Challenges in technology to meet enterprise needs
In a word…"Apps". With the rapid growth of apps for smartphones and tablets along with the push for BYOD, end users have a high expectation on the enterprise IT organization to deliver always accessible, automated authentication, personalized and simple to use systems delivered through mobile applications. Securely delivering on that expectation requires IT to rethink and retool. We need solutions from all our technology providers to facilitate this transformation.

The areas in business environment where solutions do not exist
I sleep on a Tempur-Pedic mattress so I sleep very well! In a mid-size business we are balancing a mix of in-house and hosted Seas solutions. Hosted solutions are excellent ways to deliver best-of-breed solutions that do not make business sense to manage in-house. But this creates the challenge of delivering an integrated workflow and data set to the end users.

Technology Trends Impacting Enterprise Business Environment
Mobility, BYOD and Cloud. Consistent with my prior answers, these three trends are escalating user expectations and making IT’s drive to deliver to those expectations very difficult. In the world of IT, new, exciting and challenging are ever present and why I love the profession that I have chosen?

My roles and responsibilities as a CIO

Tempur-Pedic is going through a systematic upgrade and global transformation of our information technology. To help make that global transformation successful, my role has expanded to include business process and master data management. I have a team of dedicated business process owners that work with our businesses around the world to design and implement global, regional and local business processes. In partnership with senior executives, I sponsor several master data management forums where standards are set for Financials, People, Products, Vendors and Customers.

Lessons I learnt as a CIO that can help you
There have been enough books written on this topic to fill a library. So coming up with something truly unique is difficult. In my experience some keys to success for a CIO are
(1) Measuring the success of your organization on business results, not indirect or internal metrics;
(2) Create a strong relationship with the business at all levels as an equal partner, not as just a support function; and
(3) Lead through empowerment and coaching of your people.

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