by Mark P. McDonald | May 31, 2009 | Submit a Comment
The start of June means many things. It is the start of the summer season in the northern hemisphere and the end of the fiscal year in the southern hemisphere. It is also the beginning-of-the-end in terms of IT plans and progress for 2009. June is the last month of the second quarter fiscal [...]
Category: 2010 CIO Economy Strategy Tools Tags: 2010 planning, Business Leadership, CFO, CIO, IT Leadership, Tools
by Mark P. McDonald | May 28, 2009 | 2 Comments
Jim Collins has already written some of the seminal works on business strategy and management with Built to Last and Good to Great. While those books are great, How the Might Fall a short eclipses them in my opinion. Given the Global Financial/Economic Crisis its easy to see this book as coming at an opportune [...]
Category: Book Review Economy Leadership Tags: Book Review, Economic conditions
by Mark P. McDonald | May 27, 2009 | 3 Comments
IT is necessary but not sufficient for enterprise success. The level of mutual understanding and respect required for success demands that the business understands the dynamics of IT. That was the subject of several blog entries on the 12 things every business leader should know about IT. It is more important that IT understand the [...]
Category: 12 things business should know about IT CIO Leadership Tags: 12 things, CIO Leadership, IT Leadership
by Mark P. McDonald | May 25, 2009 | 3 Comments
I have just finished five weeks on the road in Asia Pacific, Australia and Western Europe. In the five weeks I spend one night in the U.S. to change my suitcase and each at Chipotle. My trip included both working with CIOs as well as two separate holidays so I was able to experience both [...]
Category: Economy Personal Observation Tags: Culture, global, Personal Observation
by Mark P. McDonald | May 21, 2009 | 2 Comments
Just as the global financial crisis (GFC) shapes your current enterprise strategies, the move from financial crisis to early recovery should require an update to your strategies depending on the recovery scenario. Conventional wisdom holds that economic recovery can only come about through a rebound in consumer spending. While that is true, it does not [...]
Category: Economy Leadership Strategy Uncategorized Tags: Business Leadership, Economy, GFC, recovery
by Mark P. McDonald | May 19, 2009 | Submit a Comment
As part of a periodic series of blog entries on “change on the cheap,” this entry will discuss one approach to raising IT productive capacity without increasing the budget. In this post we will discuss a ‘recipe’ for raising IT productive capacity by 20% or more with no impact on the IT budget. Raising IT productive [...]
Category: Change on the cheap Leadership Personal Observation Tools Tags: Change, CIO Leadership, IT organization, Productivity
by Mark P. McDonald | May 18, 2009 | 1 Comment
This is the choice facing many CIOs and IT executives as they start their planning for 2010. After a year dominated by budget cutting and the GFC (Global Financial Crisis), the coming year can easily bring more of the same. The question facing CIOs who have concentrated on cutting costs is simply this – now [...]
Category: CIO Economy Leadership Strategy Tags: 2010 agenda, CIO Leadership, Strategy and Planning
by Mark P. McDonald | May 15, 2009 | 2 Comments
This post is tied to the earlier entry about the question the CIO has to answer. For the CIO that question revolves around the role of IT, the business value of IT and its contribution to the enterprise express the essential question that CIOs face. The answer to that question shapes business expectations of IT [...]
Category: CFO CIO Economy Leadership Strategy Tags: Business Leadership, CIO Leadership
by Mark P. McDonald | May 13, 2009 | Submit a Comment
COMPLETE PERSONAL OBSERVATION AND MUSING I am writing this on the morning of May 12th before the EU announces its fine of Intel for non-competitive practices, so I do not know what the details are yet. However, media reports continue to focus on the case describing Intel’s actions as anti-competitive as they paid companies and [...]
Category: Personal Observation Tags: Intel, personal musing, regulation
by Mark P. McDonald | May 12, 2009 | 1 Comment
The role of IT, the business value of IT and its contribution to the enterprise express the essential question that CIOs face. The answer to that question shapes business expectations of IT and its role in the strategy. Every executive has to answer a question. CEOs answer how the company’s market value will continue to [...]
Category: CIO Leadership Strategy Tags: Business Leadership, CIO, CIO Leadership
