by Mark P. McDonald | January 20, 2012 | 3 Comments
For the past 10 years, cost has been the mantra facing CIOs and IT organizations. Cost benefits are a factor in just about every major technology wave in the past 10 years. Cloud, the current theme, is presented as a cost play so is sourcing, services, virtualization, open source — if I did not know [...]
Category: 2012 Economy Leadership Management Strategic planning Tags: 2012 planning, amplify, CIO Leadership, CIO strategy, CIO-Forum-NA, IT strategy, Strategy and Planning
by Mark P. McDonald | January 9, 2012 | 1 Comment
In times of economic adversity, conventional wisdom calls for conserving cash and capital. Firms have amassed record amounts of cash as governments face deep cuts in the fourth year of five-year plans. Leaders know that the future requires re-imaging the enterprise rather than repeated waves of belt tightening. Nowhere is this more evident than in [...]
Category: 2012 Economy Strategic planning Strategy budgets Tags: 2012 planning, amplify, CFO, CIO strategy, CIO-Forum-NA, cost cutting, Economic conditions, Strategy and Planning
by Mark P. McDonald | November 25, 2011 | Submit a Comment
This past week marked a milestone as Gartner brought its symposium format to India for the first time. More than 1,000 Indian IT professionals met in Mumbai to learn, discussion, participate and contribute to each other on issues ranging from cloud computing to the future of IT itself. Between the presentations, workshops and 1 on [...]
Category: 2012 CIO Economy Leadership Management Strategic planning Tags: 2012 planning, IT strategy, Leadership, Personal Observation, Strategy and Planning, symposium
by Mark P. McDonald | November 11, 2011 | 1 Comment
Gartner’s first Fall Symposia and ITXpo in Barcelona is complete. I am writing this blog post on my iPad while I am flying to Frankfurt to start the trip to Australia and the Symposium there. It has been a rather full week with hundreds of presentations, meetings, more than 50 CIO workshops, thought leadership presentations, [...]
Category: 2012 CIO Economy Innovation Leadership Management Personal Observation Strategic planning Tags: 2012 planning, CIO Leadership, IT and Business, Strategy and Planning, symposium
by Mark P. McDonald | November 9, 2011 | 3 Comments
Occupy Wall Street is just the latest in a series of protests against the idea that businesses exist only to create economic returns for their shareholders. The idea that business should do more for society is appealing and requires more than light current forms of corporate charity. Two articles this year in the Harvard Business [...]
Category: Economy Innovation Leadership Management Personal Observation Strategic planning Strategy Tags: 2012 planning, comprehensive value, Economic conditions, Economic Recovery, Economy, Innovation, Strategy, Strategy and Planning
by Mark P. McDonald | November 6, 2011 | Submit a Comment
With macroeconomics and international finance dominating world news its easy to lose site of the fact that organizations cannot wait on the sideline for things to get better they have to take action and make the best of a difficult situation. That is the challenge facing CIOs and IT leaders attending this year’s Gartner European [...]
Category: 2012 Economy Leadership Management Strategic planning Strategy Tags: 2012 planning, Business Leadership, Economic conditions, IT Leadership, Strategy and Planning, symposium
by Mark P. McDonald | November 1, 2011 | Submit a Comment
Throughout much of the market turmoil the news, discussion, uncertainty and doubt have all been aimed at one audience – traders. Traders are those who earn their income from moving money across financial markets or follow the financial markets. Traders make money when there is turbulence as change and volatility move stock prices generating ‘market [...]
Category: Economy Leadership Management Strategy Tags: Business Leadership, Business Management, Business Strategy, Economy, Strategy and Planning
by Mark P. McDonald | October 28, 2011 | 2 Comments
Executives admire the ability of social media to garner the attention of millions of people. They see the market potential of those millions share their ideas, interests, opinions about themselves and your products or services. They fear what will happen to them if someone else turns all of that potential into reality. Those fears are [...]
Category: Economy Leadership Social Media Social Organization Tags: Business Leadership, Innovation, Social Computing, Social Organization
by Mark P. McDonald | October 27, 2011 | 1 Comment
Erik Brynjolfsson and Andrew McAfee have created a powerful, concise and informative discussion of the impact of technology on employment, income distribution and macroeconomics. Do not be fooled by the title, Race Against the Machine is not a neo luddite treatise on the evils of automation and technology. The title is more about generating buzz [...]
Category: Book Review Economy Strategy Technology Tags: Book Review, Business Leadership, Economic conditions, Economic Recovery, Economy, Technology
by Mark P. McDonald | October 24, 2011 | 1 Comment
Great by Choice is the second/better half of How the Mighty Fall Jim Collins extends and deepens the body of knowledge around the fundamentals of success. Great by Choice represents the second half of Collin’s earlier book on company failure – How the Mighty Fall. While that earlier book concentrated on factors that drive failure, [...]
Category: Book Review Economy Innovation Leadership Management Strategy Tags: Book Review, Business Leadership, Strategy, Technology Leadership
