by Mark P. McDonald | September 7, 2012 | 20 Comments
In a prior post — When Frugality Fails — the topic was what do you do when just cutting costs is not enough to define success. This topic looks at what a decade of flat IT budget investments really means. IT budgets have been essentially flat according to the results of the Gartner Executive Programs [...]
Category: 2013 Amplifying the Enterprise budgets Re-imagine IT Strategic planning Tags: 2013 Planning, Finance, Future of IT, IT budgets, Strategy and Planning, symposium
by Mark P. McDonald | August 22, 2012 | 3 Comments
In the 2012 Gartner Executive Programs CIO survey we asked CIOs several questions about the metrics they use, how effective the metrics were and how effective they were at demonstrating the business value of IT. We shared the data with CIOs over the past year and some interesting insights came up that are the subject [...]
Category: 2013 Amplifying the Enterprise Management Tags: 2013 Planning, Finance, IT management, Metrics
by Mark P. McDonald | November 30, 2011 | 2 Comments
Precision is the enemy of IT value and a root cause of why it is so hard to measure IT’s. About the only thing that you can prove with precision is that is not wasting money. Precision requires that specific investments that produce pre-defined and specific results. You want to produce more widgets, then you [...]
Category: CFO CIO Management Tags: Finance, IT Value, Metrics, Value of IT
by Mark P. McDonald | February 10, 2011 | 1 Comment
Remember the global economy right before the global financial crisis? Oil prices were hitting nominal records, food prices were climbing and other commodities were driving resource-based economies forward. Inflation was nowhere to be seen, but it was suspected around the corner. Then the global financial crisis took away demand and seemed to drive us to [...]
Category: 2011 Economy Leadership Lean Thinking Strategy Tags: 2011 Planning, Business Strategy, CFO, Economy, Finance
by Mark P. McDonald | October 15, 2010 | Submit a Comment
This summer Gartner Executive Programs and MIT Sloan School’s Center for Information Systems Research (MIT CISR) published a report on the Advantages and Economics and Value of Reuse. (Executive Summary) The report is based on a study of more than 1,500 companies to understand the impact of reuse. The joint study defined reuse as using [...]
Category: Technology Tools Tags: cost cutting, Finance, Operational Leadership, Technology, Technology Leadership
by Mark P. McDonald | September 8, 2010 | Submit a Comment
According to Gartner’s 2010 CIO Mid year survey, IT budgets remain tight and CIOs report having to move resources around to meet increasing operational and infrastructure upgrades in the face of tight budget and economic environment. CIOs face a year of leading in times of transition with continued economic challenges combining with changes in enterprise [...]
Category: Economy Strategy Tags: cost cutting, Economic conditions, Economic Recovery, Finance
by Mark P. McDonald | August 31, 2010 | 3 Comments
CIOs and their IT teams can unnecessarily limit their influence and options in ways that seem small, but have major consequences. Take for example how you present options. IT is as much about decision making as it is about cost effective operations or innovative solutions which makes shaping and presenting options a critical management activity [...]
Category: CFO CIO IT Governance Strategy Tags: 2011 Planning, Finance, governance, Strategy and Planning, Tools
by Mark P. McDonald | April 5, 2010 | 3 Comments
This is another way of asking whether or not you’re your company is an enterprise. The answer means a lot to your strategy, how you run IT and the levers you pull to in your enterprise and technology strategy. Every company consists of different divisions and operations. Think of these as fingers on your hand. [...]
Category: CFO CIO Leadership Strategy Technology Tags: Business Leadership, enterprise, Finance, Strategy, Strategy and Planning
by Mark P. McDonald | March 20, 2010 | Submit a Comment
Note: My apologies for the prior version of this post. I wrote it too quickly and did not give it a good proof reading. I read an article the other day by Arthur Langer about how IT can survive the current economic recession. I was struck by the following piece of advice: “Move more IT [...]
Category: CFO CIO Signs of weak management Tags: 2010, 2010 planning, CFO, cost cutting, Economy, Finance, Signs of weak management
by Mark P. McDonald | March 18, 2010 | 2 Comments
The NCAA Division 1 basketball tournament is called March madness as 64 teams play in a tournament to crown a national champion. Outside of the U.S. this may not mean as much, but the tournament is a big annual event and the subject of much debate and discussion. It should be, because for all practical [...]
Category: Uncategorized Tags: Business Management, CIO Leadership, Economic Recovery, Finance
