THE SITUATION

The Information Technology function of this $1B retailer with over 5,000 US outlets, had not developed a strategic vision of its role in the business; nor had it demonstrated the ability to leverage technology to increase productivity and performance in the organization.

OUR APPROACH

Through our define stage of the search process, three issues were identified: Current CIO did not possess strategic planning skills required to push innovation and develop an IT strategic plan. The CIO's experience was purely technological and lacked general business expertise. This issue, combined with the lack of IT involvement in the overall business planning process, disempowered both the position and the IT organization. The CIO reported to an Executive Vice President of one of the business units. This alignment diminished the CIO's ability to plan and prioritize for the entire company and biased his application of technology.

OUR SOLUTION

In order to be successful, we made two recommendations: Reconstitute the CIO position as a direct report to the President/CEO and rewrite the job responsibilities to reflect the new requirements of the position. Replace the current executive with an experienced CIO who has demonstrated strategic planning skills and has leveraged technology into different divisions. This candidate must possess a strong business background and the management capability to work effectively, as a peer, with senior management. We implemented the above recommendations by: Educating senior management on the expanded role of a CIO. Establishing the CIO position on a "level playing field" with other senior executives Formulating a job description and responsibilities for the CIO position; including the first year deliverables.

We carefully prepared the successful candidate.

THE SITUATION

A $1B national financial services organization retained us when it was in the process of a divestiture. The surviving organization was left without an IS function.

OUR APPROACH

As part of our consultative approach, we partnered with the COO to address several strategic issues prior to approaching the CIO search:

• Short term - Review alternatives and recommend how the Company could keep their current systems running. Evaluate outsourcing activities and who may be viable vendors. Determine the feasibility of the acquiring company maintaining the systems in the interim. If so, how long? And terms of the agreement?
• Long term - The corporate headquarters was moving from the southeast to a major east coast city. Where should the new IS organization reside - in the headquarters' city or a neighboring suburban location? What is the skill set required for this CIO position? What type of IS organization is required to address and support the business needs?

From the substantial analysis conducted before the CIO search began, we were able to provide the following recommendations:

Redefine the CIO position description to support the needs of the organization - combination of strategic and general management skills with strong hands-on, technical understanding. Provide a plan of action to decentralize the IS organization and suggested suburban communities that would provide an employee population that could support the business needs. Outsource the non-valued added utilities (i.e. help desk, data center, etc.). Suggested the creation of a development team to coordinate corporate planning activities with the functional positions in the IS organization (i.e. business analysts).

OUR SOLUTION

We worked with the senior management team to help resolve many IS business issues that were associated with the business divestiture. By identifying and addressing the Company's short and long term issues, we completed the groundwork for the new the CIO to plan and implement the organizational development strategy. Recruiting a CIO with the right skills for this position also would attract the right team members to get the new IS organization up and running.