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2007 CIO Executive Summit

Innovation remains top of mind

At an annual gathering in Dallas in May 2007, 32 CIOs and technology leaders from the world's leading organizations joined ranks to focus on this year's theme: "Breaking Through: Using Technology to Drive Business Innovation". The 2007 CIO Executive Summit, hosted by Planview, is a popular venue for interactive, "out of the box" discussions among forward-thinking leaders.

 

Laurie Orlov, Vice President and Principal Analyst at Forrester Research, was the keynote speaker and spoke on the importance for an IT organization to identify its archetypal role (Solid Utility, Trusted Supplier, or Partner Player) in the business in order to overcome the gap between perceptions and expectations. Orlov went on to say that IT must change by marketing IT, rewarding innovation, and continuously reviewing fit.

Other presentations included:

  • Pulling technology that drives innovation into business units (rather than leaving it to the IT organization) by Planview Founder and CEO Pat Durbin
  • Optimizing the product lifecycle, discussed by a panel that included Delphi Electronics Director of Global Services Christoph Egel, Flowserve Vice President of R&D Eric van Gemeren, and UGS Senior Director Bill Boswell
  • Communicating as the way to successful adoption when rolling out a one tool (Planview) consolidation of all data management tools, presented by Joe Buescher of Qwest Communications
  • Synovus' journey to become a service organization, delivered by CIO Scott McGlaun
  • Achieving financial transparency at The Hartford, delivered by IT CFO Richard Maynes

Attendees benefited from three lively and interactive roundtable discussions, each serving as a forum for the exchange of knowledge, best practices, and ideas. The topics of these roundtables were:

  • How is IT driving innovation?
  • Measuring and communicating IT value
  • What’s your IT archetype?

Concurrent to the summit, Planview conducted a survey that gave technology executives the opportunity to outline their perspectives on hot topics in IT. They ranked their top management challenges as:

  • Overwhelming backlog of requests and projects
  • Shortage of time for strategic thinking and planning
  • Difficulty in proving the value of IT
  • Unknown/unrealistic expectations from business
  • Inadequate budgets

Survey Highlights

  • When asked to assess progress toward transforming IT into a service organization, 50% indicated they were focused on applications inventory and portfolios, 24% said they have begun the process, and 5% said they were doing full business service management.
  • When asked what archetypal role best describes IT in the company or line of business, 52% said "Trusted Supplier", 29% said "Partner Players", and 19% said "Solid Utilities".
  • Just over a third of respondents provide total cost information on IT service delivery and 7% said they were not providing any service cost information to the business units.

The complete survey results can be found at www.planview.com/ciosummit/summitsurvey.

Archive of 2006 CIO Advisory Council Report