CIO

What’s A Facebook “Like” Worth?

Nigel Fenwick — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 15:09:45 +0000

It seems everyone's obsessed with Facebook's IPO right now. And while CMOs are beginning to understand the possibilities of Facebook, and other social technologies, to connect and engage with customers, many CIOs remain unclear on the value of Facebook.

A question many business executives ask is this: "What's the value of having someone like your page?"

On its own, maybe not much. But the true potential lies in the ability to collect insights about the people who like brands, products or services - be it your own or someone else's.

For example, the chart below shows the percentage of consumers by age group who have "liked" Pepsi or Coca-Cola. These data suggest Coca-Cola is significantly more popular with 17-28 year olds than Pepsi, while Pepsi appears more popular with the 36-70 crowd. I pulled these data points directly from the Facebook likes of each of the brand pages using a free consumer tool from MicroStrategy called Wisdom. Using this tool I can even tell that Coca-Cola fans are likely to also enjoy the odd Oreo cookie and bag of Pringles.

"Wisdom" illustrates the potential for companies to leverage the massive amount of data embedded in Facebook to help target more refined advertising campaigns, build new product affinities and ultimately deliver greater value to their customers. New analytics tools from MicroStrategy and others designed to integrate with social networks will make this possible.

What, Exactly, Is A Strategy?

Tim Sheedy — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 12:40:56 +0000

I work with a lot of CIOs and heads of strategy in Australia and the Asia Pacific area - particularly concerning the development and updating of their IT strategies. As a part of our strategy document review service, I have seen plenty of approaches to IT strategies - from "on a single page" position statements through to hugely detailed documents that outline every project that will take place over the next 5-10 years.

While it can be argued that an IT strategy can't really be strategic at all if it is just responding to business needs and requests (isn't that just an IT plan?), the broader question of "what, exactly is a strategy?" is rarely touched upon.

I was fortunate to be invited to TCS's recent Australian customer summit in Sydney. I was particularly attracted by the high caliber of the speakers and audience. One of the speakers whose presentation I found fascinating was Richard Rumelt, from UCLA Anderson - author of the book Good Strategy, Bad Strategy: The Difference and Why It Matters. His presentation focused on "what makes a good strategy, and how do you identify a bad one." I really like his definition of what a strategy is:

A strategy is a coherent mix of policy and action designed to surmount a high-stakes challenge.

The basis of a good strategy is to diagnose the challenge, develop a guiding policy and create coherent policies and actions.

You know it's a bad strategy when it:

- Is all performance goals (i.e., we plan to increase our profit margin by 30% by 2015)

- Is all fluff (i.e., our fundamental strategy is one of customer-centric intermediation)

- Has no diagnosis (i.e., we will reform our organisation to become a leader in x)

How I Turned My iPad2 Into A MacBook … Well Almost!

Nigel Fenwick — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 22:24:12 +0000

As my regular readers know, I try to provide something thought-provoking for most of my blog posts. But every so often something comes along that makes me go "wow, I really need to share this." This is one of those times.

Like many analysts here at Forrester, I have an iPad (my own, not the company's) which I often use for work -- especially when travelling (which we do a lot). And like many people, I've grown used to the tactile feel of a real keyboard -- so every now and then I'd yearn for a real keyboard to use with my iPad.

Being an Apple fan, I first bought the Apple Bluetooth keyboard. While this is a good keyboard, it has a couple of major flaws for my use. Firstly, it doesn't actually hold the iPad, so you have to position your iPad somewhere you can see it while typing. For this reason you can't easily use it anywhere there isn't a good flat surface near you on which to stand your iPad. And secondly, it's not very convenient to travel with as it's so long -- who wants to walk around with a sleek iPad and a huge keyboard? I needed something more compact.

Then while building my Amazon wish list for the holidays I came across a nifty little keyboard that seemed too good to be true. On Amazon it's called an "Apple iPad 2 Aluminum Bluetooth Keyboard Case Cover Stand" supplied by MiniSuit. I couldn't resist adding it to my wish list.

Apparently I was good last year because I got what I wanted for Christmas, including the keyboard. Having now road-tested it for over a month, I can honestly say this is one of the best little accessories I've ever had in terms of value for money. Here's what I like about it:

Does BT Need A New Report Card?

Nigel Fenwick — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 15:52:12 +0000

It's time to re-think the report card used by CIOs to report on BT performance - tomorrow's BT CIOs must look beyond the traditional IT Balanced Scorecard (BSC).

I realize this is sacred ground for many people in IT (and some of my colleagues here at Forrester), so let me explain myself before I receive a barrage of complaints. The philosophy behind Business Technology (BT) recognizes technology as integral to every facet of every organization - as such, IT is very much an integral part of the business; we can no longer talk about "business" and "IT" as if referring to two distinct things. I'm suggesting that in the age of BT, we need a new scorecard that better reflects the impact of BT on the business.

A great deal has been written and published on the Balanced Scorecard, including many great pieces of research by my colleague Craig Symons, such as his recent report "The IT Balanced Scorecard: Customer/Partner Metrics Revisited." I'm not suggesting we throw this out by any means - CIOs absolutely need to use a balanced scorecard to run an efficient and effective BT operation (see fig 1).

Fig 1 - A High-Level Balanced Scorecard Template

How To Get Beyond Alignment

Nigel Fenwick — Mon, 28 Nov 2011 14:51:25 +0000

It's the perennial issue for many CIOs and often the No. 1 challenge for new CIOs: "How do I align IT with the business?" And while this is perhaps the most important challenge for IT groups struggling with a bad reputation across the business, it's certainly not the most important challenge for IT groups with a solid track record of success. For these teams, the challenge is how to move beyond alignment.

In the report Beyond Alignment: BT Strategic Planning, I highlight how critical it is for IT to help formulate business strategy. The research suggests that how a firm develops and manages business strategy is pivotal to the question of how IT can move beyond alignment. Unfortunately, there are a number of challenges with this:

Do Asian organisations still need IT departments?

Tim Sheedy — Wed, 16 Nov 2011 02:09:15 +0000

The shift towards the empowered consumer and employee is no more obvious than in Asia - particularly in Singapore, where a recent Google study showed that smartphone penetration is a whopping 62% (compared to 31% in the US). In fact, of the 11 countries in Asia surveyed, four of them (Singapore, Australia - 37%, Hong Kong - 35%, Urban China - 35%) had higher smartphone penetration rates than the US (and amongst 18-29 year olds, 84% of Singaporeans had smartphones, compared to 47% in the US!). With many of the more populous countries having young populations (average age: Philippines - 22.9, China - 35.5, India - 26.2, Indonesia - 28.2 - see World Factbook), the gen Y factor is driving employees to question whether the current way of working makes the most sense.

With so many young, mobile and connected employees, it is no surprise that CIOs across the region regularly complain about the company staff self-deploying devices, applications and services from the web or from app stores. The attitude of many IT shops is to shut it down - interestingly, the whole concept of "empowered employees" is quite "taboo" in some countries across the Asia Pacific region. A CIO recently told me that "smartphones and social media have come five years too soon" - referring to the fact he is planning to retire in five years, and that these technology-centric services are proving to be quite a headache for his IT department!

Isn't It Time To Move Beyond Alignment?

Nigel Fenwick — Mon, 17 Oct 2011 23:47:27 +0000

It's strange, but some things about the CIO role change very little from year to year -- and one of the most consistent priorities for CIOs has always been achieving better "alignment" with "the business." But should this really be a top priority?

I can't help it, I really dislike the term "alignment" -- it suggests to me that CIOs are trying to bring together two separate and distinct things: "the business" and "IT." But the really successful CIOs already know this specific language sets everyone up to perceive IT as something apart from the business. And we all know that every business has technology woven intricately throughout -- to suggest technology is not a vital part of business success is simply wrong. So instead of talking about aligning IT with the rest of the business, we need to focus on ensuring the business is using technology to achieve defined goals and deliver business results.

Unfortunately, for many companies, IT appears to be in the software development business -- responding to "orders" from "internal customers" and busily delivering applications. CIOs need to ask: "what business are we in?" For most CIOs, the answer will undoubtedly NOT be the technology business. For these CIOs, the most precious skill IT can bring to the organization is business knowledge and process understanding coupled with technology know-how. By helping identify how technology can change the business dynamics and move the organization more efficiently toward its objectives, IT becomes the foundation for competitive advantage. In other words, IT needs to be in the business of helping shape business strategy.

CIOs: Collaborate With Your Peers And Forrester Analysts To Discuss, Debate And Shape Your Ideas

Khalid Kark — Wed, 12 Oct 2011 21:58:15 +0000

Last week, Forrester launched its CIO Role Community, a place for CIOs (and other IT leaders) exclusively to engage in conversations and discussions with their peers. This community will also provide you an opportunity to continue the conversations on existing content and highlight future areas of interest. You are invited to post your questions, comments, thoughts and ideas and have other CIOs and Forrester analysts to chime in with their opinions, best practices and lessons learned on these areas.

Forrester analysts will be actively participating in communities by responding to your questions, adding their insights to existing conversations and asking questions of you, the CIO, to create a more precise purview, and drive our research agenda -- ultimately making it more timely and relevant to you.

Already, a wide range of topics are being actively discussed, from the criticalness of operating in the Asia Pacific region and other emerging economies, to setting clear business priorities without a PMO.

Head over to the CIO Community, browse the discussions, and let your voice be heard. Respond to an existing post, or post your own discussion!

(Also, be sure to follow @Forr_CIO for timely updates about the CIO Community activity.)

We're waiting to hear from you!

Netflix Revises Strategy ..... Again!

Nigel Fenwick — Mon, 10 Oct 2011 14:22:35 +0000

Netflix has come to its senses and revised its strategy in favor of the customer. After a recently announced decision to split out its DVD business from its streaming business, Netflix received a barrage of criticism from customers -- including my last blog post, where I questioned the wisdom of this strategy. Today, CEO Reed Hastings announced a 180-degree about turn -- well done Mr. Hastings. While it would surely have been wiser to have made a better strategic decision in the first place, changing course in face of customer criticism at least shows Netflix is still willing to put its customers first.

This turn of events highlights the difficulty of getting strategic planning right. While abstract analysis of strategic options may point to an optimal choice for any set of circumstances, any strategic analysis which ignores customer impact is fatally flawed. As my colleague Luca Paderni and I pointed out in our recent keynote at the Forrester CIO-CMO Forum, companies must become customer obsessed. Indeed, we highlighted Netflix as an example of a company that had succeeded in large part because it was customer obsessed and had mastered the customer data flow in a way that increased customer value.

There is a lesson here for us all ... success in the future will go to those companies willing to become customer obsessed and put the customer ahead of Wall Street.

Netflix: Can A Company Really Be This Inept And Succeed?

Nigel Fenwick — Mon, 19 Sep 2011 16:22:31 +0000

If you thought Netflix handled its earlier price increase badly, just wait till you hear the complaints about its latest move. In a letter to subscribers sent today, Reed Hastings, Netflix Co-Founder and CEO, opens with:

"It is clear from the feedback over the past two months that many members felt we lacked respect and humility in the way we announced the separation of DVD and streaming and the price changes." - Hmm, perhaps a little bit of an understatement! (Read the full text at the end of this post.)

So members like me might be lulled into the false impression that this letter was going to be an apology in an attempt to smooth things over. Boy, was I wrong. Instead Hastings goes on to say the following (my paraphrasing, not his):

CMOs And CIOs Tackle Technology: Q&A With Robert Mead, CMO And Michael Mathias, CIO At Aetna

Sharyn Leaver — Wed, 14 Sep 2011 19:58:16 +0000

Recently my colleague David Cooperstein and I had the opportunity to meet with Robert Mead and Michael Mathias, the CMO and CIO respectively at Aetna. They will be speaking at our upcoming CIO-CMO Forum on September 22 in Boston, so this serves as a bit of a preview to what should be an eye opening presentation. Enjoy!

David Cooperstein: What external changes drove you to build a deeper partnership with your technology peers?

Robert Mead, Senior Vice President, Aetna Marketing, Product & Communications: The U.S. health care system is fragmented and well behind the curve in terms of price transparency and consumer-friendly products and services. The deep partnership between technology and marketing at Aetna lets us put leading-edge technologies and powerful tools and applications directly into the hands of people so that they can be confident consumers and informed patients. Our close collaboration with our colleagues in technology is driven by a few external factors:

the increasing cost of care and the corresponding changes in employer-based insurance - consumers are being asked to take more ownership of their health and wellness and their health care spending;
the introduction and rapid adoption of technology that empowers consumers (and patients) to engage in the health care system where they are in life and in the way they want to be connected; and
health care reform, which aims to bring millions of previously uninsured Americans into the marketplace as consumers.

David: How have you measured the results of a tighter relationship between the two of you in terms of corporate goals and personal metrics?

CIOs: How Are You Linked In To Your Company's Revenue Stream?

Chip Gliedman — Thu, 08 Sep 2011 17:20:13 +0000

In today's technology-fueled marketplace, the underlying systems, automated processes, and communications channels become crucial to continuing and growing your company's revenue stream and customer engagement. As has occurred so many times over the past decades, there is an accompanying swing of the centralized IT/decentralized IT pendulum, with customer-facing departments, such as sales and marketing, acquiring their own technology solutions from cloud or SaaS vendors to meet customer needs. In the best organizations, these technology decisions and business-sponsored implementations are done within the framework of sound IT planning and long-term integration goals. For such decentralization to work right, IT and marketing must work together to provide the solution framework that integrates the customer-facing with the back office with both groups tied into the plans and goals of the other so that both can move in parallel towards the same goals -- satisfying the customer and increasing revenues.

Our September CIO-CMO Forum 2011 will dive into the details on how IT and marketing work together at successful organizations. Right now, we're interested in where you fall on the spectrum -- how you and your IT department tie in to your company's revenue metrics, customer satisfaction metrics, and marketing processes. Let us know in our Q3 2011 CIO Motivation And External Customer Satisfaction Survey. If you provide your email, we'll send you a summary of the results.

Thank you,

Chip

Define Your Social Ecosystem

Nigel Fenwick — Fri, 02 Sep 2011 20:47:43 +0000

One of the many interesting topics of discussion we get into in our Social Business Strategy workshops is around the social ecosystem. This is the name I have given the collection of business capabilities potentially enhanced by one or more social technologies.

First let me define social technologies. Note I'm using the word "technology" quite deliberately in place of the more common term "social media" because social media is too often associated with consumer-facing technology as deployed in support of marketing. In defining the entire social ecosystem I prefer the more generic "technology". I define social technology as "any technology that enables one-to-many communications in a public forum (or semi-public if behind a security firewall)".

Conquering The Technology/Marketing Divide

Sharyn Leaver — Mon, 29 Aug 2011 16:06:12 +0000

Forget Brad and Angelina (or "Brangelina" for those that are more plugged in to pop culture than I), the new "it" couple is the CIO and CMO. Why? In the digital world we live in today, which Forrester defines as the Age of the Customer, empowered buyers demand a new level of customer obsession. That means firms must deliver marketing and technology solutions that have visible impact on the customer. CIOs and CMOs are best positioned to deliver because they have a broad, end-to-end purview of their businesses and they understand how to innovate. But, CIOs and CMOs also often come with conflicting expectations and priorities that can sabotoge well-intentioned collaboration efforts.

Charles Rutstein, Forrester's COO, recently sat down with my CMO Practice Leader peer David Cooperstein and me to discuss the role that CIOs and CMOs play in this customer-obsessed new world. See what we had to say here:

If you face these same challenges, you should join the conversation at our CIO-CMO Forum 2011, on September 22 at the Sheraton Boston. Keynotes from Forrester, Aetna and Discover Financial will help you understand the critical intersection of these two executives, and how you can get marketing and technology to take your company to new heights.

Are You Ready To Master The Customer Data Flow?

Nigel Fenwick — Wed, 17 Aug 2011 18:52:53 +0000

If you read my last research report and previous blog post, you'll know that I'm working with Luca Paderni on a series of research reports examining the IT and marketing relationship. In particular, we're examining what IT and marketing are doing to master the customer data flow (see Figure 1).

At the upcoming CIO and CMO forum, Luca and I will be presenting a keynote examining the readiness of IT and marketing teams in today's organizations to master the customer data flow. The really cool thing is that you can help shape the outcome by participating in a very short survey we are conducting in conjunction with Forbes. The survey asks a number of questions around the interaction between IT and marketing and can be answered by either IT or marketing professionals.

Don't put it off, please take the survey now, share this post, and receive a complimentary copy of the summary results.

If you are a CIO or CMO of a $1 billion+ organization, please also consider participating in our ongoing research by contacting our research associate Lauren Blackburn at +1 617.613.6500.

CIO

What’s A Facebook “Like” Worth?

Categories:

What, Exactly, Is A Strategy?

Categories:

How I Turned My iPad2 Into A MacBook … Well Almost!

Categories:

Does BT Need A New Report Card?

Categories:

How To Get Beyond Alignment

Categories:

Do Asian organisations still need IT departments?

Categories:

Isn't It Time To Move Beyond Alignment?

Categories:

CIOs: Collaborate With Your Peers And Forrester Analysts To Discuss, Debate And Shape Your Ideas

Netflix Revises Strategy ..... Again!

Categories:

Netflix: Can A Company Really Be This Inept And Succeed?

CMOs And CIOs Tackle Technology: Q&A With Robert Mead, CMO And Michael Mathias, CIO At Aetna

Categories:

CIOs: How Are You Linked In To Your Company's Revenue Stream?

Define Your Social Ecosystem

Categories:

Conquering The Technology/Marketing Divide

Are You Ready To Master The Customer Data Flow?

Categories: