CIOs and Websites
Oct 30th, 2010 | By Gene A. Wright | Category: Feature, General, Information Technology, Leadership, Technology, Technology StrategyFrom Baseline Briefing
I found a real message in this article. Often, CIOs do not “get” websites. However, CIOs plus marketing professionals (and other line of business managers) will add significant business value. Alone, either management professional may not. I believe that the same is true for all “information technology” used for business. We NEED to have line of business managers and subject matter experts working WITH technical (IT) professionals to yield strategic business value. One of the key outputs of the collaboration of CIO and CMO will be an “enterprise architecture” that works for the entire firm or organization.
From the article “Businesses need CIOs to lead—with marketing—and devise mature 21st century information management strategies and tactics to support the corporate Web presence so it will send the right message but also be technically sound. These Web solutions involve library services, information and application architecture, metadata management, Web records retention, Web content management systems, portal software, search engine implementation and optimization, and more.
Without the expertise of the CIO’s office, marketing teams frequently take a superficial approach to application development, understanding only the service results, but not the underlying architectural concerns. In many instances, we’ve seen application waste—multiple Web content management systems and unnecessarily redundant e-commerce applications.”
What do you think?
I think once again it is the cooperation within the organization that lacks the direction needed to make a new aspect of an organization move forward. Collegiality is a better pathway for two areas in the organization succeed. There are far too many egos within most organizations to deal with something like the internet.
I think that your article is extremely bad. Have you ever taken a class in writing. If people like you are designing corporate web sites, that corporation is in some serious trouble. Not every corporation needs a web site and I believe that they are better opff with no web site at all i9nstead of a bad one.
In my opinion, this issue is just between marketing and IT. I have seen this happening in Test Groups, Manufacturing execution etc , and typically it has resulted in IT not knowing it until “one fine day” when it is too late. I guess one main reason i see a big disconnect is the use of IT as a shared service with no /minimal representation in places of need and it is percieved as “hard to get” resource (from an organization stand point) . One possible solution could be having a dotted line relation at the least with the “functional business units” . Otherwise all the C levels getting into an agreement on “resource sharing” based on “Actual Value based need” should be the approach. Ofcourse the one thing that is perceived as abundant (internet) is always bound to cause issues ! The onus is on the Middle Management to take it up the chain. Easier Said
In my opinion, this issue is just not between marketing and IT. I have seen this happening in Test Groups, Manufacturing execution etc , and typically it has resulted in IT not knowing it until “one fine day” when it is too late. I guess one main reason i see a big disconnect is the use of IT as a shared service with no /minimal representation in places of need and it is percieved as “hard to get” resource (from an organization stand point) . One possible solution could be having a dotted line relation at the least with the “functional business units” . Otherwise all the C levels getting into an agreement on “resource sharing” based on “Actual Value based need” should be the approach. Ofcourse the one thing that is perceived as abundant (internet) is always bound to cause issues ! The onus is on the Middle Management to take it up the chain. Easier Said
In many companies IT has been considered more a utility and less a source of strategy until recently. CIOs need to reach out to other departments & make them aware that in 2010 IT can make or break Marketing initiatives if they’re not involved from the planning stage. Sadly, I would hope that people employed at the C-level would know this already.
I agree there needs to be close alignment between the IT Department and the Businesses they support. In most organizations IT is a shared service, they specialize in the structure and design of efficient infrastructure, but don’t necessarily understand what is needed on the front end, user interface side of their applications. Perhaps current, traditional IT organizations need to evolve to create effective horizontal linkages to the internal groups they support. IT organizations could create a specialized department or position(s) focused on working with the businesses they support to ensure business needs are understood and translated into functional specifications for projects IT is managing.
The article makes a good point if not an obvious one. Departments need to work together, each doing what they do best. So CIO’s should be more assertive for the services their groups can bring to the table and marketing/business departments need to be more open to help developing a technically sound web presence. I am not sure if my organization has a CIO but I don’t really see anyone working together on those initiatives there. Maybe I just don’t know. Seems like a good message to spread either way.
IT is very important to a company and without utilizing it fully a business will have hard time being successful in the current business world. If the CIO does not fully understand the usage of the internet and how it can be a competitive advantage they will fail. I think most consumers who use the internet expect companies to have a good website with detailed information about the products. If they don’t they may lose a sale to a company that has this information. The need for IT to work not only with marketing but all departments will be rital to a company’s success.
It’s interesting how companies view IT Departments, I think the majority see it as a facilitator to data, or a connection to the web vs. a key partner in the process. The article gave the example of Marketing, I don’t disagree that marketing probably has a better idea of the marketing strategy and relating to the customer, but the IT department probably knows what’s possible and what is the current trend on websites. In my field of supply chain, IT and SC go hand in hand, people who have both an IT background and a Supply chain are in a league of their own as far as process improvements, and data facilitation. Most IT people can’t connect the dots between the data, but those people that sit between the two groups have the greatest potentional.
It is true that the CIO must have the ability to market the company through the web. Since most CIO’s are heavy in technology experience and lean on marketing, companies need to determine early how to manage this situation. Continue to have the marketing and IT departments battle in a tug of war for web supremacy or get a leader that can manage both. In the tug of war situation marketing will continue to be the winner since they have the experience creating value for products and services unlike IT where it is just providing information. Sorry, is my marketing bias showing?