By Prosperity 24/7
10/05/2018
So, what is the view? Well, as always, it depends upon whose shoes you are standing in.
For the CEO, you are faced with an interesting future. If you are heavily exposed to the UK, the GBP is still volatile and worth considerably less than it was before June 23rd 2016 yet the UK economy is thriving, perversely through International trade maximising the week pound and access to excellent services organisations. You want to grow, you want to expand, your board are supporting your aspirations with shareholder returns and good governance driving effective leadership in a landscape of heavy regulatory controls. You want to acquire yet others want to acquire you…
For the COO you have a GDPR headache which is impacting your ability to simply ‘get on with running the organisation’ and constrained resources when you could be capitalising on the market opportunity that your CEO is asking you to run with…
For the CFO, you are, as always, acutely aware of the investment in capital, resources and operational expenditure, balancing income to expenses, striving to derive the greatest insights to help you with decision support at the shortest lead time which in turn will help you to inform the Executive and the board regarding your performance both at HQ as well as in all your remote jurisdictions with the ability to drill into poor performance in one region or identify excellent working practices in another…
For the CIO however, you are dealing with the expense of maintaining an under-invested legacy infrastructure which is not integrated with modern experiences. A CFO demanding that you drive costs down yet improve operational efficiency, a COO demanding data insights for governance and regulatory compliance plus a platform enabling automation to improve consistent working processes. On top of this, you have a CEO wishing to acquire and integrate strategic businesses ‘quickly’ to ensure operational alignment and ROI in the quickest possible way… If only you had a crystal ball, you could have justified that capital expenditure to transform IT five years ago to deal with the demands of today…
This is the view down in the woods, I won’t go down into the weeds!
So, if you are the CIO, I reckon you are a little perplexed right now and you probably have been for some time, you might well be thinking – this guy knows my pain – and I do, I also appreciate the constraints of running a business and the challenge of leading one too.
In the coming weeks I intend to help each of the aforementioned to consider the view from above the forest to help you all (including your HR Director) to help your organisation to become better, if not the best that it can be… A big challenge in 600 words but if I can help you all to steer your ship in a common direction that has to help right?
If I can help each of you to understand the perspectives of the other then this too, ought to help to improve communication in the board room. I might even be able to help you to accelerate towards a digitally transformed organisation. I am not talking ‘Utopia’ I am just talking about a place where agility, security, scale and flexibility can be delivered in an environment where governance, risk and compliance are good things rather than a burden. In short, over the coming weeks I am hoping to elaborate how organisations can adopt ‘a modern way of working’, one that makes your business accelerate its path to prosperity, pragmatically and in unison…
About the author: Chris Clark is the CEO and founder of Prosperity 24.7, a Jersey headquartered International IT & business consultancy practice. Chris is also the Chairman of the IoD Jersey Branch and sits on the board of several companies. Chris has over 20 years of experience, most recently and most frequently advising boards regarding how to embrace digital transformation to survive and thrive in the 4th Industrial Age.
Article two – CEO – Controlled growth and Social leadership
Article three – COO – Governance and control
Article four – CFO – Reporting and insights
Article five – CIO – Multispeed IT
Article six – Colleagues and their aspirations to grow
Article seven – Your clients and how you deliver exceptional service, every time
