After a bunch of big vendor stuff, we finally got to the keynote panel of CIOs at Software 2007. In an earlier session, a WebEx executive pointed out that 80% of some
IT budgets is people. That's my part of it, if I was to plug. But
instead, sat and listened to take impressionistic notes:
Moderated by Ernest von Simson, Senior Partner, Ostriker von Simson
Panelists: Neil Cameron, CIO, Unilever; Rob Carter, CIO, FedEx; Patricia Morrison, CIO, Motorola; Tony Scott, CIO, The Walt Disney Company
What are the most innovative things you done lately?
FedEx: The wave of RFID that came and went was passive, now we are using active RFID. A smart sensor you install into the package: location, temperature, vibration, light (if detected the package might be open). Interfaces with broadly available services like Google Earth, or Geofencing for when something moves in and out of a perimeter and notifys you. Lots of innovation, most coming out of the Valley, at a price point that ultimately will be broadly distributed (today the financial vertical with high value data tapes {sneakernet} is the main use case).
Motorola: Speed in which we can repeatably deploy allocations, like in the Supply Chain. We have lots of partners and suppliers to orchestrate. Built an application library for each partner to reduce their integration from 4-6 months to 4-6 weeks. Worked hard on these integration platforms. Vendors we work with are incorporating this capability into their packages. The flexibility to change your sourcing models in our industry where manufacturing costs and other things are variable is needed to constantly evolve your business. Otherwise, lot of the changes are IT-related lead times.
Unilever: I'm a bit of a rose among thorns here. We we are bifurcated, have the traditional side which is relevation, not innovation, where we want to simplify and standardize. The other space, how we collaborate, is where we see innovation within our business. The Hot Chili program (named by one of our marketeers, we have lots of them), where we take all the new technologies, social or enabling, to change how we work and make decisions. Had to pay less attention to standards, longevity. Not looking at the unit costs that much as they don't matter for return. To get different Asian cultures to talk over a service in English isn't easy because they are very careful about how they are presented (how to be less formally). Challenges cross culturally, cross language and timezones.
Disney: Digitization of our business process. Across all of our businesses. In our media business putting TV shows on the web for free the day after the broadcast is a new business model, digitizing something previously well known. On Internet TV, we now say how long a commercial is and when it is coming, but the commercial is longer and more people actually watch it. People remember the commercials more than on TV, but ad willingness to pay is catching up. The next Pirates is coming out with live action and motion capture technology that is more than visually interesting, it changes how we make movies.
You haven't talked about traditional applications yet. How are your roles changing?
FedEx: Nothing happens in isolation, has to be integrated with the traditional apps. Looking for the next wave or layer but it isn't a complete departure from the core systems.
Motorola: How do you think about how your customers want. Living our own brand of seamless mobility. We have a major role in the expectation and understanding about how we can impact customers.
Disney: SarBox and how we are embedding so much technology in our processes -- we have the need for creativity but also protecting the brand from harm. One of my roles is adjudicating this battle. In our customer base, with children, we need to be extra-sensitive, a tension that gets harder all the time.
Unilever: All the traditional activities you had to do, but now I have to look at new territories like digital marketing. We missed it the first time around, but this time we shouldn't. HR is now about what role they will have, efficiency and working differently. Trying to help the rest of the organization think about how to move into new spaces without abandoning the good old things.
Disney: We did an infrastructure outsouring move two years ago, but it really is collaborating with more people, dependent upon non-Disney folks, collaborating across boundaries. Challenging with issues of IP.
FedEx: What we have to deal with internally is so different than the outside world which is so much more interconnected. Silos inside that competes with outside that moves across boundaries so quickly. I find my organization is challenged with making that transaction although we are a company that has been working with connected networks for some time.
Motorola: How you partner in your business, where you are engaged in problem solving. Need to shift from order taking sequential requirements gathering, to a highly interactive process with accountability in creating the solution before there is a problem to solve.
Audience question from an IBM guy: SaaS as disintermediating as the PC was?
Disney: Embracing it. Using Salesforce and AppExchange. We have transitions of our people inside and we have to ask if we want to be stuck maintaining things. Might be willing to pay more on this than if we were maintaining it internally because I want to focus on things that are more strategic. There are lots of things we are not going to be good at and the SaaS ideas will help us get to market faster with what we want to do.
Motorola: We are an advocate, but it is good for some things and not others. The flexibility to move back and forth across different models is a real value. The ability to scale, the speed of scale when you can't predict demand.
FedEx: We haven't embraced services as much as we have provided them. The fastest growing segment of software customers that we support are people who are shifting from FedEx.com to connections with us that need to be built into their processes and workflows. Today, in the shipment world alone is 3/4 of the total volume of all web s
Unilever: It's here and we need to embrace it, but it isn't a panacea. There are opportunities in entry level activities. Deployments in Africa and other far flung locations. Scaling matters, but not my challenge right now. The question is if we will run a hybrid, Hasso from SAP was talking about hybrids this morning, we will have to see.
How are you organizing for these changes?
Motorola: We use core groups to work though decisions. Small groups of 10 with deep expertise that I protect in almost an R&D-like environment and need shielding from some financial pressure. Our blogs and wikis are exciting. Get it architectures in the center, but then you need to train in the periphery. What does this new portal environment mean to me? Starting to build business case examples and then getting into an evangelical mode across the organization.
Unilever: Don't have an answer, we are challenged by this. We change the nature of career structure within our business, how do we recruit and train. Some say do the old way in house. Some say employ the least as we can so we don't employ the wrong skills if things change quickly.
Disney: I have the opposite problem as people in Burbank are unsuccessful screenwriters and actors that like to keep up to date with the latest stuff.
Advice to vendors?
Disney: Drop this "we are the greatest in the world" thing and give me an implementation strategy so I can bring this across my company.
Motorola: 12k engineers and we have tons of software that isn't warrantied and indemnified. My plea to the industry is quality. The amount of time we put down bugs.
Unilever: Fantastic. Absolutely.
FedEx: Every time we add something new, we get more cost an complexity. This is a relationship oriented business and you have to cut through the noise, provide technology migration strategies. We just don't have time for all the opportunities that come at us.
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