Business Transformation Requires Transformational Leaders

Leadership and teaming skills are front and center in times of rapid change. Meet today’s constant disruption head on with expert guidance in leadership, business strategy, transformation, and innovation. Whether the disruption du jour is a digitally-driven upending of traditional business models, the pandemic-driven end to business as usual, or the change-driven challenge of staffing that meets your transformation plans — you’ll be prepared with cutting edge techniques and expert knowledge that enable strategic leadership.

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Insight

Everyone wants to innovate. But most companies are terrible at invention, innovation, and entrepreneurialism. Many companies talk a good game -- "we're an innovation culture" -- but in fact they're pitifully staid and innovate mostly in the past; that is, toward business models, processes, and technologies that are anchored solidly in the 20th century.

Business process outsourcing (BPO) has become well established in recent years, and the areas it encompasses continue to grow. Beginning with call centers and IT (via facilities management), BPO has expanded to include financial transactions, HR, and a wide range of industry processes. Today, there are moves to bring outsourced processes together in a manner somewhat like IT facilities management but applied to such areas as finance and HR.

"This is a deeply challenging time for BP. The Macondo (aka, Deepwater Horizon) incident was a tragedy that claimed the lives of 11 people, caused injury to many others, and had a widespread environmental impact. Our response to the incident needs to go beyond deepwater drilling.

"Every IT leadership institute I have ever been to has drilled into me that we serve the business." So said a CIO to me recently with a both mildly defiant yet puzzled look. She was not quite appreciating my advice to be bold and dare to lead, yes, the business. Why not take the perspective of the CEO? Or the majority shareholder?

What do you think about variability? Let's say you get a new job offer and the organization you would lead continually deals with variability. Would you take the job?

My son loves to play hockey.

Some people label it as Enterprise 2.0; others see it just as a new faster pace in ongoing business transformation. Whatever you call it, there’s a seismic shift underway. Process is at the heart of it, and CIOs have a critical role in enabling the enterprise to ride this incoming tide.

The enterprise of the near future will be different in three important ways:

Offshoring in IT is, arguably, the most significant phenomenon to occur in recent decades.

-- David Avison and Gholamreza Torkzadeh