Blog Post: What Your CEO Wants...Part III

Leveraging Technology To Do More With Less - For CFOs

Less than 24 hours after Lehman collapsed and the very evening AIG went to the brink, I was in a private club in lower Manhattan speaking to dozens of global CIOs. We watched with both horror and relief as the text message came in over one of our cell phones announcing the bridge loan that would save them - history unfolding before our eyes.

Tomorrow, we would all have to leverage technology to do more with less; to do a lot more and with a lot less.

The only solution to global market uncertainty is leadership and visibility. It will take the combined efforts of every CFO to help right a financial system that was clearly lacking both.


An opportunity for real change:

The credit crisis is forcing upon each of us an opportunity for real change. No longer can we accept IT budgets where up to 70% is for maintenance. No longer can we stand drowning in data that provides no real visibility. No longer can we buy from vendors who sell fear, uncertainty and doubt when correcting a problem at its root cause is the only real solution.


It is time for "The Warren Buffetts" of this economy to change the way things have "always been done". http://preview.tinyurl.com/Callingall


We are the leaders of this new economy. To leverage technology to do more with less; don' focus on the technology but on the job we need done.


Visibility:

No more "spreadsheet warriors", executives who would have to constantly revise projections due to an endless variety of financial system challenges. Strategic planning software has finally evolved to a point where there are a number of options that offer multi-user functionality and integration with actuals. So you can change the way you plan, not the way you think.

IFRS (International Financial Reporting Standards) will also help increase visibility as globalization continues to disrupt entire industries and changes the very basis of competition


" The expanded use of a single, high-quality accounting standard will eventually empower investors to make better-informed investment decisions by giving them information that is more easily comparable,"

SEC Commission Chairman Christopher Cox

Business Agility:

As the world flattens more everyday, business agility will be measured by our ability to expand (and shrink) capacity on demand. While Data Center virtualization is moving us closer to that Utopia, continued adoption of virtualization at the application layer is bringing companies two key competitive advantages in shorter meantimes to both customer responsiveness and revenue recognition.


Speed time to market:

In response to rapidly changing demands of their global customers, one East Coast financial institution had to deploy over 225 new applications a year.

They invested in a combined program of training and the use of a product that would automate their rigorous security and compliance practices, and integration-testing on their Web-based applications; improving developer productivity and speeding time to market for new applications.


Leadership:

Managing the level of change that technology is driving requires great leadership; individual accountability, not technical acumen. I guarantee you, no matter which job a company needs to get done; someone, somewhere, somehow has built a technology that can do it.

As leaders of this new economy, we can leverage technology to manage change, to make better informed decisions and to do more with less.

Join us November 17 at the Luncheon Meeting to hear more on "Leveraging Technology To Do More With Less"

Jackie is the CEO of BT Industrials which is a strategic management and technology consulting firm providing collaborative management consulting services to create value innovation. The company works with Board of Directors, CEOs, CFOs and CIOs to integrate technology into business strategy as a competitive advantage - turning problems into profits www.btind.com. She can be reached at: jackieb@btind.com


Read articles Part I & II in the Article Archives at www.PhoenixCEOCFO.com

Join us for our November 17th CFO luncheon or CEO/President Dinner - details at www.phoenixceocfo.com - click on the Executive Calendar.