Strategic management is management focused on long-term planning and direction of the organization. In the company, he ensures that things do not happen by accident but according
to pre-planned, long-term plans. We bring you an interview with Martin Vitouš, who helps companies set strategies and shows how to take advantage of opportunities not only in IT management, but also across the entire company.
There is an ongoing effort to improve a strategic management in the IT industry. What should organizations do if they
don´t keep up with the latest trends and start losing their customers?
In general, strategic management is the missing puzzle in most organizations. We can see strategic and systematic approach on a very rare basis. As such, it is difficult to make long-term decisions, plan resources, and set up organizational priorities. The situation is even more complicated in the IT area as the IT strategy should be inline with the organization’s business strategy. There are three key management levels that should exist in every company:
The strategic level is provided by IT Governance. The installation and implementation of tasks or IT Governance processes is the responsibility of the company's management, which should also include the CIO.
Who should propose the changes in the organization?
Every single employee may propose changes in the organization. However, there should be a clear system to process such proposals. The term „process“ means information gathering, priorities assignment, and decisions whether to include that specific idea in the portfolio of initiatives that will be implemented within the organization in the upcoming years. With no strategy in place, it is hard to decide and most of the ideas get forgotten in the end.
Who is responsible for implementing changes, which helps competitiveness on the market?
The organization’s CEO is the key person behind organization’s competitiveness on the market. It can't be anyone else. We are talking about digital transformation these days, however most of the organizations do not realize that these changes influence all activities inside the entire organization. New technologies and products cannot be adapted, if the organizational and operational models remain the same.
How much in advance to plan IT projects?
Let me help myself with the obligatory asnwer: "It depends!". The roadmap for the key initiatives should be based on the organization’s IT stratefy. However, it should not be carved into the stone. It should also include space for certain gaps that will be used in case of ad hoc urgent initiatives. In addition, there should be a kind of stack of smaller projects that should be implemented as a filler, unless there is nothing urgent – basically what needs to be done, but can wait.
What can be digitized in organizations?
First of all, let me put the terminology into the right perspective. Digitizing means converting something from paper to digital form. Digital transformation means that new technologies create new products (not IT products) using new business models that would not be functional without those technologies. So what can be that digital transformation? Everything that would have a positive business impact, will fit into the strategy and we are able to implement.
What does the work of a CIO entail? And what are the most common pitfalls of this position?
This topic would easily comprehend the entire series of articles. The CIO role is defined differently in each organization. We can imagine a person who is a member of the company's top management, solves strategic issues and at the same time is an equal partner to all other CxOs. On the other hand, it may be the longest working technician who knows how a database works, knowing a little about how the company actually works. In that case, it is hard to become an equal partner for rest of CxOs. It requires a lot of expanding knowledge and skills, especially in the strategic and leadership directions.
Many IT Specialists feel "satisfaction" with successful completion of the project. It motivates them to the next ones. How else can the CIO motivate his teams?
This is exactly about a leadership. A CIO manager must become a CIO leader. There are a lot of motivation theories. I would like to mention the author Daniel Pinka and his book Drive. According to him (and I have verified it), there are three key motivators. It is about independence at work (not micromanagement), the opportunity to learn and expand and at last the job itself has to make sense. The role of the CIO leader is to turn a team of dependent individuals accustomed to micromanagement into independent team that pulls together towards a common goal, at the same time in accordance with the individual goals of the team members.
When should a CIO become vigilant? How does he/she recognize that something is going wrong?
There can be a lot of signals providing the CIO is a respected partner of all other CxOs within an organization. Looking outside of an IT organization, it may happen that he/she is not invited to important (strategic) meetings of the company's management, that the company's and IT problems are being discussed separately, etc. Looking inside the IT organization, the CIO should pay attention if IT doesn't pull together, there is missing trust between individual members, individuals or entire departments blame each other and say, "this is not our job", etc.
Who should be driving the change of malfunction company processes?
Speaking of internal lT processes, the role is clearly on the IT side. We always have to start with ourselves. When it comes to other business processes, IT has an advisory role and can act as a process consultant. This is one of the greatest competitive advantage of internal IT – the in-depth knowledge of the internal environment. No other external supplier or outsourcing partner knows the company just like it’s own internal IT organization. If IT department succeeds and contributes to improving the company's operations, it will become seen as a partner that brings benefits, and not just as a cost center. Gradually, business and IT processes can begin to be interconnected and become so called end-to-end value streams. This brings us to a product-driven company where IT organization and the rest of the company gradually merge together.
Thanks to Martin for the interview. If you want to learn more about strategic management and IT management, we recommend attending the following courses:
DASA Ambassador | Accredited lecturer ITIL®, PRINCE2®, PRINCE2 Agile®, COBIT®, DASA DevOps, Practical Kanban.
Martin is an independent professional who helps companies solve problems and shows how to take advantage of opportunities not only in IT management, but also throughout the company. The knowledge and experience gained during 30 years of experience in multinational companies are reflected in his cooperation with clients. He combines different methods and approaches to achieve the most effective goal.
