The Transformational CIO: Leadership and Innovation Strategies for IT Executives in a Rapidly Changing World

Tight Linkage Ensures Buy-In

The tight linkage between IT activities and real-world business objectives also ensures high levels of buy-in and support from the company's senior leadership. For example, several current projects are aligned with sales force productivity, which is always a top concern at large global companies operating in highly competitive markets.

“We have one new tool that identifies ‘white space accounts’ (i.e., potential new customers), and provides contact information and even selling scripts,” says Pat. “It's a great example of leveraging technology to improve sales productivity. We took an ad hoc process and made it measurable, so now we know exactly which deals and opportunities resulted from using the tool. We can actually see the sales pipeline growing, thanks to the tool's analytics.”

Another IT initiative involved creating a new tool to speed the hand-off of qualified leads from marketers to business partners. “By automating it, we were able to shave five days off the process,” says Pat. “That savings in time actually helped us increase our share in some markets, because the leads weren't getting stale. We will do anything we can do to make the sales process more efficient.”

Lesson

The tight linkage between IT activities and real-world business objectives also ensures high levels of buy-in and support from the company's senior leadership. Several current projects are aligned with sales force productivity, which is always a top concern at large global ...