Management Insights for 2008

As managers we value stability and predictability, both very rare commodities in today’s turbulent, volatile and risky markets. Uncertainty and risk are here to stay and we need to adapt our management practices accordingly. As we enter 2008 here are three thoughts on meeting the challenge.

The war for talent is just beginning. IT is no longer a sexy career choice for today’s best and brightest. A recent survey even indicated that accounting was a more attractive career choice for today’s graduates than IT! As Rick Rashid of Micosoft colorfully put it, “ America’s kids have concluded that infotech is a dead end field for nerd losers, and they’re avoiding it like last month’s ringtone.” As leaders we need to make IT sexy again by aggressively marketing the enormous strategic impact IT has and the changing role of the IT manager from technician and geek to innovative business leader.

Static budgets and plans are obsolete. The concept of developing detailed annual plans and budgets and expecting them to remain relevant for more than a few weeks is both naïve and dangerous. The issue is not the waste of time spent creating such plans but the real risk that bad business decisions will be based off of very detailed plans that have little basis in reality. Effective planning and budgeting processes must explicitly recognize uncertainty and provide a framework for rapidly identifying risks and opportunities and adjusting plans and tactics accordingly.

Challenge conventional wisdom. Over the last 20 years we have come to accept certain principles as immutable laws. In many cases it’s time to challenge this thinking. In a world where flexibility is prized, where M&A is the normal course of business, and tolerance of massive enterprise wide IT investments is waning it makes sense to ask some basic questions:

• Is standardization/centralization always a good thing where competitive advantage is often gained by intense personalization of products and services?
• Are enterprise systems really practical if large parts of the business portfolio are going to be bought and sold on a regular basis? Same for shared services.
• Is outsourcing/offshoring really an attractive economic proposition in light of the service, security and political trade-offs?

Good luck!

David A.J. Axson

David Axson is the founder and President of The Sonax Group a business research and consulting firm based in Bath, Ohio, USA. He is also an accomplished public speaker. David has served as the keynote speaker at conferences in North America, Europe and Asia for organizations such as CFO Magazine, Cognos, The Institute of Management Accountants, The National Retail Federation, SAP, and The World Bank.

David was the keynote speaker for Taos' Fall IT Directions event. In his keynote “The Road to (Ir)Relevance?” he discusses whether or not CIOs should content themselves with “running the factory” or step up and take on the exciting yet challenging role of driving sustained growth in revenues and profits through superior deployment of technology throughout the business.

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