CIO OPINION
operating models. At the same time, changes
in client expectations and end-user behaviour
are pushing organisations to partner with
very different types of companies.
My advice would be to avoid taking the
classical view of identifying core business
and partnering for the rest, because what is
your core business today won’t necessarily
be your core business tomorrow.
You need to take a blank sheet of paper, look
at what your customers want and design
the best way of delivering it, then decide the
best partner to deliver each piece. You will
end up with a very different view of how to
deliver the business process.
Be prepared to partner with companies and
individuals who are better at a given function
than you are, even if it’s something that you
traditionally thought of as part of your own
core business and even if they’re someone
you historically viewed as a competitor.
Get the bright minds in your
organisation involved
At Dimension Data, we ‘partner’ with our
employees on an internal crowdsourcing
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INTELLIGENTCIO
“
BE PREPARED TO
PARTNER WITH
COMPANIES AND
INDIVIDUALS
WHO ARE BETTER
AT A GIVEN
FUNCTION THAN
YOU ARE, EVEN IF
IT’S SOMETHING
THAT YOU
TRADITIONALLY
THOUGHT OF
AS PART OF
YOUR OWN CORE
BUSINESS.
scheme whereby staff are encouraged to
develop software innovations. These can be
done in their own time, or created for client
projects. We bring the best ideas together
and formalise them for re-use elsewhere.
Partnering for innovation
CIOs need to select partners that can help
the organisation to drive ongoing innovation
and look to develop long-term partnerships
with the leading technology companies that
provide access to the world’s best resources.
As a member of the NTT Group, we’re able
to benefit from the company’s annual US$2
billion investment in global research and
development. Thanks to the many innovation
and collaboration initiatives with NTT, we can
create industry and client-specific intellectual
property that makes a difference today, while
keeping an eye on the future.
Digital transformation is not just an
IT project
The CIO should not be the only person in
the organisation to understand that digital
transformation is not just an IT project.
It affects many functional areas in the
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