Offering regional and national programs, CIO (and CSO) events bring together some of the most respected names and thought leaders in information technology and security. Presented by CIOs and other senior level executives, these invitation-only programs offer timely topics and strong networking. Learn More »
Public Council Teleconference: Application Rationalization — Hidden Costs and Smart Decisions
November 17 at 11:00 am US/Eastern (GMT-5)
Join Honorio Padrón, of The Hackett Group, who will share the drivers for companies to tackle application rationalization and the results of research that define the hidden cost of complexity. Additionally, we will discuss key decision milestones—to start or not, holding the course steady and fulfilling expectations.
Virtual Desktop Cost-Benefit Analysis — Michael Jacobs, Catlin Group
The analysis contained in this presentation measures the cost of everything from the machines and licenses to the infrastructure for virtual vs. traditional desktop environments.
Honor your best senior team members - Apply for the CIO Ones to Watch Award
Get well-earned public recognition for your top up-and-coming team members, your IT organization and your enterprise. Award winners will be announced, publicized and feted in May 2010, great timing to help attract new IT recruits to your company.
Learn more about the CIO Executive Council »March 03, 2008 — CIO —
When CIOs think about the global expansion of their enterprises, the G-word quickly comes to mind: governance. Their fear is that without carefully constructed governance, decision making, oversight and even simple visibility into the IT organization will quickly become muddled. When CIO Executive Council members last year created the Globalization Playbook, governance was a significant section. (Managing global teams was another aspect of the playbook; go here for an excerpt.)
The fundamental consideration in global governance is the control model. Should IT authority reside centrally, locally or incombination? There's no perfect model; one that works at one stage in a company's lifecycle may be a poor fit in another. However, most of the CIOs interviewed for the Council's playbook use a centralized model. That means the corporate CIO and the senior leadership team are responsible for decisions such as IT strategy, project prioritization, system selection and application development methodologies.
When significant local control is granted, the model becomes a hybrid in which enterprise standards and global systems are controlled centrally, but local IT management is responsible for selecting and managing some systems. A distributed model places nearly all authority at the local level, perhaps with some financial support systems or e-mail provided by headquarters. Purely local, decentralized control was the least-used governance model among the Council sources, although it gains traction as companies grow into diverse regions.
One simple way to think about your governance model is "centralize for efficiency, decentralize for effectiveness," says Michael Pilkington, former CIO of Brussels-based Euroclear. When considering a governance model, it's important to understand the operating mode of the business you're supporting. For example, does the company care about alignment across regions? At Motorola, alignment is critical, says Cathie Kozik, corporate vice president of supply chain IT. Given that, Motorola has gravitated toward centralized IT governance.