IDG News Service — What will be the standout business and technology challenges in the post-recessionary environment? We canvass a panel of executives and analysts on what to do now for the organisation, the ICT team and your career. Deliver customer valueJonathan Iles, CIO, Carter Holt HarveyDuring the financial crisis that saw enterprises pulling the plug or holding off on key programmes, Jonathan Iles and his team were working on "fairly major projects"."In fact, there will be more this year," says the chief information officer of Carter Holt Harvey. As he tells his team, "We are sailing into the perfect storm. So let us batten down the hatches, get those ships ready so that when we go into this, we are highly motivated, we know what we are doing, and we manage to hold everything together."He says with the past year the focus of ICT at CHH was delivering customer value, and this will continue in the next 12 months. "2010 will still be very much moving into value and improving the relationships with our customers."The projects around this range from an ERP upgrade to what Iles calls "very basic things", like CRM and pricing and invoicing systems. "This means our customers, people who buy our wood products, our pulp paper, our packaging; they have a better experience for us so we go for greater market share. That is what really drives most value to the business."As well, the team is preparing for shifts throughout the year. "I expect to see some major structural changes in the business over the next 12 to 18 months and that is going to add to a lot of projects at the same time," says Iles. "We need to maintain the high quality of infrastructure delivery, despite the fact that we are containing costs.""We are driving really hard on infrastructure," he says. "We have made some major savings that allowed us to spend more money on ERP, without increasing the budget.""This is about, 'How do I align with the business strategy? Am I implementing the right strategy to fit the business?'"Like his executive colleagues, the past year has delivered a handful of lessons for Iles. Foremost is, "You need to be ruthless with your business cases." The second is the value of having flexible contracts with key vendors. "This flexibility should enable no-penalty changes to be made -- including the ability to terminate services at no cost," say

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