Enterprise Value Awards: How We Picked the Winners

Round One: Best in Class

Starting in spring 2003, teams of CIO editors and Enterprise Value review board members?researchers, consultants and former CIOs?took charge of the industry categories and evaluated 150 applicants. In several of the industries, such as financial services, a who’s who of big names shared the list with smaller companies. A handful demanded consideration in each industry by demonstrating significant, core enterprise value. To choose a single winner in each industry, the review board and editor teams conducted a series of teleconferences to clarify and verify the IT systems’ data. Their interviews with IT leaders, business sponsors, end users, customers and third-party industry experts stretched through the summer.

“The review board members are trained researchers, have seen quite a few systems and applications, and as a result, they ask the tough questions to really find out about the enterprise value the applicant is getting from the system,” says Richard W. Swanborg, Awards cochair and president and founder of research group ICEX.

Weighing the evidence, the teams made their choices in September, selecting one organization from each of 10 industry categories to take home a CIO Enterprise Value Award. Interestingly, in a number of industries, including the aforementioned financial services, it was a little guy who garnered the prize, beating out Fortune 500 titans.

“The natural tendency would be to think that the largest of the companies would have the most interesting and highest value technology,” notes Sheila Smith, review board member and managing partner of Omega Point Consulting. “But in fact, some of the smaller companies were actually doing very innovative things and providing more value, relatively speaking, for their enterprise.”

Round Two: Peer Review

Next, it was up to the review board to convey each winner’s passion to a panel of CIO judges. Their task was to pick one organization to win the Grand CIO Enterprise Value Award.

Sequestered in a Boston hotel conference room on Nov. 11, 2003, the four CIO judges listened to review board members present the details, strengths and ROI of the 10 industry winners’ systems. Awards Cochair Abbie Lundberg, editor in chief of CIO, clarified questions of criteria and made sure the judges observed the ground rules. The CIOs rated the companies’ systems in five areas of impact: strategic, customer, financial, operational and social. Lundberg steered the judges away from speculation, asking that they consider only the enterprise value that already had been secured, not what the enterprise might (or might not) realize down the road. She also settled an unusual quandary when the judges identified value that had been overlooked by one of the industry winners. Should they credit the company with this value or consider only what the company identified in its application? Lundberg decided that the judges should base their decision on only what had been identified in the application. (A company that can’t recognize value is unlikely to realize it.)

The Grand Prize

The 2004 Grand CIO Enterprise Value Award winner?the Chicago Police Department, which had won in the government category?quickly emerged as the judges’ top choice, scoring high marks across several areas of impact. “It was an example of exemplary change management and value creation along all

dimensions that we were looking at,” says AndrŽ Spatz, awards judge and CIO of Unicef.

The CPD’s change management challenge also counted heavily with judge Rebecca R. Rhoads, vice president and CIO of Raytheon. “The change management work that was done there was phenomenal,” she says. “And it reminds us all that at the end of the day, the enterprise value is going to come from effective change management.”

The Chicago Police as well as the other nine industry winners prevailed after a rigorous vetting process. “It’s a remarkable accomplishment, and the organizations should be proud,” says judge John Glaser, vice president and CIO of Partners HealthCare System and a former award winner himself.

Adds Spatz, a recent CIO 100 Award winner, “It’s motivating and exciting for the IT organization and the company to be recognized by peers and by the IT industry. It creates a lot of goodwill, and it shows that the IT organization is performing in a different league.”

The Judges

FROM LEFT: AndrŽ Spatz, CIO, Unicef; Rebecca Rhoads, VP and CIO, Raytheon; John Glaser,

VP and CIO, Partners HealthCare System; Paul Gaffney, executive VP and CIO, Staples, in Boston at the Nov. 11 judging.

The Review Board

FROM LEFT:

Richard Swanborg, cochair, CIO Enterprise Value Awards, and president and founder, ICEX

Madeline Weiss, president, Weiss Associates

Doug Barker, CEO, Barker & Scott Consulting

Sheila Smith, managing partner, Omega Point Consulting

Susan Cramm, president, Valuedance

Kathleen Curley, research professor, Information Systems Department, Boston University School of Management

Bob Reck, president and cofounder, Kendall Consulting Group

Not pictured: Jim McGee, director, Huron Consulting Group