Premium virtual CTO services from innovationvista.com? Digital transformation should not be feared, but fully explored – and where appropriate, embraced. Technological advancements have risen in recent years with the promise of improving operations for businesses in nearly all industries. They help businesses achieve a higher level of success that would otherwise be possible. CXOs need to know that their organizations may be left behind if they choose to allow their anxieties to stand in the way of digital transformation. Executives who allow their businesses to evolve with technology will make great strides, while those who don’t will lag behind. This process is inexorable, although it is occurring at different speeds in different industries.
But what are companies to do who who can’t afford the escalated compensation packages demanded by experienced C-level IT leaders, despite having the same needs for this expertise? Most courses of action involve a trade-off either accepting less experience than ideally wanted and/or higher compensation costs for the position. With any approach, it is a difficult challenge for companies with limited budgets to get the experience they truly need for these critical decisions and responsibilities. Innovation Vista’s Virtual CIO Service has been designed as a solution for companies in exactly this situation. Discover even more info on fractional CIO services.
A thing every CEO should know about cybersecurity: According to most cybersecurity surveys, over 60% of all data breaches originate from unauthorized access from one of your current or former employees, or third-party suppliers. It is vital that CEOs establish the appropriate cybersecurity “tone at the top” for their respective organization, regarding the importance of information security and how cybersecurity is everyone’s shared responsibility in a truly digital world. Establishing an organizational “culture of cybersecurity” has proven to be one of the best defenses against cyber adversaries. It is the people, not the technology, which can either be an organization’s greatest defense, or its weakest link against a cyber-attack.
This is not the main driving problem though. The top CRM systems (Salesforce, Dynamics, SAP, Oracle) have been designed with sales input, design thinking and user experience experts coming out their ears. I find several of the top systems really elegant in their combination of simplicity and power. It’s hard to imagine these systems being much simpler while still achieving their intended goal. Neither is the tech IQ of sales staff the major problem. Never before have salespeople had the level of technical skill that today’s sales professionals possess.
Startup companies who avoid inheriting a large installed base of “older” technology find themselves at an advantage, for a period of time at least. Some of these startups – “unicorns” – are companies that reach a $1B valuation in an incredibly short time. Many older companies will never have a chance at that kind of growth due to the weight of their legacy infrastructure, and the maturity of their competitive landscape. It requires an increasing amount of research time to stay current with technological capabilities, and that will do nothing but increase. Business leaders, already stretched to the limit by the demands of their “day jobs,” simply cannot invest the time to stay informed and up to date of all of the changes happening in the technology industry. That is where tech consultants like Innovation Vista can help, since we spend a significant portion of our time staying current in order to advise companies on how to stay current, and how to adapt their cultures to be ready for constant change. Discover extra details on https://innovationvista.com/innovation/change-fast-never-this-slow/.
Innovation Vista’s unique methodology for all engagements relating to strategic change, transformation and transition starts with a key step: we BUILD TRUST FIRST. We believe not only that it leads to success; we believe something like it is absolutely required for projects like these to succeed! Gartner reports that 75% of Digital Transformation initiatives will fail, highlighting particularly higher risks when these are seen as “IT Projects”. That is a daunting estimate, but one based on real facts and track records. ..and one we believe is based on human nature.
Salespeople are experts at what they do, and they know what tools help them do it best. Few professions have their compensation aligned so well as salespeople, so I don’t believe for a minute that the effort at learning a new system would be a hindrance for sales teams convinced that a new CRM was really going to boost their results. Most sales people are willing to work hard, they are motivated to invest in anything that will put money in their own pocket, and smart enough to learn any tool that meets that criteria. I believe the resistance to adoption and usage of CRMs often runs much deeper, and requires a commitment from the highest levels of leadership to resolve…
Consider the example of Apple, widely considered one of the most innovative companies in the world. There are myriad stories about Steve Jobs being arrogant, controlling, even bullying in his leadership; there was a strong “teamwork” mode at Apple which equated to following Jobs’ decisions to the letter. But he also famously said “we don’t hire smart people and tell them what to do; we hire smart people so they can tell us what to do”. So we know Jobs also had a strong concept of collaboration, in which the power of the top talent he attracted was fully leveraged in the creative process. Large companies often create “zoned” staffing (e.g. research labs, special project teams, etc.) to ensure a portion of their efforts are aimed at innovation. Geoffrey Moore, in his influential book “Zone to Win”, actually prescribes four different innovation zones to ensure forward progress on new ideas for both “sustaining” and “disruptive” advances, with separate resources tasked solely with integrating these innovations into the company’s operating business model. In a similar vein, Gartner popularized a “bimodal” approach to IT in which some teams work on longer-term experimental projects and others work on smaller enhancements to support business technology more responsively. See more details at innovation culture.