Stop/Start/Do Differently:A new framework for evaluating

success in a future-ready enterprise

The future-ready imperative for the enterprise CIO and IT leader

The partnerships with HBR and the EIU

empirically illustrated two vital facts:

1. Organizations where the CIO was active

in setting business strategy with the

C-suite were more profitable by a 2:1

ratio than organizations where the

executives were not as active. This

highlighted the fundamental shift beyond

IT-Business alignment into leveraging IT

as a strategic lever to drive positive

financial performance.

2. When reviewing efficiency versus

innovation, organizations that focused

on innovative thinking and actions

solved efficiency challenges on a 4:1

ratio compared to organizations that

treated efficiency as the top priority.

For example, those who approached

OPEX pressures with an innovation-based

focus performed far better than those

focused on efficiency.

Dell Services has long recognized that

the world our CIO partners are living in is

undergoing radical change. All of us have dealt

with evolving technology, but fundamental

change in IT leadership is needed in order for

us to be exponentially more valuable now and

in the immediate future.

This research brief covers the history and

findings of primary research we conducted

through partnerships with the Harvard

Business Review (HBR), The Economist

Intelligence Unit (EIU) and Forbes, through

a series of interviews we conducted directly

with senior executives and through multiple

executive-level workshops. We realized that

the best way to plot the right pathways lies

in the hands of leading business thinkers.

This brief knits together the key findings and

insights from our primary research.

The challenges we wanted to address

were determining the right patterns

of behavior for the future IT leader to

adopt now, and which ways of thinking

and acting need to stop, start or be done

differently. Primary research was used

extensively to drive actionable insights

from thousands of executive leaders.

The challenges

we wanted to

address were

determining the right patterns and behaviors for

future IT leaders.

Our research partnership with Forbes delved

into how executive leadership and CIOs

determined how to view global trends as

opportunities or challenges. Research with

more than 400 leaders of large commercial

organizations in the United States examined

awareness and coping strategies for these

new paradigms.

• These executive leaders unequivocally

said they would be making fundamental

changes to their organizations because

of major global trends in population,

global competition and the economics

of business models.

• IT should be helping drive insights from

data and competitive analysis to move

this forward.

• These executives viewed IT as one of the

two major strategic levers for this new

world, with management models being

the other.

• This means 1 in 3 executives and their

organizations are going into the next

three or more years somewhat blind

to what IT can and should do for their

people and companies.

• They believe in the upside and/or need

to react to these changes, whereas the

remainder do not see the need to adapt.

• IT leadership needs to drive these

changes in order for the organization

to succeed.

True alignment and engagement between

the executive suite and IT leadership

coalesces with significant differences in

results. This relationship between the two

drives an innovation-first approach to solve

challenges like OPEX and future-world

preparation. The primary lens for many

CIOs in the recent past – an efficiency

first mantra – is now best delivered through

an innovation-led mindset.

By accessing a tool the EIU built for Dell

Services at www.theitchallenge.com, IT

leaders are able to assess their own alignment

with an innovation-first mindset with their

executive suite. Answers to 17 simple

questions provide indicators to alignment

with your executive leadership. Each question

is weighted to show the economic impact

of alignment to the best practices in each

respective area.

• IT Effectiveness: Average levels of

effectiveness decrease the chance to

outperform competition by -9.0%.

• IT Organization: Average alignment to

overall business leads to a huge drop

of -30% in the ability to outperform

competitors.

• IT Priorities: Average levels of alignment

on priorities - like security being cost

of entry versus differentiating - only

negatively changed the ability to

outperform the competition by a small

margin of -3%.

Review the results presented in this white paper from

Dell Services and EIU at www.innovatebusinessit.com/

economist-research-big-changes-for-it-larger-roles-

for-cios/

By 2014, we were measuring changes not

just in the ways CIOs were adopting this

model of alignment, engagement and an

innovation-first mantra, but also how they

were thinking about responding to large

global trends.

of executive leaders are ready for change

63%of these executives view IT as a major lever

66%of executives are ready to react

The efficiency-

first mantra

is now best delivered

through an

innovation-first

mindset.

Executives indicated they would be much

more aligned using an innovation-first lens

versus trying to be more efficient in 17 out

of the 20 global trends tested.

Innovation is part of the future-ready

undertone we have seen in these primary

research partnerships with HBR, the EIU

and Forbes. The other issue is time. A mere

three years was the window for making

changes of this magnitude.

Review the results presented in this white

paper from Dell Services and Forbes at

www.innovatebusinessit.com/wp-content/

uploads/2015/12/disrupt-or-be-disrupted.pdf

All research partnerships revealed unique

elements of preparing for the future. From

the economic power of CIO and CEO

engagement (EIU) to the potential power

of global trends to open new opportunities

(Forbes), each partnership looked to evaluate

what winning strategies, behaviors and

attitudes looked like.

Once the connection between the

research partnerships with HBR, the EIU

and Forbes became clear, we set out to

use these insights to build prescriptive

playbooks on how to change behaviors

and ultimately evolve to become an

innovation-first company.

In 2015, the CIOs who participated in

our workshops looked at building a set of

coping mechanisms around global trends,

improving alignment and developing a

better understanding of the underlying

need to make themselves and their teams

future ready.

We asked more than 500 executive leaders

to think NOT about the technology stacks

but to concentrate on the elements they

would stop, start and do differently. These

ideation sessions formed the backbone for

our 2015 research.

Our latest research, Stop/Start/Do

Differently: A new framework for evaluating

success in a future-ready enterprise, included

more than 400 executive, management and

IT leaders in large, U.S.-based organizations.

We asked respondents to select which

activities, attitudes, behaviors and ideas

they would stop, start and do differently

to succeed in five common, big-solution

areas: modernization of applications,

employee empowerment, customer

centricity, growth imperatives

and digital transformations.

In effect, more than 1,200 scenarios were

simulated choosing from 100 potential

statements. Respondents were asked about

the success of these big solution initiatives,

(i.e., had they met, exceeded, failed or could

not yet measure the success). Questions

around big global themes and their

competitive preparedness were also asked.

We surveyed

more than 500 executives and

asked what

they would

Stop, Start and

Do Differently

in order to be

successful.

Key findings

Less than half met or exceeded expectations on big solution initiatives

Only 48% of those we interviewed across the

five solution areas believed they had met or

exceeded expectations in their management

of these solution areas. The remainder

either did not meet expectations or did not

know how to measure success. If “meeting

expectations” is the most basic requirement

for obtaining results, then these are tough

areas for executive business leaders as they

have only a 48% chance of success.

The key question analyzed was whether

the behavior patterns of the 48% were

replicable or were the playbooks they used

so unique that they could not be replicated

or emulated.

The right technology is only the cost of entry for success

When we asked respondents the rank order

of the technology stacks they used to solve

each of the major initiatives, we found that

there were virtually no differences in the

ways leaders in business or IT prioritized

their solutions, even when comparing the

successful 48% to the others.

The insight is that success has more to

do with what the 48% stopped, started

and did differently compared to the

technology stack itself as the mark of

why they met or exceed expectations.

What you stop, start or do differently will lead either to success or failure

When comparing the successful 48% to

the others and what they stop, start and

do differently, the gaps show how stark

differences can drive success versus failure.

For example, on big initiatives like engaging

customers, the 48% did two things that the

others did not do: they stopped focusing

on traditional ways of working to solve the

problem and they stopped thinking that

social media was the panacea for all ills.

In terms of starting to do new things, the

top three lists of the 48% were completely

different from the remainder. This group

focused on experimenting with customer

services processes, identified activities

to drive loyalty and discussed customer

opportunities at the executive level.

This story is true in many ways across all five

of the big initiative areas. What you stop,

start and do differently matters.

IT can directly enable business growth in the 48%

For IT to help grow the business, the top

three things to do involve experimentation

with new types of customers, getting social

media to work better and optimizing the use

of outsourcing. IT leadership can and should

help identify big insights around new

customer areas and revenue streams

to help build secure platforms for

deeper integration of social media

in the fabric of the day to day practices

of the organization.

of C-suite leaders in

Fortune organizations

were economically

successful with major

transformational

initiatives.

When leveraging IT, the 48% who met or exceeded expectations had a completely different focus on what to do differently.

STOP

START

DO DIFFERENTLY

Driving modernization is a key role of IT leadership

The top three areas of focus for driving

modernization seem so simple: Invest

time and evaluate the competitions’ use

of innovation; focus on activities that

promote new ways of thinking; and look

for skills sets that are focused on innovation.

This is easier said than done, but it does

show the need to migrate away from

reactivity so that organizations can free

up insights, talents and energy that seem

to have a higher hit rate (in the 48%).

The importance of understanding how

competitors innovate using technology alone

should give IT leadership a place at the table.

Business executives and leaders listed this

as one of the key differentiating behaviors.

Executive leadership understands the

power of technology to deliver, so the CIOs

need to focus on the application of that

technology in how they think and report

on the competitive landscape.

If your key focus is to help grow the business, then conduct an in-depth review of your past processes

The 48% don’t focus on the ideas behind

past successes. Instead, they start

experimenting with new outcomes,

using social media as a tool to develop

market solutions and developing new

ways to streamline the environments in

which they work. The challenge in the do

different category involves changing the

way forecasting models are developed

and asking the CEO more questions. The

IT leader will need to adopt or amplify

skills in these areas in order to directly

help the organization grow.

This puts a new spin on how budgets should

be thought about (forecasting), how IT can

be increasingly streamlined and even how

great social listening tools can be used to

speed up the development of new solutions.

To help enable growth, IT leaders have

to look inside their own environments for

areas they need to stop doing, start doing

and do differently.

Future-ready job titles for the CIO will evolve to include security and digital

We asked respondents for their visions of

what job titles would best describe the CIO

of the future, offering “Chief Acceleration

Officer” as an alternative. While many

responses focused on “Chief Information

Officer” or “Chief Technology Officer,” many

others looked at alternatives, including “Chief

Innovation Officer,” “Chief Security Officer”

and “Chief Digital Officer.” In order to

stay relevant, future-ready CIOs will need

to take a more consultative approach

by examining what to stop, start and do

differently. This would include embracing

the ever-changing needs and expectations

of their respective organizations.

IT should be the backbone for supporting employee enablement

To improve workforce empowerment, the

48% who get expected or greater returns

were far more open to enabling employees

to innovate on their own. IT can offer

support processes and guidelines for this,

but the old paradigm of holding on to

power and ideas through the lens of

the IT function no longer works.

The opportunity lies in enabling the power

of the network of people and disseminating

those positive experiences.

The 48% who met or exceeded expectations on improving customer engagement were set apart from their peers by focusing on experimenting with new outcomes.

Three primary implications

Experimentation and alternatives rule

These two behaviors dominate the positive “do different” and “start” behaviors

of the 48%. “Try it and learn” is the new mantra for the successful 48%.

In five solution scenarios, experimentation and looking through alternatives

constitute 20% of the major differences.

1

Let go and empower others

Whether enhancing customer engagement, empowering employees, helping

drive growth or designing digital transformations, the 48% focus twice as much

on letting departments learn from new ideas or experiments. This means the

CIO becomes the conductor - not the player.

2

Dig deep into the processes before you head to the solution stack

It is so easy to try and do the same thing time and time again and expect

different results. The 48% showed us that success indexes more heavily

(3:1) when focused on thinking about challenging traditional views on

processes, resources and priorities.

3

Take a step back and look at what your organization needs to stop, start and do differently

with processes, ideas and resources in order to find the right path forward before thinking

about technology.

74% of executive leaders, management and IT

believe their organizations are ahead of the pack

in their industries.

Only 13% of executive leaders, management and

IT felt they were vulnerable to startups.

79% saw major global trends as important, but

only 39% had developed strategies to take

advantage of them. In addition, only 22% saw these

global trends as critical to their organizations.

Some other key findings

Please visit www.innovatebusinessit.com to learn more about the strategies and behaviors of other successful leaders.

79%

39%

22%