Act Now and Save on Registration for Our Next IT Think Tank

Never before have CIOs and IT teams been so critical to the company's growth strategy, and never has it been so important to showcase IT's impact on the business. While there are definitely challenges ahead, this is a time of significant and electrifying change for IT executives. New industries, business models, and products will emerge, organizational roles and relationships will be redefined, and IT will be at the epicenter of it all.

Frost & Sullivan is pleased to announce the 3^rd Annual ConNEXTions 2015: A Frost & Sullivan Executive MindXchange, featuring a unique format designed to help CIOs and other IT professionals navigate this new environment and plan for the future. In an effort to maximize the value of this think tank and its interactive discussions, Frost & Sullivan has invited a selection of cross-vertical IT leaders. Most of the content will be PowerPoint-free, relying on interactive discussions to engage you and your peers in small groups and facilitate candid discussions and cross-industry leaning. The date and location have been confirmed for February 8-10, 2015, in San Francisco.

For this year’s event, Frost & Sullivan has invited representatives from sectors such as:

• Information and Communication Technology (eBay, Expedia, Yahoo!, Xerox, Honeywell)
• Financial Services (The Blackstone Group, Charles Schwab, JP Morgan Chase, Wells Fargo)
• Government Administration (U.S. Department of Energy, U.S. Department of Commerce, City of Palo Alto, California Department of Public Health, Office of Management and Budget)
• Healthcare and Medical Devices (Abbott Laboratories, Cardinal Health, CVS Caremark, United Health Group, Quest Diagnostics)

Building close relationships with peers in other organizations and industries will be critical for IT leaders to develop the innovative ideas and best practices needed to help their companies succeed in the future. Past participants agree the unique format of a Frost & Sullivan Executive MindXchange offers the best opportunities to network, build relationships, and share best practices with peers.

To reserve your spot in this innovative information technology think tank, be sure to take advantage of Frost & Sullivan’s new Colleagues and Clients referral program. If you refer a colleague who signs up for the event, you will receive a $250 discount on your registration. And if someone you refer signs up before September 30^th, he or she will receive a $500 discount.

To maximize your savings and make sure your company is represented at the event, register now for the 3^rd Annual ConNEXTions 2015: A Frost & Sullivan Executive MindXchange, or pass the word along to a technology person in your organization who will benefit.

Submit Your Nomination for the 2015 CIO Impact Awards

All industries are changing fast, and no business can survive without serious digital innovation. As a result, CIOs and other IT leaders have never been more integral to their organizations’ success than they are now.

At the 2015 CIO Impact Award and Gala, Frost & Sullivan will honor those IT leaders who are true game-changers and have stepped up to help their companies innovate, overcome challenges, and capitalize on new opportunities. To make sure your organization or others are considered, submit your nomination today. Nominations are open to companies and their IT teams from around the world. For each nomination submitted, nominees are required to identify a senior project sponsor at the VP level or above.

Held annually during CoNEXTions: A Frost & Sullivan Executive MindXchange, The CIO Impact Awards honor enterprise teams and individuals that are enabling breakthrough new business models and strategies through the innovative use of transformative technologies.

The CIO Impact Awards recognize top performers in the following categories:

• Enterprise Social Networking
• Advanced Software Development
• Advanced Analytics and Big Data
• Enterprise Architecture
• Mobility
• Cloud Computing
• Unified Communications and Collaboration
• Data and Network Resilience

In addition to those award categories, the CIO Impact Awards will honor two CIO Innovators of the Year from among all of the project award winners. These winners are CIOs whose teams had the most positive impact on their enterprises’ strategic innovation and who delivered a significant competitive advantage.

Winners of the CIO Impact Awards will be presented with their award at a gala on the final day of the event, February 10, 2015, in San Francisco, and will be recognized in front of their peers as global IT leaders.

To learn more, join winners of the 2014 awards for a complimentary eBroadcast, The CIO Impact Awards Experience: What It Takes To Be a Winner, Wednesday, July 30, at 2 pm EDT.

CIO Impact Awards Experience: What it Takes to be a Winner in Today’s Competitive, Untraditional Corporate World

Frost & Sullivan will host the complimentary CIO Impact Awards Experience Webinar revealing how global executives can prepare for imminent transformations

WHEN: 2:00 p.m. EDT on Tuesday, July 30, 2014
LOCATION: Online, with free registration
SPEAKERS: Frost & Sullivan’s Global Vice President, Research and Editorial Director David Brousell; Research Director Jeffrey Moad; NutriSaving’ CIO and COO Niraj Jetly; and The College Network’s CIO Ryan Sallee

We live in a world where the status quo and traditional strategies no longer suffice, where what we least expect happens more often than not, and where the very nature of what it means to innovate is forever changed. How can executives prepare for these shifts, and who are the leaders taking advantage of these trends?

Frost & Sullivan’s upcoming, complimentary “CIO Impact Awards Experience Webinar: What It Takes To Be A Winner,” will address how your organization can get the recognition it deserves as a world class IT innovator.

Attend this webinar to learn:
• How CIO Impact Award winners such as NutriSavings and The College Network are leveraging new technologies to disrupt and win in their markets
• The value of receiving recognition for your own innovative IT achievements
• How to craft a winning CIO Impact Awards nomination

Register to attend the “CIO Impact Awards Experience Webinar: What It Takes To Be A Winner,” by visiting: http://bit.ly/UglbPB

• This webinar serves as an early taste of what the 3rd Annual ConNEXTions 2015: A Frost & Sullivan Executive MindXchange and CIO Impact Awards & Gala will offer, February 8-10, 2014, in San Francisco, CA.

• Executives and organizations can submit nominations for the most innovative CIO or IT team for the upcoming CIO Impact Awards & Gala 2015.

Visit www.frost.com/cioawards to learn more. Join the conversation on Twitter: #FrostNEXT

Is Your Head in the Cloud?

By Nabil Fares

Deputy Director and Chief Information Officer

California Department of Public Health

While the cloud can bring a lot of benefits to enterprise technology, it creates several new challenges as well. During a session at this year’s 2nd AnnualConNEXTions 2014: A Frost & Sullivan Executive MindXchange, Nabil Fares of the California Department of Public Health (CDPH) shared his experience with battling security and complexity challenges and finding business agility and sustainability in the cloud. 

Like most CIOs, Fares was faced with the challenge of managing an IT system that was overly complex, hard to maintain, and increasingly difficult to secure. 

When Fares took over his role, he inherited a system of unconsolidated, fragmented IT operations, he said. Individuals in different business units had often chosen and implemented IT solutions on their own. The end result was a mix of seven different phone systems, 14 major data networks, three email systems, 22 helpdesks, 13 LAN organizations, and 200 IT job titles, including contractors.

To cut costs and improve efficiency and security, Fares decided to put an end to that “open buffet.”

Set Limits

In many companies, employees and business units are being granted more freedom in what technology they choose to work with. However, Fares stressed the importance of setting limits to keep complexity from getting out of hand. That’s why decided to limit choices to just two solutions. Only an organization with unlimited resources would be able to manage an open buffet IT system.

While the previous CIO decentralized IT, Fares consolidated systems under one government cloud. That consolidation resulted in increased efficiency and effectiveness, as well as stronger security. 

However, achieving those benefits required significant reinvention of several key areas, Fares said, including:

· IT governance

· Procurement, finance, and facilities management

· IT staff management, and

· Communications management.

Key areas of the IT infrastructure were impacted, including application development and delivery, help desk services, data centers, web hosting, etc.

3-Phase Approach

To successfully move to a cloud-based, consolidated system, Fares took a three-phase approach over the course of 30 months:

1. For phase one, Fares appointed IT managers and identified loyal IT champions in other business units to provide support. The team consolidated line IT budgets and created IT governance processes and the groups to enforce them.

2. In phase two, the organization conducted detailed planning and took inventory of all current IT assets. Fares prepared the IT staff for the transition and offered the training they needed. The team also refined IT’s chargeback model, began implementing individual department’s consolidation plans, consolidated data centers, and negotiated shared software licenses.

3. For phase three, the implementation phase, IT upgraded its infrastructure in the cloud. The team has kept its focus on improving service delivery and measuring the results of the project.

A key part of a successful transition to a new computing environment is managing staff properly. In a consolidated, cloud-based system, people will need different skills than in the past, so they must be properly trained.

Build the Right Team  

It’s also important to attract and retain the right people, Fares said. IT staff members must be agile and ready to adapt. Fares is proud of his department’s 0.03% attrition rate. He is able to retain experts because the employees are exposed to more business lines so they learn a lot and get to see the big picture of the impact their work has on the organization.

A key challenge to this top-down, consolidated approach is getting everyone throughout the organization on the same page. That can be accomplished with effective communication and having a clear vision of what organization is hoping to accomplish. The motive and scope must be clearly defined.

When managing this difficult transition, Fares recommended CIOs:

• Be proactive.

• Develop selection criteria and governance models.

• Use a business impact analysis.

• Ensure that private cloud initiatives extend beyond virtualization.

• Use external cloud brokers.

• Position IT as a cloud service broker.

• Coordinate cloud and mobile strategies.

Fares admitted that this top-down approach can be difficult for others to accept, but with his loyal deputy model, he was able to consolidate talent and systems to centralize IT. His message to other parts of the organization has been, “Let me bake so you can eat.” By that he means, the other units should let him team worry about IT so the rest of the organization is free to focus on their core work.

For more insight pulled from ConNEXTions 2014, be sure to download a copy of Frost & Sullivan’s ExecutiveMindXchange Chronicles, a collection of summaries from all of the event’s sessions.