The Show Must Go On

In the wake of the recent global financial crisis, a recent Gartner CEO survey¹ cited 68% of chief and senior executives see business conditions as “rather uncertain” for the foreseeable future.  In spite of this uncertain environment, the show must go on. CEOs are increasing their investments in initiatives that target growth, improved profitability and programs that focus on the customer experience (see our blog: How Can CIOs Prepare for the Age of the Customer? ). 

Roughly 60% of the CEOs and senior executives surveyed by Gartner stated they would actually increase investments in the areas of product enhancements, sales, and IT to drive execution against these initiatives. 

For those of us who spend our days helping corporate executives gain the transparency needed to make better business decisions, this comes as welcome news.  Whether your perspective of the business world looks at things from the outside-in  or from the inside-out, it will probably comes as no surprise that the general consensus amongst decision makers and corporate by-standers is that most organizations invest a great deal in developing a business strategy and almost none on the execution. 

As most of us know, it is in the execution process that the majority of strategies fail (see Black Swan Blog).   In fact, Dr. David Norton puts the rate of failure of business strategy at 90%².  This metric draws even more attention to the fact that in a tough economic environment companies cannot afford to waste valuable resources on strategies that fail.  Hence, in order for the show to go on, the challenge facing enterprise architects is to deliver signature-ready recommendations that can help their organizations meet the objectives set out by their CEOs.

That’s where an Enterprise Portfolio Management (EPM) approach to enterprise architecture can help.  According to the Gartner survey, CEOs and senior executives must pick the winning strategies and execute flawlessly.   This is something business-outcome driven EPM supports (see blog: Doing the Right Thing vs. Doing Things Right).  By clearly identifying the expected outcomes and having a well-understood process to execute, the chances of success significantly increase.

CIOs and enterprise architecture teams are uniquely positioned to help drive this success.  Gartner’s CEO survey states that improvements in organizational performance can be achieved in a number of ways. The two most common are the redesign of the supporting business processes and the use of IT to automate the business process. Typically, these are done in combination.

Over 50% of the CEOs surveyed stated they will be making significant investments in technologies and solutions such as business analytics and enhanced business reporting (see blog: The Secret to Better Decision Making) over the next 5 years to drive business improvements in the areas of growth, profitability, and the customer experience.

Even in these tough and uncertain economic times it is encouraging to see ‘The Show Must Go On’ reflected by the desire on behalf of executives to invest in technologies that drive business improvements.  By leveraging EPM solutions, CEOs and senior executives can ensure the business performance improvements they seek are actually delivered.  EPM solutions help clearly identify and link strategies to the business outcomes that they are intended to drive, as well as the business capability and business process change needed.  The best way to ensure that a business outcome is targeted to meet business needs is to map to the critical strategic questions that senior executives ask (download our Mindmap).  EPM solutions can add value by providing insight and line of sight into business and IT operations to ensure corporate goals, strategies, business process, and IT are synchronized and aligned.

Please click here to download a complimentary copy of the Gartner CEO and Senior Executive Survey 2013.

0

0