Manoj Garg - The Edge: Business Performance Through Information Technology Leadership

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The Edge -

Business Performance through Information Technology Leadership

Published by:

Virtual Information Executives, LLC

12639 NW Waker Drive, Portland, OR 97229

www.viellc.com/resources/the-edgeinformation@viellc.com

Copyright 2015 Manoj Garg, Michael Scheuerman

All rights reserved.

The Edge is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the authors imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

ISBN13: 978-0-578-17120-3

ISBN: 978-1-483-56064-9

Library of Congress Control Number: 2015916688

Also published simultaneously in eBook format

For bulk ordering copies of this book, please contact VIE at

Cover design by: BookBaby

Book design by: BookBaby

Printed in the United States of America

Contents

Acknowledgements

We wish to thank all those whose expertise, generously given, has made this book possible: first and foremost, Afton Nelson; without her help and dedication, this book would not have been possible. We would also like to thank our clients who, over the years, have placed their faith in us and allowed us to look deeply into their organizations and learn what we hope is conveyed in this book. We also would like to thank all those who read and commented on the rough drafts of the book. Their input is greatly appreciated and contributed to making this book much better. Lastly, we would like to thank our spouses, who supported us whole-heartedly throughout not only the writing of this book but also through all the years while we garnered the experience needed to write it.

Manoj Garg

Mike Scheuerman

October, 2015

Introduction

Most business executives know that technology is a key ingredient for business success. At the same time, they are baffled by the complexity, costs and challenges in implementing technology methods they are not skilled in.

In most mid-size businesses, executives think of technology as a necessary evil and a cost to be minimized. However, with the right application, technology can increase speed of business dramatically while lowering costs. When leveraged appropriately, technology plays a strategic role in a company, driving business innovation, increasing customer satisfaction, and finding new markets and new revenue sources to drive the top line.

U.S. census from 2014 data reveals that there are around 180,000 firms in the nation with revenues between $10 million and $1 billion annually. These firms typically rely on enterprise-wide software applications, and often deploy specialized technology to stay competitive in their markets. Their C-level executives and key managers keenly understand that technology is strategic, not tactical. They know its a tool for business success, and continually evolving. But technology is also an occasional mystery to many executives.

They wonder:

How can IT bring competitive advantage to our company?

How can IT help drive improved performance of the critical departments in our organization?

How can IT increase productivity and reduce our need to hire more people?

How can IT protect our intellectual property and business secrets?

Which of all the cool new technologies can help our organization?

How can we navigate through all these super-expensive IT products and services?

Is IT helping ensure our compliance with laws and policies?

Are we capable of selectingmuch less implementinga key software package thats vital to our future business success?

Not understanding or properly implementing Information Technology can cost companies dearly. A McKinsey & Co. study done in 2012 of 5400 large scale IT projects found that 17% of those projects go so badly that they threaten the companys very existence. On average, large IT projects ran 45% over budget and over time, while delivering 56% less value than predicted.

Heres another example: Cover Oregon, a project undertaken by the State of Oregon to implement a Healthcare Exchange, cost taxpayers over $300 million and had to be abandoned due to complexity and project management challenges.

The Edge is a business novel that educates senior business leaders how to get an edge in running their companies through the strategic use of Information Technology. It gives executives the knowledge and tools to guide their company as it transitions from a mid-level to a high-level competitor in the marketplace. It takes the wondering out of the picture and shows business leaders what software applications and specialized technologies can do. Through its narrative, it simultaneously tells the tale of a company and the struggles of the family that runs it, while describing principles of technology management.

For the reader who does not have the time to read the novel, they can skip to the Concepts Tutorial for a quick 30-minute education on how to manage IT for maximum business value.

Forging Ahead

Jack flipped on the light in his office and paused for a moment to look around. The picture of his wife and kids still stood watch over the mess of papers on his desk, his leather chair still had that little rip in the seat from the time he forgot about the pen in his back pocket, the wide window still looked out onto the parking lot full of his employees cars, and the walls were still covered with advertising posters from the last twenty years of Mama Megs Cookies. The face on every poster, the person the public associated with home-baked goodness, was his mother, Meg McCallister.

It was exactly the same as hed left it last Friday, but today, just three days later, everything seemed so different now that Meg was gone. Her funeral over the weekend had made final what Jack, until recently, could never have imagined happening. His larger-than-life mother, who seemed like she could go on forever, had turned out to be merely human, just like everyone else.

It had been three years since shed pulled away from daily operations at Mama Megs, yet her presence was still felt at every level of the company she built, from Jacks CEO office, all the way down to the drivers who delivered cookies to stores all over the west. How could it not?

As a single mom, Meg had taken her company from her kitchen to a fifteen-thousand-square-foot plant bringing in fifty million dollars a year. Her scrappy determination, along with her sweet-as-pie public persona, made her a well-loved public figure everyone wanted to root for. Jack had learned long ago that even though Margaret McCallister came home to him and his siblings every night, everyone who loved Mama Megs cookies claimed her as their mother, too.

It had been five years since Jack took the helm as CEO after years of working at the company, but today he felt a touch of the same anxiety hed had on his first day, unsure of where or what to anchor himself to without his mothers moorings. He turned his attention to the unread email in his inbox. There was one from Marcia Ashcraft, his Vice President of Marketing, about the PR plan for Megs passing. He flagged it to remind himself to look at it later and clicked open the email from Walt Torbet, his CFO. The attached file had the latest earnings report he hoped would be enough to impress the Board of Directors at the meeting this afternoon.

He scrolled through quickly to the bottom line and his gut clenched: nowhere close to where they needed to be for this time of year. At this rate, they wouldnt meet their quarterly goals, and if the trend continued, their yearly goals were in jeopardy also. The Board was going to eat him alive.

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