Drive Enterprise Resiliency Through Clarity, Agility, Reliability, and Sustainability

To support and accommodate digital business, IT strategy and governance must become agile, clear and in line with broader business objectives. For CIOs and their teams to thrive in digital business, they have to maintain an adaptive approach, integrating business and technology transformation to accelerate the execution of strategy. At the same time, CIOs have to manage through ongoing uncertainty and risk mitigation. 

CIOs in the New York community gathered recently to discuss the challenges, roadblocks and solutions for IT leaders as they prepare for the unknown. CEO Michael D’Onofrio of Orbus Software kicked off the discussion by suggesting a framework for thinking about resiliency. He noted that resiliency is “an orchestrated exercise that requires multiple teams to come together to solve complex problems” with the support and integration of technology. 

If you have this orchestration, along with technology or a platform, then your team and organization can improve clarity, maintain agility, enhance reliability and increase sustainability, and thus, lead through uncertainty with more tools and skills at your disposal.

52% of Fortune 500 companies from 2000 are now extinct.

Why Focus on Agility?

Michael shared a data point with the group about the cost of not making agility and sustainability areas of focus: more than half of Fortune 500 companies from 2000 are now extinct. Even more companies have been broken apart or acquired by someone else. He also noted that creating a framework for resiliency and sustainability can guide other decisions, such as on product development or roadmaps. 

CIOs and other C-suite leaders today need to create value in a variety of ways to drive their companies forward – whether that is value from customers, operations, or digital. If you can create value from digital, Michael noted, then your company is future-forward and more sustainable.
 

Where Does Resiliency Fit?

Leaders within the small group discussions noted that everyone is wondering where resiliency should reside within the organization. One noted that “we all do it slightly differently,” but it sits in his organization across the CIO/CTO/COO/CFO functions. Another IT leader posed the question of who should own it internally, particularly for financial or banking companies, where regulatory issues are a huge factor. All agreed that resiliency breakdowns or failures have enormous implications, including the publicity and fallout from customers. 

The CIOs also agreed that technological resilience is important, but there is a people aspect to it, as well. Regardless of your software, people are doing the buying and building and then implementing the policies and practices. 

Another CIO said he is thinking about it as “business resiliency first, then technology.” In other words, what do they need to keep the business going, and then which products or services would support that.

One IT leader observed that the consolidation of cloud providers is a good and a bad thing when it comes to resilience. If a platform goes down, does a certain group of people on the team have something to replace it?

A solid framework for organizational resilience can help stakeholders come together around a central source of truth or starting point when responding to disruptors, and focusing on this effort can help your organization remain viable into the future.
 

Key Takeaways from the Discussion

• It doesn’t matter how good your software is if you’re not focusing on the people side of your organization.
• Cloud consolidation has pros and cons. Do you have a backup plan for when your cloud service goes down?
• Resiliency doesn’t happen by accident — it’s an orchestrated exercise. It needs to be designed and planned.

by CIOs, for CIOs

Join the conversation with peers in your local CIO community.