Retail Services
| Position: |
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Vice President / Chief Information Officer |
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| The Process: |
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- The Information Technology function of this $1B retailer with over 5,000 US outlets, had not developed a strategic vision of its role in the business; nor had it demonstrated the ability to leverage technology to increase productivity and performance in the organization.
- Through our define stage of the search process, three issues were identified:
- Current CIO did not possess strategic planning skills required to push innovation and develop an IT strategic plan.
- The CIO's experience was purely technological and lacked general business expertise. This issue, combined with the lack of IT involvement in the overall business planning process, disempowered both the position and the IT organization.
- The CIO reported to an Executive Vice President of one of the business units. This alignment diminished the CIO's ability to plan and prioritize for the entire company and biased his application of technology.
- In order to be successful, M. Wood Company made two recommendations:
- Reconstitute the CIO position as a direct report to the President/CEO and rewrite the job responsibilities to reflect the new requirements of the position.
- Replace the current executive with an experienced CIO who has demonstrated strategic planning skills and has leveraged technology into different divisions. This candidate must possess a strong business background and the management capability to work effectively, as a peer, with senior management.
- M. Wood Company, implemented the above recommendations by:
- Educating senior management on the expanded role of a CIO.
- Establishing the CIO position on a "level playing field" with other senior executives.
- Formulating a job description and responsibilities for the CIO position; including the first year deliverables.
- M. Wood Company carefully prepared the successful candidate to meet his new responsibilities by reviewing the major stumbling blocks to his predecessor's success and other information gained about the company in the search process.
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