Pharmaceutical Executive Europe - April 2008 - (Page 20) 20 Technology: CIO Focus April 2008 Pharmaceutical Executive Europe a knowledge-based business, the CEO can’t afford to push responsibility for IM to any subordinate and must give the CIO a seat at the table where all his/her direct-reports also sit. The CEO must then make sure that the CIO is deserving of the position and is not only a technologist but also one who understands the business and the key forces acting upon it. In a large pharmaceutical firm, with many divisions having their own IM/IT organisations, the CIO has to be curious enough to learn the business of each of those divisions and take responsibility for, rather than delegate, the way their constituents are served. The CEO must recognise also the tremendous influence that IM can have on new product development (that is, R&D), administrative (that is, shared) services and outsourcing. (S)he must demand from the CIO proper attention to each of these areas with a focus on cost savings being only a secondary consideration. Most important, the CEO must direct and hold all of her/his direct reports responsible for the success of any IM program or project. In essence, they must be equal partners with, rather than the customers of, the CIO. The chief R&D officer R&D is an extremely complex undertaking requiring specialisation in all parts of the business. From a traditional point of view, look no further than the need to maintain separate groups for data management and biostatistics. From an emerging point of view, witness the current focus on building pharmacogenomic or systems biology organisations. In each case, the level of expertise required to understand the discipline has led to the isolation of IM activities. Data management, for example, relies on systems for data management and clinical trial management. Biostatistics relies on statistical analysis tools like SAS, reporting tools like iReview and Spotfire and the tried and true Unix file system to manage datasets received from Data Management. A similar and highly specialised computing infrastructure is now emerging in pharmacogenomics and systems biology. With the mantra from senior management that everyone must do more with less, it is and should be the responsibility of the head of R&D to deal with complexity by breaking down the barriers to communication and collaboration among the organisations for which he/she is responsible. Since the barriers are now reinforced by the systems used in each organisation, the head of R&D must also force a holistic review and redesign of the systems and processes across all R&D organisations. Such an undertaking must be preceded by a mandate that all those reporting directly to the head of R&D take responsibility for the creation of a collaborative and transparent R&D environment and work as equal partners with the CIO to implement systems that support this mission. In other words, the head of R&D must insist that his/her subordinates no longer focus IM only on the organisation under their direct span of control but that they take full responsibility for the success of a shared computing infrastructure implemented in collaboration with the CIO. With a growing reliance on outsourced activities, the head of R&D must also recognise the importance the CIO can play to assure that R&D activities are performed with the same level of care and quality as if done in-house. The implications of outsourcing on information management have not truly been evaluated and represent a silent but potentially fatal risk to the entire R&D programme. IM can be leveraged in a proactive manner to minimise such risk while improving collaboration and communication between the company and its partners. Without the X factor in play, the CIO cannot succeed. Without leadership, effective management and strong collaboration from and among these individuals, everything that the CIO attempts to do will be below par or result in failure. The CFO It is a historical truth that CIOs have and continue to report to the chief financial officer (CFO). From a historical perspective, this de facto reporting relationship arose from the need to automate financial functions like sending invoices, receiving payments and cutting pay checks. Later, these CIOs began to take on other challenges including those in R&D and manufacturing. For reasons good and bad, changing the CIO–CFO reporting relationship did not happen. Today, it should be the responsibility of the CFO to recognise that the promise of IM requires the elevation of the CIO position and thus the sundering of this traditional reporting relationship. It is a minor tragedy, for example, that a highly competent CIO at a major California-based biotechnology firm recently resigned her post simply because the CFO did not recognise the importance of IM to the firm. The CIO It could be argued that there are only three people in the company who must know about all aspects of the business: the CEO, CFO and CIO. The CEO should provide leadership, set direction and manage progress, the CFO should manage and track resources and the CIO should help everyone do their jobs more effectively.
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