Pharmaceutical Executive Europe - April 2008 - (Page 24) 24 Technology: CIO Focus April 2008 Pharmaceutical Executive Europe 3. Form an IT Leaders round table where IT investment decisions (that is, new systems, services and processes) that benefit each business unit and comply with the corporate IT standards can be made. Assure that the IT leaders represent all of the business units whether doing similar or disparate work around the world. 4. Form a CIO/business owner round table where the CIO and other CxOs/VPs of all key business units can make investment decisions based on the IT leaders round table recommendations. Assure that responsibility for success/failure and the championing of all initiatives are shared between the CIO and the business owners. The bottom line. Centralise responsibility for standards, metrics and shared (that is, generic) services. Decentralise the delivery of specialised business-related systems/services. CONSENSUS OR REAL CHANGE? Is Leadership by Consensus an Oxymoron? There is no denying that biotech firms are having more success developing new products than established pharmaceutical companies. While the reasons are many, the most important are the focus on the individual and their ability to innovate and explore new ideas. Enlightened management at successful biotechnology firms like Genentech tries to maintain a culture of individualism even as it tries to facilitate the maturation process from being a research establishment to a full-blown commercial enterprise. It does this by creating and fostering a collegial atmosphere while introducing some control and discipline required for smooth operation. The collegial atmosphere engenders decision-making based on consensus. The expertise of the individual is sought and their reaction to proposed changes (negative or positive) is carefully considered. Unfortunately, the focus on achieving consensus often leads to paralysis or the sweeping of real issues under the rug. Examined more closely, it reveals a lack of leadership or the inability of those in charge to select a course of action, explain the reasons behind it and foster acceptance and support from the affected community. Nowhere are the consequences of the consensus method more keenly felt than in the selection and implementation of newer technologies that can improve business processes and foster operational excellence. Human nature tends to fight change and more often than not favours rejecting whatever is new in favour of what is. Consensus is thus a bad method for determining whether a new technology and its related processes should be chosen. It also comes at a high cost since most companies will assign resources (people, time, money) to evaluate a promising new approach that a lack of consensus will likely kill or delay. Those involved in the analysis will have wasted their time and feel discouraged when all is said and NOT done. Those in management will feel temporary comfort because they have averted the displeasure of those fighting change. They can also rationalise inertia by ‘protecting’ the collegial atmosphere. Unfortunately, the disease will fester and rear its ugly head when a cure will be harder to come by. Consolidate IT assets There is no question that tactical needs, legacy systems, decentralised decision-making, and merger and acquisition fallout have created an unsupportable mix of hardware, software, applications, services and processes that are a huge drain on information management (IM) budgets and productivity. It is time that a concerted effort is made to bring the IT infrastructure to a workable baseline level. The concern is not with the recognition of the problem but with its execution. In many cases, for example, the urge to consolidate comes simply from a dictate to save money. In one case, the CIO of a major pharmaceutical company was hired with the dictum that he cut roughly $100 million from the IT budget. Where the figure came from or how it was to be achieved was not discussed. Perhaps the best way is to make consolidation a by-product of a holistic process re-engineering effort. In other words, don't just look at how much it costs to run 20 data centres versus 4, or 10 instances of Oracle versus one. Rather: 1. Examine what business processes or activities are being served by the data centres or databases. 2. Determine how well those services are meeting the current and expected future needs of the business community. 3. Determine where system and/or process redundancies exist that could benefit from consolidation and/or rationalisation. 4. Plan and implement a prioritised list of initiatives that will achieve both financial and productivity goals. The bottom line. Consolidate IT assets by focusing on process reengineering in a holistic manner. Adopting a holistic approach to IM ‘Holistic’ can mean different things in different contexts. Under the context of the changed IT operating model, it means that the CIO shares the IM tent with the business owners/leaders. It also means that there has to be a sufficient number of IM leaders within the
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