CIOs benefiting from Interim’s

CIOs benefiting from Interim’s

by | 3 Jan 2020 | Consulting

4 key objectives CIOs can benefit from using Interims to deliver less politics, and more action

Taking charge of a programme by an interim for what’s considered a short period of time doesn’t mean the Interim can’t make a big impact to an organisation.

Full-time positions allow CIOs to get their teeth sunk into an organisation and to lead an IT-enabled business transformation but not every CIO, is a permanent role. Then bodes the question; Why should technology chiefs consider utilising interim positions and what benefits do they gain from these temporary roles?

1. Dive into challenges that are inaccessible to full-time CIOs

Reading an interesting blog from Chris Chandler, head of the CIO practice at recruitment specialist La Fosse Associates, who is a big advocate for the interim CIO role. He says that, in some instances, taking a temporary position can allow a CIO to design and deliver what they deem to be the optimal IT structure for the business.

“Such interims are often free from the politics that can restrain their full-time counterparts,” says Chandler. “Operating without such constraints can be wholly liberating for CIOs and often leads to more radical IT transformations.”

A word of caution however is to not use a transformational interim CIO to focus on BAU (business as usual) activities which often require them to conform to the status-quo of the organisation. The interim in these circumstances consequentially has limited, or no, freedom to follow his or her natural change or transformation instincts and capabilities.

Chandler goes on to say, “Experience from the recruitment industry suggests that, generally speaking, organisations are increasingly industry-agnostic when it comes to appointing interim CIOs”.

Therefore, aside from the obvious over qualified capabilities that often accompany interim positions, these appointments can offer CIOs the opportunity to dive into new sectors and challenges that would not be accessible to their permanent counterparts.

2. Treat the interim position as access to valuable learning experiences

One of the biggest benefits to any company taking advantage of bringing an Interim into their Change programmes is the multi-company experience that they bring – having the opportunity to engage in so many differing corporate environments brings skills you cannot get in the short term working in one company.

The requirements of one interim placement to the next also have extensive varying elements and this sharpens another skill within Interims and that’s complacency – they are always in a new environment having to look at the situation that they are immediately in front of so no time to sit back and relax. Interims are dedicated to finding resolution to business problems quickly, to mitigate costs, and to drive change to the company.

“In a recent assignment I was engaged with, the company was on the verge of signing a contract with a global Outsource supplier and they wanted someone to come in and give them a second opinion,” states Craig Ashmole, Founding Partner of London-based IT Consulting CCServe. “I came in, assessed the geo-markets, built an ROI business case and recommended an alternative solution that presented more than $20million savings over a 5-year period”.

In total, Ashmole spent five months building the business case, gathering all the BI data to put together a report for the board. He advised that certain geo-markets were easy to follow into from an outsourcing perspective, but that other considerations like Customer Service levels and access for company directors to keep close to the Centre of Excellence were quite different to what was initially thought.

“My job was to provide the company with a viable compelling strategy,” says Ashmole. “The strategy demonstrated that the global market knowledge he brought to the table opened up other avenues not previously thought of. The Board agreed with the strategy, signed it off and he was then asked to remain for an additional 13 months to implement, and manage the transition of a 700 seat Shared Services centre.”

3. Make a difference and avoid the strain of corporate politics

The interim role provides benefits in a range of key areas. First, being temporary provides an escape route from the swamp of organisational politics all companies own. You will be surprised just what you can learn and then fix when you have a perspective from outside the organisation, whilst also performing a key role within it.

One of the key skills Interims develop is to look beyond the corporate politics that every company has and to in fact get to understand quickly ‘who wants what done, and who does not’. This then builds a strategy path for the Interim to manage the respective individuals so as to get the best out of them and also to achieve the goals of the assignment.

Interims have the natural opportunity to make a big difference, without being seen as a threat to entrenched operational territories and empires. Interim often use this political awareness as an opportunity to forge alliances across the organisation, and to deliver results directly through brokering and partnership of executives whom may all have differing agendas. These are skills a good interim will possess if they have the experience of engaging across multiple businesses and one you cannot learn from a classroom.

Interim CIOs can become a change catalyst by delivering quick and highly visible results that map directly to their contract objectives. Unlike some permanent positions, interims are often given short-term targets and are presented with the entirely realistic prospect of leaving an important legacy behind.

4. The High impact Change injection

CIOs run highly technical disciplines and usually come from technical backgrounds. Their strength is in knowing the details of IT work. This gains them respect in the eyes of their staff and enables them to use projects to drive improvement. Nevertheless, IT management responsibilities have changed substantially over the past few years. As more IT processes become automated, CIOs must become more business-savvy. CIOs also need strong people, as well as good communication and other soft skills. In this new world, CIOs must embrace new roles and skills as markets change.

Interim skills are often used as a means to this end as a quick injection of high visibility change or transformation especially where a CIO has brought an interim in to assess areas of skill shortage or to drive a particular change element.

Having spent a majority of my career working with and supporting the Corporate CIO Function, I now seek to provide a forum whereby CIOs or IT Directors can learn from the experience of others to address burning Change or Transformation challenges.

Craig Ashmole

Founding Director CCServe

CISO moves to the top

CISO moves to the top

by | 2 Jun 2019 | Consulting, Technology

The CISO moves from the basement to the boardroom

A growing threat landscape has changed the role of the chief information security officer in the past decade. Here’s why this position and its evolution are vital in the modern enterprise.

“With the recent ransom virus affecting so many global businesses the executive boardroom stakeholders now have their attention”, stated Craig Ashmole, Founding Partner for London based Interim consulting firm CCServe. “Talking with a Security consultant colleague on the train the other day, he said that the insurance firm he’s engaged with did not feel the need for a CIO or CISO role until the resent infamous Ransom virus. That’s now all changed”

The rapidly expanding cybersecurity threat landscape has driven the chief information security officer (CISO) out of the basement and into the boardroom in many enterprises. While these tech professionals were traditionally seen as security enforcers, they have now clearly got the attention of the executive stakeholders and are taking a seat at the table as strategists helping the enterprise avoid cybercrime.

“The CISO’s role has changed from a pure technologist to understanding what the business is trying to do, and to make sure security is part of the business strategy, not an afterthought,” said Steve Martino, CISO and vice president of information security at Cisco. A 2016 Cisco study found that business leaders today believe that cybersecurity is a prime growth enabler, reinforcing the need for those in charge of security to increasingly think in business terms.

Cyber threats have changed dramatically in the past decade in terms of sophistication and volume, Martino said. That change has been driven by two factors: Organizations becoming more connected through the Internet of Things (IoT), and cybercriminals shifting from making political statements to cybercrime as a business.

This changing landscape and added responsibility means CISOs need to develop a new set of soft skills, including learning how to talk with a line of business leaders about risk, privacy, user experience, and balancing the trade-off of security with features.

“Five to ten years ago, the C-suite really didn’t have a relationship or a dialogue with the information security team or leader,” Martino said. “Today, we do. In order to be effective, you have to have this business context, and be able to have a business dialogue with many different functional leaders.”

That means understanding what the different parts of the business—finance, sales, marketing, etc.—prioritize, and be able to translate risk issues to their language.

“CISOs need to have that business knowledge and multi-lingual capability to be able to translate what you’re trying to get across in terms of risk to the business owner,” Martino said. “Both are required to be effective at the speed of business, and earn the respect and trust required.”

Developing new skills

Training is helpful for CISOs who have been called to report to the C-suite for the first time, said Gary Hayslip, an ISACA expert on cybersecurity, the former CISO for the City of San Diego, and the current CISO at Webroot. “It’s a different view of risk, and on the use of resources and costs,” he said. “You have to start really getting into the strategy of where the organization is going.”

Hayslip recommends finding another C-suite member who has reported to the board before, and partnering with them to learn how the board meetings typically proceed, and what the individual board members are like, what they look for as a group, and how they process information.

“If you’re a CISO dealing with the C-suite and it’s relatively new for you, don’t be scared—ask a mentor so you can start learning about what they look for, so you make sure when you do report to a board, the information you’re presenting is relevant to the discussion,” Hayslip said.

It’s key to remember that the CISO does not own the risk—the business does, said Forrester analyst Jeff Pollard. “CISOs are now transferring ownership of risks back to business units,” Pollard said. “Instead of the CISO possessing the power to stop the business in its tracks, they are advising and coaching business unit leaders on the risks and security ramifications of decisions but the business owns the risk and makes the decisions.”

Don’t be the barrier factor

Rather than becoming a barrier, this new model allows CISOs to work with, instead of against their colleagues, Pollard said. However, the CISO does need to be flexible, and understand that the security system in place must be resilient. “You’re going to take breaches,” Hayslip said. “There is no totally secure network. If you factor that in, you can start looking at where your risks are, how your teams are trained, and what policies are in place.”

If the CISO is overwhelmed with projects, it can be helpful to determine which departments you are serving, who the stakeholders are, and what is critical to them, Hayslip said. That will help you create a more narrow list of issues to tackle. It’s often wise to start with cyber hygiene, he added: If you have basic security policies and patch management, antivirus, and firewalls in place, updated, and managed, it builds a strong foundation for your organization’s cyber health.

CISOs also have an opportunity to redefine their role as a business strategist during the digital transformation, Pollard said. To prove their value, they should spend time mapping the firm’s technology touchpoints, foster security champions across the company, and get involved with customer-facing activities like product design and development, he added.

“We’re in this transition as an industry from being a technologist and a protector to being a business enabler,” Martino said. “In order to cross that chasm, the CISO has to earn a place at the table, by bringing business relevancy, and helping the business get to their goals faster.”

By Alison DeNisco  (TechRepublic)

Having spent a majority of my career working with and supporting the Corporate CIO Function, I now seek to provide a forum whereby CIOs or IT Directors can learn from the experience of others to address burning Change or Transformation challenges.

Craig Ashmole

Founding Director CCServe

Is Interim Management Dead

Is Interim Management Dead

by | 11 Dec 2016 | Consulting, Outsourcing

Is the market changing the way that we engage and work with the use of Interim Management?

In short, the answer is no, Interim Consulting is not dead!

In fact, perhaps the question we should be asking instead is: “are we all interims now anyway?”

Permanent contracts are still dominant in businesses – and it is set to stay that way for the foreseeable future. But does a senior level “permanent” position really exist in this day and age? How beneficial could it be for us all to adopt an interim mind set – regardless of our actual position?

In an age of business disruption, where there are no certainties – as macro forces combine to place intense pressure on organisations across the spectrum – there is a necessity to be agile. Business leaders have to be prepared to change course at a moment’s notice and progress is often tracked project-by-project, rather than year-by-year.

To survive in this new environment and to create competitive advantage for our businesses, we may all find ourselves needing to take more of an interim approach to leadership.

Amid technological disruption and now Brexit, we are in the thick of a revolution in the business world. This is not necessarily a bad thing, but it can be difficult to adjust to. Even the most gifted of business leaders can find themselves feeling slightly rootless as they face unprecedented changes within and outside their organisation.

So should we all be embracing an interim approach to work?

According to the Institute of Interim Management (IIM): “Interim managers bring well-qualified skills and expertise to bear at short notice, without the overheads and shackles associated with employment. They consult, plan, advise, implement, and embed the lessons, then exit, handling a range of key strategic and tactical interventions. As businesses in their own right, they offer independent expertise, free of company politics, and take responsibility for delivering results, not just offering advice.”

Without doubt, this is an approach that we can all learn from. With higher expectations of pace and impact, reliance on networking and an independent view – an individual working on an interim basis faces intense pressures. They have to make quick, but well-thought-through, decisions within a set timeframe, in order to bring about the desired outcomes. In many ways, this is leadership intensified.

Therefore, interims need to boast specific attributes and these differentiating “hallmarks” of professional interim managers and executives from other types of temporary or fixed-term contract resources are:

  • High-impact: interim managers are practiced at making a significant difference quickly, assessing and working with the company culture and often with little in the way of a formal “brief”. They do not need time to warm up or to settle in, but focus quickly on the work in hand.
  • Independent: they remain outside of company politics and so are able to address issues from a position of neutrality. This can be particularly useful when difficult and unpopular decisions have to be taken. They also act as trusted advisors who tell it as it is.
  • Professional: interim managers are micro-businesses in their own right, usually operating as limited companies. They trade with the hallmarks of business, not employment, such as professional indemnity insurance, business email and, often, their own business website.
  • Senior: operating at board or near-board level, interim managers are managers and executives, who have gravitas and credibility. They are used to leading businesses, functions, and departments. Suitably well qualified, they advise then deliver effective solutions.
  • Transformational: interim management is often focused on activities related to change, transition, business improvement, crisis management and turnaround. Even when their assignment addresses a gap or shortage, they add value and energise the workplace.
  • Wide expertise: with a strong track record of completing a variety of assignments, interim managers typically combine depth and breadth of expertise in their chosen sectors and disciplines. Their agility gives them the wide reaching expertise to deliver results quickly.
  • Time focused: interim managers are available at short notice. Once engaged, they will focus on providing significant value within the agreed fixed-term time parameters, seeing the assignment through and for not longer than needed, to a conclusion.

Source: Guide to interim management (IIM)

“As a relative newbie to some, around 6 years in interim engagement, I very much use the interim mind set in terms of thinking: What does the business need to achieve this quarter? How am I going to get impact on transformation? What are my quick wins? How am I going to get permanent employees to move things forward with me?” states Craig Ashmole, Founding Director of London based CCServe Interim Consulting.

So aren’t these attributes applicable for achieving competitive advantage for a business, regardless of our employment contract?

Teri Ellison from BIE explains: “The interim spell definitely honed my leadership skills faster than would have been the case in a permanent role. To suddenly lead a team of people who don’t look at you as a permanent employee or their manager and to have them follow you to build teams really challenges the way you lead.”

“At the same time, you’re learning to act as a genuine business partner to the client, helping them to think about where they’re growing their business, how they are driving their business and what impact you can have on their success.”
As disruption continues to make its presence felt, the ability to flex and adapt is crucial. What can we all do more of, regardless of our employment terms? Looking to the world of interims for inspiration could be just the tonic business leaders require.

So interim management is very much alive and well – in fact, it’s thriving. As the business world continues to turn on new axes, the skills and mind set of the interim manager can help leaders to adapt to new challenges and flourish. Whether your organisation hires an interim or simply employs their attributes within their working culture, business can all benefit from what the interim consultant brings to the table.

Having spent a majority of my career working with and supporting the Corporate CIO Function, I now seek to provide a forum whereby CIOs or IT Directors can learn from the experience of others to address burning Change or Transformation challenges.

Craig Ashmole

Founding Director CCServe

Cloud Migration done right

Cloud Migration done right

by | 2 Nov 2016 | Cloud, Technology

Lessons on How Juniper Networks made the switch in the cloud and what you can learn

There are many steps for a company to transition to the cloud. At the 2016 Structure Conference, Juniper Networks’ CIO Bob Worrall explained how the company is managing the change.

For many companies, transitioning to the cloud is a long process with many steps. At the 2016 Structure Conference in San Francisco, Bob Worrall of Juniper Networks explained his company’s strategy and provided some best practices.

Over the past four years or so, Worrall said, Juniper has closed 17 of its 18 data centers, and moved 85% of its applications to the cloud. By June 2017, he said, the company won’t have any corporate data centers remaining. Almost all of their apps will be running on Amazon Web Services (AWS), but their engineering assets will all be hosted on a private cloud, where they are adding their own tech and IP to make it a showcase for what they can do in networking, Worrall said.

One of the first considerations was the cost of moving to the cloud. On the engineering side, moving to the private cloud was a “no-brainer” in terms its financial impact, Worrall said. But, the transition away from their corporate data centers to the public cloud was a “fine line.”

Worrall said that Juniper, like many others, had to refactor their apps to run on the cloud, which was costly. So, he said, you have to pay attention to the cost model. Juniper designated some IT employees to look after monthly billing and bill statements to make sure they are continually optimizing for storage, and getting the most for their money.

For security, they created a team to think through security and compliance, and to make sure they’re meeting those needs. It took “grinding” to get the legal team comfortable with the cloud, Worrall said. But, they’re also investing heavily in network monitoring, logging, and inspection so they can more readily detect and respond to any issues.

The cloud has “retooled” the Juniper organization, Worrall said. Juniper has made significant investments in the skillsets needed for designing apps for the cloud, and refactoring them to run in the cloud. According to Worrall, the firm has bifurcated its development team to focus on those issues and they have added new employees who understand the cloud environments of Amazon, Microsoft, and IBM.

The most critical skills, he said, are found among the people who know how to make these cloud platforms work together. So, they’ve hired more people in the US and India to look after that connection, and they use Oracle Fusion Middleware to connect all the clouds together.

Juniper’s vendor management team has also been strengthened to better look after SaaS contracts and vendor promises, to make sure their cloud investments are optimized.

While there has been a lot of positive reaction from employees, Worrall said, some people have left the company over time. As a response, Juniper is investing in existing employees to help them grow their skills. Companies should consider the impact that cloud will have on their workforce.

Craig Ashmole, Founding Director of London based CCServe stated, “There are commercial businesses that are taking advantage of the strategic moves that Juniper Networks have taken. This businesses can deploy green field Data centre sites in under a few weeks. This is real value.”

Picture above: Juniper Networks CIO, Bob Worrall, speaking with ZDNet's Stephanie Condon at Structure.
Image: Jason Hiner/TechRepublic

Having spent a majority of my career working with and supporting the Corporate CIO Function, I now seek to provide a forum whereby CIOs or IT Directors can learn from the experience of others to address burning Change or Transformation challenges.

Craig Ashmole

Founding Director CCServe

5G is Future of mobility

5G is Future of mobility

by | 9 Apr 2016 | Cloud, Technology

5G is coming and it is the future of mobile

In 5G, wireless will grow up into a true horizontal industry that provides a support system for literally everything

Scouting the news feeds on where we are going with respect to the world of mobility and up popped this interesting article written by Alan Carlton, who has 25 years in the wireless technology industry spanning 2G, 3G, 4G and beyond and of course the focus at this year’s 2016 Mobile World Conference is 5G and how it will take the use of mobility to new reaches for IoT.

It is fair to say that it is still early days for 5G, but research efforts have been rolling for some time and standardization is expected to start in the next few months. Perhaps the two most-cited requirements in 5G are the 1000x improvement in peak data rates (on LTE 2010) and a big reduction in end-to-end latency. These KPIs are important, of course, and keep us engineers pointed in the right direction. But really, they only tell a small part of the 5G story.

A better way to understand 5G is first through a historical lens. It is astonishing to reflect that this mobile industry adventure really only began a little over 20 years ago with the proliferation of GSM. In those days, peak data rate support was a massive 9.6 kbps! Today, deployed LTE systems have improved upon this metric by 100000x. Presented in this context, the 1000x goal of 5G doesn’t really seem so crazy, does it? GSM or 2G, of course, was not designed for data. 2G was designed really for only one thing: basic telephony applications. 3G raised the bar with a specification that supported more voice users and the beginnings of a mobile internet. 4G took this further with the first real system designed principally to support video. It is this evolution that has driven the 100000x. And further, it is this service roadmap that has also driven latency reduction on a parallel path. At the simplest level, 5G will certainly be about more of this. However, the true 5G vision is a lot more interesting.

In 5G, wireless will grow up into a true horizontal industry that provides a support system for literally everything. 5G is the first generation to target supporting the full array of vertical markets (e.g. Automotive, Transport, and Health) that in themselves will define the so-called Internet of Things (IoT). This is the real 5G challenge, and in this respect 5G and the IoT are simply two sides of the same coin. Think about this challenge: what do a car and a thermostat have in common? They are all part of the IoT! So, how will 5G go about tackling this “everything” challenge?

Think flexibility. Think simplification. Think re-imagination. These concepts will permeate all aspects of 5G from the services supported, how the network is designed, and all way down to the elemental new waveforms that may provide us with some new acronyms and labels for this fifth generation.

5G will be built on a foundation of established IT thinking. The cloud, Network function virtualisation, and programmable networking (aka SDN/NFV) will provide the cornerstones. These technologies inherently deliver flexibility and, at least through the eyes of any IT professional, are a lot simpler than the legacy approach of telecom. 5G will, however, take these technologies to new levels and depths of integration, and in so doing will shape the 5G specification that will be defined in the months and years ahead.

“Reading my previous blog on the IEEE predictions for technology advancement in 2016 both 5G and Network function virtualisation (NFV) are on the top of their list”, states Craig Ashmole, Founding Partner of London based IT Consulting firm CCServe. “The other item coming across is Containers, which hold SW application logic and all of its dependencies, running as an isolated process, and execute the same in any environment. This creates parity between dev and production, and enables developers to confidently break up apps into discreet chunks”.

SDN/NFV in telecom is a hot topic today, but where we are now only scratches the surface of its original vision. The focus of work in this area now is primarily Total Cost of Ownership and OPEX reduction through switch hardware commoditization and the efficient relocation of a subset of network functions.

In 5G, SDN/NFV concepts will be pushed much further, returning to the original value proposition, namely that of enabling true architectural innovation. In 5G, it will not simply be about virtualizing the network functions, but entirely changing the way of its inner working. Network evolution will be the frontline in the realization of many 5G requirements (e.g. low latency). Today’s internet is simply not designed to support low latency. However, through programmable networking, new, more efficient approaches will become possible.

In 5G, virtualization will touch every element in the system, spanning backhaul, fronthaul, and radio access. It is within this flexible, dynamically configurable fabric that system resources will be optimally and instantaneously orchestrated to deliver the next generation experience to end users.

This article is published as part of the IDG Contributor Network

Having spent a majority of my career working with and supporting the Corporate CIO Function, I now seek to provide a forum whereby CIOs or IT Directors can learn from the experience of others to address burning Change or Transformation challenges.

Craig Ashmole

Founding Director CCServe