Experience & Leadership in IT Transformation

Experience & Leadership in IT Transformation

by | 27 Sep 2024 | Consulting, Technology

The Importance of Finding Experienced Leaders for IT Change and Transformation in the growing Age of Generative AI

In today’s fast-paced business landscape, companies are under increasing pressure to innovate and stay competitive.

The emergence of Generative AI is reshaping industries, enabling unprecedented opportunities for automation, personalisation, and insight generation. As organisations pivot to incorporate these technologies, the need for skilled leaders who can manage complex portfolios and lead large-scale IT transformation initiatives is more critical than ever. Finding an experienced professional capable of navigating these intricate changes is paramount to success.

Navigating Complex IT Portfolios in the AI Era

Managing a portfolio of IT transformation programmes is no small feat. These initiatives often involve significant investments in new technologies, changes to business processes, and the integration of cutting-edge solutions like Generative AI. Leaders who have experience with large-scale IT change know that it’s not just about implementing technology—it’s about aligning technology with business strategy. A skilled transformation leader understands the need to manage risk, balance resources, and ensure that each initiative within the portfolio delivers measurable business value.

“I’ve learned that successful programme management of large-scale transformation is not just about managing the present in front of you but anticipating the curveballs of the future.” comments Craig Ashmole, a long-term IT Programme Leader at London based Straightalking Ltd.

The ever-growing subject of Generative AI brings an added layer of complexity to this already challenging environment. Not only does it require organisations to rethink their approach to automation and decision-making, but it also demands that leaders understand how to harness its potential without falling into common pitfalls such as data bias, ethical concerns, and over-reliance on AI outputs. An experienced leader in this space needs to balance this and should guide an organisation through these challenges, ensuring that AI-driven solutions are aligned with business goals but can scale sustainably.

The Strategic Value of Experience in Change Leadership

While technical expertise is important, it’s the strategic leadership skills that truly set an exceptional programme manager apart. A seasoned leader brings the ability to see the bigger picture, drawing on years of experience to anticipate challenges, overcome resistance to change, and drive cross-functional collaboration. This is particularly crucial when managing large portfolios of IT programmes that span multiple departments and geographies, often with competing priorities. Experienced leaders have a deep understanding of both the human and technological factors involved in change, enabling them to steer the organisation through potential roadblocks and ensure long-term success.

Craig goes on to say, “Leading large programmes of IT change means seeing first-hand how crucial it is to balance delivery objectives with agile execution. The ability to predict, plan for, and then mitigate challenges before they derail a project is gained from experience not just learned in a classroom.”

Furthermore, as companies seek to transform their businesses with Generative AI, the role of the change leader becomes even more vital. It’s not enough to simply deploy AI tools; organisations need to adapt their entire culture and operating model to be more agile and responsive to rapidly evolving market demands. Programme or Portfolio leaders who have managed IT change at scale understand the importance of embedding a mindset of continuous improvement and innovation within their teams.

The Competitive Advantage of Finding the Right Leader

Ultimately, the success of an organisation’s transformation efforts in the world of Generative AI hinges on its ability to find and empower the right programme leader. Companies that invest in finding an experienced professional with a proven track record in managing large portfolios of IT change will position themselves to not only survive but thrive in this new technological era. These leaders bring the skills needed to ensure that transformation efforts are strategically aligned, well-executed, and capable of delivering lasting value.

“Whether it’s managing evolving stakeholder expectations, identifying resource constraints, or foreseeing technical integration issues, in my experience this enables me to act proactively rather than reactively”, he explains. Craig has found that, “By staying adaptable, leveraging insights or lessons learned from past transformations, and maintaining a clear strategic focus”, he is able to navigate the most complex portfolios with confidence.

In a world where technology is reshaping every aspect of business, having a seasoned leader at the helm of IT transformation efforts is a competitive advantage. Added to this as Generative AI continues to evolve, companies must ensure they have the right leadership in place to guide their journey through this era of profound change with confidence.

By Craig Ashmole, Managing Director Straightalking Ltd

Having spent the 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 the burning need to change the way we all work post the COVID Pandemic.

Craig Ashmole

Managing Director, Straightalking Consulting

Generative AI next 5 Years

Generative AI next 5 Years

by | 25 Jul 2024 | Cloud, Consulting

Generative AI Will Bring “Transformational Benefit” in the Next 2-5 Years

Generative AI landed on Gartner’s coveted Hype Cycle for Emerging Technologies for 2023

Generative AI has landed on Gartner’s coveted Hype Cycle for Emerging Technologies for 2023, the firm announced Wednesday. The firm said generative AI will bring “transformational benefit” in the next two to five years. Transformational benefits are defined as those that enable “new ways of doing business across industries that will result in major shifts in industry dynamics,” Melissa Davis, a Gartner vice president analyst, told TechRepublic.

The AI subset is positioned on the firm’s “Peak of Inflated Expectations” within the Emerging Technologies Hype Cycle this year. Hype cycles follow the maturity of technologies through their lifecycle, explained Davis. All hype cycles start when a breakthrough, public demonstration, product launch or some other event generates industry interest in a technology or other type of innovation, she said.

“We call this the ‘innovation trigger,’” Davis added. “At the Peak of Inflated Expectations, a wave of ‘buzz’ builds, and the expectations for this innovation rise above the current reality of its capabilities.”

Generative AI is encompassed within the broader theme of emergent AI, a key trend in this hype cycle that is creating new opportunities for innovation, Gartner said in a press release announcing the news.

Business benefits derived from generative AI

Generative AI will have profound business impacts in areas including content discovery, creation, authenticity and regulations, as well as automation of human work and customer and employee experiences, according to Davis.

“Most technology products and services will incorporate generative AI capabilities in the next 12 months, introducing conversational ways of creating and communicating with technologies, leading to their democratization,” she said. “Generative AI will progress rapidly in industry verticals, scientific discovery and technology commercialization.”

Additional emergent AI techniques

In addition to generative AI, Gartner named six other emergent AI techniques the firm believes offer immense potential for enhancing digital customer experiences, making better business decisions and building sustainable competitive differentiation. The emergent AI techniques are: AI simulation, causal AI, federated machine learning, graph data science, neuro-symbolic AI and reinforcement learning.

The techniques were selected after being comprehensively assessed and analysed by Gartner internal and external data sources to select tech for their potential transformational benefits and their broad impact, Davis said. She broke down each of the AI techniques as follows:

  • AI simulation is the combined application of artificial intelligence and simulation technologies to jointly develop AI agents and the simulated environments in which they can be trained, tested and sometimes deployed.
  • Causal AI identifies and uses cause-and-effect relationships to go beyond correlation-based predictive models and toward AI systems that can prescribe actions more effectively and act more autonomously.
  • Federated machine learning aims to train a machine learning algorithm on multiple local datasets contained in local nodes without the explicit sharing of data samples.
  • Graph data science is a discipline in which data science techniques are applied to graph data structures to identify behavioural characteristics that can be used to build predictive and prescriptive models.
  • Neuro-symbolic AI is a form of composite artificial intelligence that combines ML methods and symbolic systems (e.g., knowledge graphs) to create more robust and trustworthy AI models.
  • Reinforcement learning is a type of ML where the learning system receives training only in terms of positive feedback (rewards) and negative feedback (punishments).

 

by Esther Shein in Artificial Intelligence - August 16, 2023

Having spent the 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 the burning need to change the way we all work post the COVID Pandemic.

Craig Ashmole

Managing Partner, IT Consulting

Virtual Shared Services after COVID

Virtual Shared Services after COVID

by | 1 Sep 2020 | Consulting, Outsourcing

The new way of business in the Virtual Shared Services Centres post COVID-19

Social, Collaborative, Yet Virtual will be the New Shared Services model post-COVID-19

With each passing day, more countries are nearing lockdown amid fears of widespread COVID-19. While it obviously impacts business, many companies are trying their best to continue running operations to the best extent possible.

Specifically in the Shared Services and Outsourcing industry, many firms have initiated BCP and DR plans. Critical functions have been identified and plans have been made to ensure their delivery is not impacted. Employees across the globe are working remotely and collaborating using various technologies available.

This has raised interesting debates on productivity, the impact on future ways of working, the feasibility of working remotely, and security risks – among many other things.
One of the important considerations is the impact on social well-being of employees. By nature, humans like to connect and interact with fellow colleagues and work in groups with sharing and caring.

That leads me to consider how Shared Services and Offshoring / Outsourcing will change post Covid-19.

“Digitalisation and Automation”

From its onset, this situation clearly favours those Shared Services Organisations that are already “more digital”. The more digital Shared Services Centres (SSCs) will have relatively less impact due as a result of such epidemics and the learnings will drive more digitisation and automation of various functions. This will ensure that the mundane and repetitive tasks are less interrupted and the workforce can focus on more critical activities.

Shift from “people proximity” to “people collaboration”

The SSCs that are most impacted by COVID-19 have one thing in common: Their style of working is based on “people proximity”. The setup is complex and multiple cross-functional teams are working together towards delivery. Hence they rely on people working together in teams. Such SSCs will most likely build their strategy around (invest in) the adoption of increased collaboration tools like video conferencing. It is surprising that many offshoring centres and SSCs are still way behind when it comes to using such collaboration tools.

The next town hall is not going to be in a large auditorium or hotel but will happen over Skype or Zoom

The trend of moving everything to ‘online’ – trainings, meetings and even key corporate announcements – will increase. In the past, faced with an unexpected crisis the tendency has been to delay key meetings and announcements. Going forward, I would not be surprised if the next town hall happens online.

Focus on ‘relationship’ not just ‘contract’ with outsourcing vendors

SSCs will now have the opportunity to test their relationship with sourcing vendors. Is this the time to open the contract documents and revisit the clauses? Or is this the time to sensitise and empathise with each other? Remember, outsourcing vendors are also firms – just like yours.

Summary

As SSCs encourage flexibility in working locations and adopt various collaboration tools so that they continue to improve their productivity as provide services, they also need to ensure that individuals are empowered and continue to feel the social experience; in short, that they are “Virtual” yet “Social”.

Imagine an organisation that presently thrives on groups of people coming together in an office transforming itself into an organisation that still maintains the social essence through its ability to connect and interact with team members – but without the need to meet physically.

Welcome to post Covid-19 Shared Services Centres being Social, Collaborative yet Virtual!

 

Thanks to the views by Ankur Bansal from SSON
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

Hiring the old guy

Hiring the old guy

by | 22 Jan 2020 | Consulting, Technology

Do you or don’t you, hire ‘the old guy’!

Perhaps I am just getting a bit older, but the IT industry seems to be more of a game for younger people these days. Although, to be fair, Police Officers are looking younger all the time too.

“As time goes by attending the various IT related annual corporate events, all the people sitting on the stalls marketing their company values to everyone and anyone that dares to glance their way for too long, are definitely much younger and seem to even dress less formally than when I did for many years.” states Craig Ashmole, founding partner at London based Interim Consulting CCServe Ltd.

I came across a piece of material by Nick Hughes, who is a Senior Programme, Project and PMO manager and all the same thoughts and views came rushing back to me and I quote him below.

Within IT especially there does seem to be more focus on younger, fresher talent. This was brought into sharp focus recently when I met with a manager at a consulting company. They were thinking of putting me into a bank, but the manager was concerned that my extensive and long experience might be a little intimidating for that client manager.

The manager also seemed a little nervous and said that I had a lot more experience than he did himself and that he hoped he did not ask any unproductive questions. This got me to thinking. Is there a perception for younger managers that hiring an older/more experienced contractor might jeopardise their own position? Or could older contractors probably be seen as ‘not as innovative as their younger counterparts’?

Is this ageist? Possibly, but for the hiring manager it could be a very real concern. From their perspective, they are possibly new to the position and want to prove their worth. Many managers want to be seen as the go-to person, that they are irreplaceable and key to the organisations success. Hiring in someone who may not only know more than you, but also may have experience doing your exact job, could lead to the manager being seen as superfluous. The deeper concern would be “Is he going to try and take my job?”

For contractors who have experience in roles more senior than the role being looked at, there can also be concerns for the manager around the contractor jumping ship as soon as the next best, or higher paying, opportunity comes along.

This presents a dilemma for the hiring manager and an issue for the contractor.

To be clear, I am not saying this happens all the time, or even a majority of times, but it does happen. When we are honest with ourselves, we all have those feelings of doubt, so it is perfectly understandable to have these thoughts, we would not be human if we did not.

So what is the answer? Does the manager “not hire the old guy”? Does he or she only hire people younger or less experienced than themselves?

If they do, then yes, they could avoid an embarrassing situation where the person reporting to them knows more than they do. But that will only be a temporary protection for your career and, to be honest, if you are so worried about your position that you feel the need to protect yourself, you will probably find it difficult to progress anyway.

But why hire the guy (I use the term ‘guy’, but it applies to both men and women) with more experience than you and who has potentially had a more senior position?

From my perspective, and with the experience I have gained I don’t actually want that manager’s job and I don’t want to settle down into a perm role. If I am applying for a contractor position, I don’t want the politics, the employee assessments, the HR hoops that I would have to jump through when you manage a team and also having to deal with any personnel issues. I am at a point in my life where I have realised I work to live, not live to work.

What I do want is to make the manager I am hired to engage with look good. I want to use my experience and knowledge to make a success of this project. I want to pass on my knowledge of short cuts that bring the project to a successful conclusion, or the ability to see through vendor marketing hype to accept only what is really needed in the business. Or to ensure we hit budgets & deliver on time.

From a interim consulting perspective it is simple. First, we get the satisfaction of a job well done. Second, we get the opportunity to pass on well-earned knowledge and subject matter experience to those younger people. But most importantly, we leave with the hope that the manager will recognise the contribution made and engage on the next project.

After all, as a contractor, one is always looking for the next contract. I have seen some contractors make themselves indispensable to an organisation, to the point where the perception is that they can’t be let go.

Experience on projects are usually quite simple. Define the scope and lock it down, establish a change control process to manage the inevitable scope creep, establish a governance process for decision making, plan the critical path and dependencies, identify the risks, establish a RAID log to manage them, set up reporting, then execute and monitor.

Once that is done the tough bit, the really tough bit, is managing the people. Getting the sponsor to truly understand their role. Ensuring other teams, who you have a dependency on, deliver in time for your critical path. Providing clarity around the impact to the stakeholders requesting a change. All the while you are doing this, trying to be as diplomatic as you can be but understanding why you were hired in the first place.

Us old guys (men and women) have seen this before and have dealt with it successfully. So, my suggestion to those managers who worry about “hiring the old guy” is to not worry so much but be happy to benefit from paying to get a programme delivered with SME skills that can be transferred to the perm staff. Don’t get me wrong, there are younger people who may well have the ability to be able to navigate the shark infested waters of the project world, but the old guy may well have been bitten before and survived, so has the practical knowledge of what works and what doesn’t.

So, it is up to you, hiring managers. Do you want to benefit from 30+ years of experience and dodging bullets? Do you want to have that edge to making your project successful? Having that experience that you can call on when it does go wrong – and some really do go wrong! If you do then you really should be hiring the Old Guy.

 

Thanks to Nick for sharing his thoughts

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

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

Customer Service Effort

Customer Service Effort

by | 19 Dec 2019 | Consulting

Great Customer Service Requires Very Little Effort

Why the Financial Service Industry Needs to Simplify Every Customer Interaction

In the early 1990’s I remember reading the following story in the IT press:

McConnell got so fed up with not being able to talk to a human at his bank that he wrote a program that dialled eight different branches of his bank automatically. The program then left the following recording: “This is an automated customer complaint. To hear a live complaint, press button one.” Having pressed the appropriate button, the hapless bank employee would then hear: “The customer is unable to come to the phone right now, but your call is very important. Thank you for being patient.” Finally, the tape recording revealed McConnell’s name and phone number. He described his action as “just your basic customer protest.”

The world of financial services and technology has changed hugely since then, but I think for many of us, the same feelings still exist. Doing business with many financial services organisations feels difficult and frustrating. The technology and processes seem designed to make life easier for the organisation, not the customer. Everything seems product-centric, not customer-centric. Despite this, we often remain loyal to the institutions we started with as a teenager. And as the press often likes to quote – on average we stay with our bank longer than we stay with our partner!

However, there’s a feeling that we’re now at an inflection point, or jumping on a new S-curve with the changing views of millennials, Generation Z, including mobile technology, social networking, and driven by crowd-funding, new regulatory frameworks, switching services, for example internet giants like Google taking on the insurance world… these are all affecting financial services. No longer can our loyalty be taken for granted by corporate companies.

So how should the Financial Services industry react?

Research has shown that the new battleground for customer loyalty is focusing on effortless experiences. Somewhat surprisingly what we find from customers:

  1. Delight doesn’t pay
  2. Customers prefer to self-serve
  3. Customer service interactions tend to drive disloyalty, not loyalty
  4. The key to mitigating disloyalty is reducing customer effort

So there is an inverse correlation between customer effort and customer loyalty. The higher the effort required by the customers, the lower their loyalty; the lower the effort required, the higher their loyalty. This very much echoes the Amazon philosophy that the best service is no service.

The good news; there are dozens, if not hundreds of ways that financial services organisations can reduce customer effort across the whole customer lifecycle. For example, at my bank’s ATM recently I inserted my debit card and it presented me with just one option – your usual £50 and no receipt? Brilliant. No spurious choices that I never take. It only saved me a few key keystrokes and a few seconds, but I really appreciated it. Their mobile app is also great for checking my account and paying bills. And Apple Pay lets me pay easily and quickly. But as soon as I want to get help I have to swap channel and either email or call. That’s a lot of effort. I don’t want to leave my app to get help! Another great example of low effort is within a bank in Germany – Everything is mobile-first, including the opening of the account, which takes 8 minutes via a video call. Now that’s impressive. And then there’s Berkshire Hathaway Travel Protection, which monitors the airline timetables and automatically pays out compensation if the passenger is delayed and then texts them to say the money has been transferred to their account.

Other examples of effortless customer service

  • Using voice biometrics (rather than the dreaded touchtone menu) to reduce the time to identify and verify (ID&V) the customer.
  • Using the Touch ID or passcode on the mobile phone, in conjunction with the mobile app, to ID&V the customer.
  • Proactively working out what a customer can borrow, before they’ve asked for a loan, so they don’t have to wait for a decision.
  • Having a Single Customer View across all touch-points, so customers never have to repeat themselves and can move from channel to channel and continue the conversation from where they left off.
  • Offering a wide choice of channels, such as branch, call, email, SMS, video, social media, website, web-chat and yes even letters!
  • Being open 24 x 7, 365 days of the year
  • Sending out proactive notifications about the account status or the stage something is at in the application process, so the customer doesn’t have to chase for updates.
  • Using video in-branch to connect the customer to a remote expert, rather than asking them to come back another day.

Many of these improvements or innovations seem insignificant, some have been implemented by Financial Service organisations but added up these can lead to huge improvements in overall performance and service levels. It’s what the sporting world calls the “aggregation of marginal gains” and it’s usually what separates the winners from the losers.

Content by Dave Thomson

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

Interim Consulting Demand

Interim Consulting Demand

by | 9 Sep 2019 | Consulting

IT contractor demand at highest point for over a year

IT Consulting and Interim management skills are at the highest demand in more than a year now that post Brexit has kicked off.

Demand for freelance IT contractors rose to a 14-month high in March 2017, according to the REC national index. The demand has been fuelled by several factors, including a lengthy list of IT skills that appear to be in increasingly short supply within the salaried permanent workforce. Brexit uncertainty could also be working in freelancers’ favour as employers are more likely to engage freelancers for IT contract jobs on a limited timeframe rather than the lengthier commitment of hiring new permanent staff. Additionally, those already working in permanent positions could be unwilling to take a chance on jumping ship in such uncertain waters.

REC chief executive Kevin Green said: “Economic uncertainty about future prospects is having a detrimental effect on employees’ willingness to risk a career move at this time. “Many [employers] are [therefore] reporting an increasing number of white collar jobs as hard to fill, including within the IT and the financial sectors.”

[REC = Recruitment & Employment Confederation]

Contractors and those who are willing to change employers are reportedly reaping dividends as skills on the scarcer side are attracting premiums in the current climate. The skills most in demand can vary from one month or even one week to the next however, so when you actually secure a contract can have a major bearing on whether you also manage to secure premium rates.

Digital generalists, UX/UI experts, and those with experience in the gaming field were particularly scarce in February for example. In March a variety of different IT skills were at a premium, including Java developers, Dev Ops, IT security, software developers, software and embedded software engineers, Ruby software developers, and PHP software developers.

The REC said: “Our concern is that Brexit will make the problem worse, particularly if onerous restrictions are imposed on people coming from the EU to work.”

It is a problem for employers, but for IT contractors a lack of skills in the general workforce means more opportunities.
“Experience and knowledge/exposure to Business Transformation related programmes are on the increase too,” stated Craig Ashmole, Founding Director of Interim IT consulting firm CCServe Ltd. “There are some high profile programmes in the City of London that have increased over the last 12 months driving PMO or Portfolio Management”.

Source: Consulting Hub

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