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  • Madeline Weiss, Director

The CIO's role in operational excellence


Business transformation is rarely achieved through change in one functional area. It requires cross-functional collaboration. Dutch energy company Essent is a perfect example of successful transformation that began at the top with a laser focus on the customer and lean management principles as well as tight collaboration across many functions, including marketing and IT. How did the new CEO engineer such results and how critical was the role of the new CIO?

Professor Ananth Raman of the Harvard Business School, along with Essent executives, will highlight the key success factors at the June 13-14 Advanced Practices Council meeting in Cambridge, Mass.

Professor Raman will then discuss lean manufacturing, its origins in automotive manufacturing, and how it applies more broadly. He will focus on the role of the CIO in integrating operations to enable organizations to compete on capabilities.

Other meeting topics include:

  • Leading-edge developments in artificial intelligence (Haluk Demirkan, University of Washington)

  • Smart machines are gaining human capabilities, in some cases doing things faster and better. Professor Demirkan will explore how business processes and whole industries will be transformed as a result, emphasizing how smart machines can be designed to collaborate with people, extend their intelligence, and save time instead of replacing them.

  • Governance of predictive analytics (Michael Goul, Arizona State University)

  • After sharing an evolving framework for governing predictive analytics that includes the analytics of things, Professor Goul will explore the role of the CIO in delivering analytics of things innovations.

  • IT megatrends that are transforming industries (Lynda Applegate, Harvard Business School)

  • Professor Applegate will share results of the Delphi study she conducted for the Massachusetts Technology Leadership Council (Mass TLC). After Professor Applegate identifies the top IT mega trends that are transforming industries, APC members will use her tool to explore how these megatrends will transform their organizations and industries and, most important, how they can lead their organizations toward competitive advantage with these insights. Members of the Mass TLC will join in the exploration.

  • Building capability advantage (Ananth Raman, Harvard Business School)

  • Using the Essent case study, Professor Raman will explore the role of the CIO in integrating operations using lean manufacturing to drive operational excellence.

  • Competing in the age of digital ubiquity (Karim Lakhani, Harvard Business School)

  • Using the GE case study, Professor Lakhani and Rick McCullough, GE's Vice President of Software, will describe how connections, sensors and data are revolutionizing business.

If you are interested in joining the 30-40 other CIOs and senior IT executives in attendance, please do not hesitate to contact us.

#operations #CIO

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