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ENTERPRISE CIO DECISIONS OCTOBER 2012 1
Enterprise
CIODecisions
OCTOBER 2012 VOLUME 16
Guiding technology decision makers in the enterprise
INSIDE:
Walking theGreen Walk
WardingOff Rogue IT
Balancing
CorporateRisk andConsumerization
How Do YouSolve a ProblemLike Big Data?
Agile Practices
Wooing theBusiness
PuttingCustomersNeeds First
SecurityPoliciesor Next-GenerationITIT security threatsare evolving faster thanmanagement practicescan keep up. Hereshow to stay ahead.
x
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ENTERPRI SE CIO DECISIONS OCTOBER 2012 2
HOME
EDITORS
LETTER
UP FRONT
WARDING OFF
ROGUE IT
BALANCING
CORPORATE
RISK AND
CONSUMERIZATION
HOW DO YOU
SOLVE A PROBLEM
LIKE BIG DATA?
AGILE PRACTICES
WOOING THE
BUSINESS
PUTTING
CUSTOMERSNEEDS FIRST
CONSIDER THIS SCENARIO: The IT depart-
ment, worried that certain websites
or applications will expose the com-
pany to security risks or rob the
network o bandwidth, has switched
o administrator rights on user desk-
tops, banned applications like instant
messaging and blocked websites like
Facebook, only to restore rights andaccess when users rebelled.
Its happening. When you consider
the impact o the loss o productivity
on the part o the users and IT sta in
this untenable situation, you see how
security and productivity are opportu-
nity costs, and that a balance must be
struck between the two.
This balance, the subject o this
months Enterprise CIO Decisionscover
story by Executive Editor Christina
Torode, can be described terms o
evolution. The process o how we
got to where we are today looks a
lot like the NFL reeree lockout this
all. When smartphones became de
acto corporate email clients, liber-
ated users elt like the NFL players
without the real res: They would tryto get away with whatever they could.
Dropbox, YouTube, anything goes
until someone uploading video to the
Internet causes the network to crash,
and IT has to start throwing penalty
ags all over the place.
Users are too ar down the road o
newound productivity gains to be
able to exist in the world o limited
access, so IT has to create policies
that work with the users, enable
device and application reedom, and
still cover their risk management and
compliance bases.
Terri Tyler, IS ofcer or the Los An-
geles Metro Transportation Authority,gets it. I always tell users to come to
me beore they decide to use a new
device or service so I can explain the
risks and educate them on acceptable
use policies, she told Torode. Talk-
ing to people, not making a big deal i
they do make a mistake, saying, I can
do that or we have that service will
encourage them to come to you be-
ore they start using something new.
When planning your consumeriza-
tion productivity vs. security strategy,
recall the upheaval that the shit to
PCs and client/server caused every-
one. We are in the middle o a similar
transition. New ways o doing things
must be discovered, and its going
to come down to people listening to
each other in order to fnd the waythrough.
Scot Petersen
Editorial Director,
CIO/IT Strategy Media
spetersen@techtarget.
com
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HOME
EDITORS
LETTER
UP FRONT
WARDING OFF
ROGUE IT
BALANCING
CORPORATE
RISK AND
CONSUMERIZATION
HOW DO YOU
SOLVE A PROBLEM
LIKE BIG DATA?
AGILE PRACTICES
WOOING THE
BUSINESS
PUTTING
CUSTOMERSNEEDS FIRST
1 NEWS, VIEWS AND REVIEWS FORSENIOR TECHNOLOGY MANAGERS
ON THE JOB
walking the
green walk
YOU KNOW THAT song, I Was Country
When Country Wasnt Cool? Well,
I was green beore green was cool,
laughs Janet Claggett, CIO or Rich-
land County, S.C. For those o us who
have green running through our veins,
none o this is new. What is new is
there are newer and better technolo-
gies that make it easier.
Claggett not only talks the talk but
walks the walk. In act, she was pur-
suing environmental sustainability so-
lutions even beore Earth Day became
a mainstream event and well beore2008, when the National Association
o State Chie Inormation Ofcers,
or NASCIO, called or its members
to lead the charge or green technol-
ogy solutions.
By applying her personal philoso-
phy on environmental sustainability
and efciency to her work as a CIO,
Claggett has helped save Richland
County money and reduce its carbon
ootprint signifcantly.
Claggetts IT organization promotes
two rules when approaching a proj-
ect: First, do no harm; then, look or
the green technology solution.
I with every project, you think
about that on the ront endwhich I
ask my team to do, then youre al-
ways on the lookout or that oppor-
tunity to fnd a sustainable solution,
Claggett said. I do believe the CIOs
role should include such a commit-
ment. I we embrace a strategy that
strives to make things better or u-
ture generations, we will make better
decisions.Its that mode o thinking that put
Claggetts department in perect posi-
tion to share in a U.S. Department o
Energy Energy Efciency and Com-
munity Block Grant (EECBG) in 2010.
With the grant money, she hired two
contractors to round out her project
UF
UpFront News, views and reviewsfor senior technology managers
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HOME
EDITORS
LETTER
UP FRONT
WARDING OFF
ROGUE IT
BALANCING
CORPORATE
RISK AND
CONSUMERIZATION
HOW DO YOU
SOLVE A PROBLEM
LIKE BIG DATA?
AGILE PRACTICES
WOOING THE
BUSINESS
PUTTING
CUSTOMERSNEEDS FIRST
team as it ocused on creating a Web-
based e-recording system or the
countys Register o Deeds.
The sotware system allowed
citizens, attorneys and abstractors
to fle documents and record deeds
from their homes or ofces 24/7. This
reduced trips to the Register o Deeds
ofce, saving uel and paper, as well
as time. The county estimates the
system is saving residents $174,000
per year, based on 75,000 transac-
tions annually, average mileage, and
the cost o gas and parkingbeneftsthat now reach beyond Richland.
Its really providing this type o
beneft to attorneys across the coun-
try who want to do land transactions
and recording o deeds in our state,
Claggett said.
Around the same time, the or-
ganization was awarded additional
community block grant unds rom
the EECBG to put toward a server
virtualization project that was in
progress already. The grant letClaggett get more aggressive with
implementation. While virtualization
projects arent always seen this way,
they are one o a ew quantifable
sustainability solutions. For every
one server that replaces fve servers,
UF
WHATS THIS?
enterprise mashup: An enterprise mashup is the
integration o heterogeneous digital data and applications
rom multiple sources or business purposes. An enter-
prise mashup is also sometimes known as a business mash-
up or, less precisely, as a data mashup. A mashup is created
rom modular components that the end user can assembleand reassemble as desired to serve current needs. In an
enterprise mashup, the product is typically a combination
o internal corporate data and applications with externally
sourced data, SaaS and Web content.SOURCE: WHATIS.COM
The county esti-mates the systemis saving residents$174,000 per year.
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1 NEWS, VIEWS AND REVIEWS FORSENIOR TECHNOLOGY MANAGERS
HOME
EDITORS
LETTER
UP FRONT
WARDING OFF
ROGUE IT
BALANCING
CORPORATE
RISK AND
CONSUMERIZATION
HOW DO YOU
SOLVE A PROBLEM
LIKE BIG DATA?
AGILE PRACTICES
WOOING THE
BUSINESS
PUTTING
CUSTOMERSNEEDS FIRST
ON THE AGENDA
morphing the cio roleWhat technology has the most potential to fundamentally change the role of the CIO?
Cloud computing
On-demand computing
Mobile technology
Business intelligence
Shared services
Social media/collaboration
Virtualization
Web services
Other
SOURCE: TECHTARGETS 2012 ROLE OF THE CIO SURVEY, WITH 629 RESPONSES TO THIS QUESTION; PERCENTAGES DO NOT TOTAL 100.
0 10% 20% 30% 40% 50%
UF
we computed an 80% energy savings
and reduction o our tons o carbon
emissions, she said.
Green projects extend outside the
IT department as well. When the
county acilities department received
its own grant to replace all o the
countys lighting fxtures and add tim-
ers and movement controls, Claggett
was eager to help. The project, poised
to reduce energy use in county build-
ings by 30%, involved a great deal
o inrastructure work. Its the sort o
outside-the-data-center project withwhich her organization loves to get
involved, she said.
We were running all the network
cables to connect the lighting control-
lers rom oor to oor and back to
the main network switching inra-
structure; we installed the virtual
servers; we did a lot o technical inra-
structure to help roll out that project,
Claggett said. It may sound boring to
some, but its all part o being green,
doing the right thing and saving
money. KAREN GOULART
Its all part obeing green, doingthe right thing andsaving money.
JANET CLAGGETT
CIO, Richland County, S.C.
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ENTERPRISE CIO DECISIONS OCTOBER 2012 6
HOME
EDITORS
LETTER
UP FRONT
WARDING OFF
ROGUE IT
BALANCING
CORPORATE
RISK AND
CONSUMERIZATION
HOW DO YOU
SOLVE A PROBLEM
LIKE BIG DATA?
AGILE PRACTICES
WOOING THE
BUSINESS
PUTTING
CUSTOMERSNEEDS FIRST
ONE ON ONE
warding off
rogue IT
NAME:Rick Roy
TITLE: Senior vice president and CIO
TIME IN THIS ROLE: Four years
ORGANIZATION: CUNA Mutual Group
HEADQUARTERS: Madison, Wisc.
EMPLOYEES: 4,000
Rogue IT? Not a problem at CUNAMutual Group in Madison, Wisc., where
the focus is on aligning IT with business
strategy and building strong, tacti-
cal partnerships between
departments. In this inter-
view, Rick Roy, senior vice
president and CIO at CUNA,
describes how technology
serves business, why the
company continues to develop apps
in-house and how he avoids IT surprises
through a solid governance program.
How are you using technology
to serve your business strategy?
Were really using technology to en-
able the business strategies we have
in our various business lines and
product areas. We do that two ways:One is to use technology to enable
employees to work better, aster,
smarter, more collaboratively. Thats
more o an internal view. The external
view, the outside-in view, is how can
we use technology, like some o the
mobile technology today, to actually
serve up our products on the mobile
devices or the actual consumer? We
have examples o both. One is more
o an internal productivity play, and
the other is [to] serve up an app,
available via your Droid or iPhone, to
consumers that helps them through
a transactionand, by the way, helps
them buy one o our insurance prod-
ucts in a more seamless way.
Are you developing that app
in-house, or are you shopping that
out to an outsourced developer?Our approach, to this point, with
regards to apps has been to develop
them in-house. I think the big ques-
tion outstanding is i the number o
apps explodes, that will not be practi-
cal. So we are actually in conversa-
tions with our labor partners, our
strategic partners, people we use or
doing labor work on our behal, ask-
ing what their capability is to adjust
if that demand does go up. Given our
business, it is not clear to us whether
that will actually explode in the num-
bers, or i it will have relatively low
numbers. I it stays pretty small, we
will continue to develop apps in-
house.
What technology are you mostinterested in exploring in the
next 18 to 24 months?
I think that the technology that most
o us are watching really closely is
how the very cloud-based solutions
can provide an alternative to solu-
tions we are running in-house. So,
1 NEWS, VIEWS AND REVIEWS FORSENIOR TECHNOLOGY MANAGERSUF
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HOME
EDITORS
LETTER
UP FRONT
WARDING OFF
ROGUE IT
BALANCING
CORPORATE
RISK AND
CONSUMERIZATION
HOW DO YOU
SOLVE A PROBLEM
LIKE BIG DATA?
AGILE PRACTICES
WOOING THE
BUSINESS
PUTTING
CUSTOMERSNEEDS FIRST
to me, cloud is not a technology, per
se, but a delivery vehicle. And yet, it
is one o the areas that can be most
compelling in terms o us being able
to oer a dierent value proposi-
tion rom IT to our customers. While
certainly things like mobility and the
innovation curve are vertical, and we
are watching that very closely, the
reality is that its a vertical innovation
curve, so no one is really quite sure
where that is going to land.
Specifcally with cloud, especially
with the Sotware as a Service-typeoering, while there is plenty o inno-
vation there, it is something you can
attach a strategy to and think about it
as a two- or three-year timerame in-
stead o a one-year timerame. Inside
CUNA Mutual, we have deployed a
number o cloud-based solutions and
have had great success doing that.
We dont think it is a silver bullet, but
we also think it can be a very compel-
ling alternative to running all o these
applications within our own data
science environment, as many o us
have done historically.
Have you had any experience
with rogue IT?
We have only had some minor ex-
amples o what I would call rogueIT, especially related to the cloud. I
attribute that to two things. One is
we have our teams really embedded
in the customer groups they serve,
so they generally have a really strong
eel and pulse o what the customer
is thinking and what they are contem-
plating doing. So that alignment, to
use a really overused word, is really
your frst line o deense. The second
is we are pretty particular, and very
deliberate in communicating within
the company, who is authorized to
enter into technology-related con-
tactsand that is a really small list,
starting with me. And cloud-based
contracts are every bit o a technol-
ogy contract, just like a sotware
license would be. So we dont lead
with that governance hammer; we
lead with alignment and partnership.
Hopeully we wont have to pull outthe governance hammer, because
obviously that is not how you want to
work with your customers day-to-day.
The combination o these two has
worked pretty well or us.
WENDY SCHUCHART
UF
Cloud is not a tech-nology, per se, buta delivery vehicle.And yet, it is one othe areas that canbe most compellingin terms o us beingable to oer a dier-ent value proposi-tion rom IT to ourcustomers.
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ENTERPRI SE CIO DECISIONS OCTOBER 2012 8
HOME
EDITORS
LETTER
UP FRONT
WARDING OFF
ROGUE IT
BALANCING
CORPORATE
RISK AND
CONSUMERIZATION
HOW DO YOU
SOLVE A PROBLEM
LIKE BIG DATA?
AGILE PRACTICES
WOOING THE
BUSINESS
PUTTING
CUSTOMERSNEEDS FIRST
1 BALANCING CORPORATE RISKAND CONSUMERIZATION
WHEN IT COMES to consumerization
whether youre reerring to social me-
dia, mobile devices, cloud services or
all of the above99.9% of employees
will use common sense in considering
data security policies and inorma-
tion sharing, believes Dave Trigo, vice
president and corporate CIO at The
Hanover Insurance Group.
But, its that .1% that can kill you,
Trigo said.
Terri Tyler, inormation security o-
fcer at the Los Angeles Metropolitan
Transportation Authority, has similar
aith in her user base. For her, educat-ing users about the risks o Facebook,
Twitter or an Android smartphone go
a long way toward not having to make
major changes to security policies in
light o consumerization.
I always tell users to come to
me beore they decide to use a new
device or service so I can explain the
risks and educate them on acceptable
use policies, she said. Talking to
people, not making a big deal i they
do make a mistake, saying, I can do
that or we have that service will en-
courage them to come to you beore
they start using something new.
Talk to an inormation security o-
fcer in charge o a heavily regulated
company like deense and aerospace
systems maker Raytheon Co. about
the use o cloud services or mobile
devices, however, and that .1% that
can kill you skyrockets.I dont think you can go with say-
ing [to auditors] that we educated
our users about our security poli-
cies. Legally its not deensible, said
Michael Daly, corporate director o
inormation technology security at
Raytheon. We need to do more due
BalancingCorporate Riskand ConsumerizationIT executives are walking a tightrope to balance the
productivity gains of social, mobile and cloud services againsttheir quite-real security risks. BY Christina Torode
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ENTERPRISE CIO DECISIONS OCTOBER 2012 9
HOME
EDITORS
LETTER
UP FRONT
WARDING OFF
ROGUE IT
BALANCING
CORPORATE
RISK AND
CONSUMERIZATION
HOW DO YOU
SOLVE A PROBLEM
LIKE BIG DATA?
AGILE PRACTICES
WOOING THE
BUSINESS
PUTTING
CUSTOMERSNEEDS FIRST
1 BALANCING CORPORATE RISKAND CONSUMERIZATIONdiligence, to the extent o being able
to explain what we do to enorce [a
security policy], how we measure
compliance andwhen we discover
that someone is out o compliance
how we handle that.
SPEAK SOFTLY BUT CARRY
A BIG SECURITY STICK
Trigo does have aith that users will
do the right thing, but that doesnt
mean he doesnt have a data security
arsenal on the back end. His multi-pronged security strategy is ar-
reaching, but it doesnt put the onus
on the user, but on the vendor.
Trigo and his chie architect worked
with Sotware as a Service vendors to
develop single sign-on or the many
SaaS applications used by Hanovers
5,000 employees. And when a user
does attempt to buy a cloud service
directly rom a vendor, Trigo has the
network set to block the use o that
service.
We have excellent relationships
with the business, so they usually
come to us to review a vendor and
the contract beore they buy some-
thing, but we also have a frewall and
a central contract group that reviews
all technology contracts beore a ser-viceinside or outside o our walls
can be bought, he said.
Trigo is pretty comortable keeping
large amounts o inormation in the
cloud, whether with Microsots host-
ed Exchange service or Salesorce.
com, based on the due diligence that
goes on behind the scenes, he said.
One breach could ruin us, so beore
we engage in a contract, we ask how
[the vendor] does backups, what they
have for DR (disaster recovery), what
their security posture and capabilities
are, who is responsible should some-
thing happen. Contractually, we make
sure we are covered very well.
When signing with a new service
provider, Tyler writes into the contract
the right to audit the vendors sys-
tems and examine their logs to see
how they are coding; on the ront end,she has workstations set up or timed
lockdowns i a user is careless.
But she also puts some of the se-
curity burden on business managers,
in some cases asking them to sign
a disclaimer i they want a service
despite warnings rom IT not to use it.
Humor is the best weapon and thats
how I approach it i they still want to
use something ater I explain the pos-
sible ramifcations and tell them its
not a good idea, she said.
FOUR WAYS TO MANAGE
MOBILE DEVICES
Because employees want to be able
to use their iPads or Android devices
to get their job done, theyre verywilling to sign acceptable-use agree-
ments, which oten give IT the right
to wipe their device clean, said John
Pescatore, vice president and distin-
guished analyst at Stamord, Conn.-
based consultancy Gartner Inc.
Ive had CIOs and CISOs say,
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HOME
EDITORS
LETTER
UP FRONT
WARDING OFF
ROGUE IT
BALANCING
CORPORATE
RISK AND
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HOW DO YOU
SOLVE A PROBLEM
LIKE BIG DATA?
AGILE PRACTICES
WOOING THE
BUSINESS
PUTTING
CUSTOMERSNEEDS FIRST
1 BALANCING CORPORATE RISKAND CONSUMERIZATIONThere is no way that Ill get employ-
ees to download a sotware agent
on their mobile device or sign an
agreement giving us the ability to
wipe their device, but that is untrue,
Pescatore said. I you give employees
the opportunity to use their avorite
toy, they are willing to compromise.
Even the largest enterprises, including
a $1 billion low-tech manufacturer,
have had no problem getting thou-
sands o employees to abide by such
bring-your-own-device (BYOD) rules,
he said.
Hanover Insurance Groups BYOD
program supports Blackberrys, iPads
and iPhones or business use and has
very straightorward rules o engage-
ment or its program. Employees
must download a mobile device man-
agement (MDM) agent on the deviceto access emails and calendars. I
they leave the company, corporate
data is wiped clean rom that device.
All they have to do is go to a website
to request the [MDM agent] down-
load, and security policies are pushed
down to the device, Trigo said.
Pescatore said enterprises have
our main approaches to consider or
securing employee-owned devices:
nA heavy-handed approach that is
server-based. To gain access to com-
pany inormation, the device user
must use a Citrix Receiver on his or
her device. Its very secure, and
users hate it, he said.
nA little less Draconian approach is
virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI),
wherein users have to run VMwareView on their iPads when connecting
to work programs, or example. They
have to use a locked-down image that
IT controls, but they can at least work
oine, he said.
nThen, there is what Pescatore calls
the middle-o-the-road approach,
where an MDM agent is loaded onto
the device. Enterprises take on some
risk, and employees have to do some-
thing, but or the average enterprise
this is a workable approach, he said.
nThe fnal approach is a bit o a ree-
or-all, where the thinking is, OK,
these devices are secure enough
because the mobile device maker
has made them secure enough, butI dont think theres much hope or
that model in the enterprise. It didnt
work with Microsot and Windows,
he said. [Mobile device makers] are
driven by consumernot business
demands, so they arent ocusing
on security.
A little less Draco-nian approach isVDI, wherein usershave to run VMware
View on their iPadswhen connectingto work programs.
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LIKE BIG DATA?
AGILE PRACTICES
WOOING THE
BUSINESS
PUTTING
CUSTOMERSNEEDS FIRST
1 BALANCING CORPORATE RISKAND CONSUMERIZATIONThe best approach, Pescatore said,
is a mix o an MDM agent or access
to less-sensitive data and a Citrix
Receiver or access to more-sensitive
data.
THE SOCIAL MEDIA
SECURITY CONUNDRUM
From a security perspective, its a bit
easier to control employee-owned
mobile devices than it is to constantly
monitor social media access and
usage. Questions abound, rom whois liable should an employee tweet
sensitive company inormation to
what is the business case or allowing
employees to use Facebook during
work hours.
I think you have to build a whole
new set o security policies and test
them in a legal ramework or [social
media, cloud services and mobile de-
vices], said Raytheons Daly. Then,
there is the whole liability issue.
[In one case], the government sub-
poenaed Twitter or deleted tweets
[produced by an Occupy Wall Street
protester]. That is a perect example
o how data in the cloud is outside
your control. Ater all, the subpoe-
nas, and Twitters response to some
o them, make it clear that you dontown your tweets.
Trigo is more interested in how
social media platorms like Facebook
can be used than in how access to
them can be blocked; as such, Ha-
nover employees are allowed to use
Facebook at work.
I heard about a 15-year-old girl
who set up a Facebook page ater a
tornado to use as a communication
vehicle with the Red Cross and fnd
amily members, Trigo said. Should
we do that? Could we run a busi-
ness rom [Facebook]? How to use it
and what to use it orthose are the
things that really need to be thought
through.Three years ago, the U.S. Depart-
ment o Deense said it was consider-
ing blocking all social media access,
stating that military members were
giving away too much inormation
including their locationwhen com-
municating with their social networks.
The next day, the Marines put out
a [press] release saying that they
had exceeded their recruiting goals
because o the use o social media,
Pescatore said. So, you had one
side blocking it or security reasons,
and another promoting it because it
helped their business. Guess which
side won?
The Department o Deense now
operates its own Social Media
Hub.
Christina Torode is executive editor
for SearchCIO.com. Write to her at
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BUSINESS
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2 HOW DO YOU SOLVE A PROBLEMLIKE BIG DATA?
BIG DATA IS oten defned as data that
is too large to process by traditional
means. The volume o big data, its
velocity and the varietyall o that
unstructured data pouring inmake
it a bad ft or traditional database
technologies. The issue o value adds
a ourth vto the attributes that make
big data problematic or traditional IT
shops.
Finding patterns and correlations
in big data that could yield business
insights requires new kinds o IT ex-
perts, rom statisticians to so-called
data scientists. Big data is difcult tocorral and difcult to capitalize on.
Yet, i the growing consensus among
business gurus is correct, extract-
ing business value rom big data will
mean the dierence between industry
superstars and mere survivors.
We are going to see companies
that start on this learning curve
sooner accelerate their gains, said
Michael Chui, a principal at the
McKinsey Global Institute and au-
thor o a massive McKinsey report
on the value o big data. Collecting
and analyzing large data sets is al-
ready driving changes in health care:
The McKinsey research predicts that
health care could reap up to $300
billion in value rom the eective use
of big data, including $200 billion in
reduced spending.
James Noga, CIO at Partners
HealthCare System, a Boston-basedhealth care nonproft, said he is al-
ready seeing how the voluminous
data now being collected by emer-
gency rooms will be aggregated and
analyzed or patterns that could lead
to huge breakthroughs, including
the ability to better predict adverse
How Do You Solve
a Problem Like
Big Data?Theres a growing consensus
among business experts that extracting value from
big data will be a deciding factor in which businessesstay on top and which just get by. BY linda tucci
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HOW DO YOU
SOLVE A PROBLEM
LIKE BIG DATA?
AGILE PRACTICES
WOOING THE
BUSINESS
PUTTING
CUSTOMERSNEEDS FIRST
2 HOW DO YOU SOLVE A PROBLEMLIKE BIG DATA?drug reactions. Pointing to the drug
Vioxx, whose users were shown to
experience a higher rate o heart
attacks and strokes than those tak-
ing a placebo, Noga said, We know
that even with our small data set, we
could have detected the problems
with Vioxx a year before it came to
light i we had been doing the right
analytics.
The gains rom mining big data
are hardly limited to felds like the
health care industry, where research
scientists are used to dealing with
large data sets, or the retail sector,
which has been collecting and buy-
ing customer data or decades, said
Tom Davenport, a visiting proessor
at Harvard Business School and the
author o many books on analytics.
Based on his recent work with
industrial frms, Davenport is con-vinced that big data and analytics will
help turn around U.S manuacturing.
Machines and devices o all kinds
throw o tons o data just waiting
to be mined, he said. You can use
analysis to show when things need to
be fxed, and when parts get created
in an optimum way, he said.
Logistics companies are also hot on
the trail o big data. The voluminous
exhaust data collected on supply
chains is being analyzed or economic
predictions, rom retailer optimism
about the Christmas season to the
impact o political uprisings on oil-
rich countries.
FALLING BEHIND ON BIG DATA
For all o its promise, however, big
data presents a big challenge ormost companies and their CIOs. In a
recent report rom the nonproft in-
dustry association CompTIA, 63% of
IT and business executives said they
dont have a frm grasp o the concept
o big data.
The 44-page Big Data Insights and
Opportunities report, based on two
online surveys of some 500 IT and
business executives in July, makes it
clear that companies are hyperaware
o the importance o being able to
manage and analyze big data. Two-
thirds o respondents, or example,
strongly agreed with the statement
I we could harness all o our data,
we would be a much a stronger busi-
ness. Participants in the CompTIA
study cited lower productivity, lacko business agility, internal conusion
over priorities and reduced margins
due to operation inefciencies as the
top negative consequences o being
unable to manage and analyze big
data.
Few companies are where they
For all o its
promise, big datapresents a bigchallenge or mostcompanies andtheir CIOs.
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HOW DO YOU
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LIKE BIG DATA?
AGILE PRACTICES
WOOING THE
BUSINESS
PUTTING
CUSTOMERSNEEDS FIRST
2 HOW DO YOU SOLVE A PROBLEMLIKE BIG DATA?want to be in managing and using big
data, the study ound. Respondents
said they all short on analyzing Web
patterns (80%), measuring email
campaigns (85%) and monitoring
social media (88%). Unstructured
datathe audio and video fles and
social streams o data that dont eas-
ily ft into the traditional databases
is passing them by.
Shvetank Shah, executive direc-
tor of The CEB, a Washington, D.C.,
technology consulting frm, said that
workorces, by and large, lack therequisite mental habits to use big
data and analytics to drive busi-
ness decisions. In its recent study o
roughly 500 companies, CEB found
that one-fth o employees go by gut
instinct when making business deci-
sions; about hal o all employees
over-trust data; and about one-third
are what CEB calls informed skep-
tics, or people who can blend judg-
ment with data to drive the business
orward.
The good news? Companies are
making a concerted eort to get their
arms around big data, according to
the CompTIA study. Over the next
two years, 41% of large companies
plan on hiring new employees to meet
the data analysis and business intel-
ligence requirements to leverage big
data, while 39% plan to use outside
consultants or vendors.
Linda Tucci is news director for SearchCIO.com.
Write to her at [email protected].
Over the next twoyears, 41% o largecompanies plan onhiring new employ-ees to meet the dataanalysis and busi-
ness intelligencerequirements toleverage big data.
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CORPORATE
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HOW DO YOU
SOLVE A PROBLEM
LIKE BIG DATA?
AGILE PRACTICES
WOOING THE
BUSINESS
PUTTING
CUSTOMERSNEEDS FIRST
3 AGILE PRACTICES WOOING THE BUSINESS
LONG-TIME AGILE project-manager-
turned-project-trainer Joseph Flahi,
president and CEO at Whitewater
Projects Inc., has noticed a new crop
o students trickling into his classes.
One client is in marketing and sales
and wants to fgure out how to use
Agile methodologies to solve prob-
lems with the way projects are being
run in his organization. Another client
works in a logistics environment ship-
ping goods, and is trying to fgure out
how to use Agile to do that.
People are looking at Agile andsaying, Hey, theres a lot o success
around it and a lot o buzz around it,
so how can we apply it? Flahi said.
But, at the same time, they need to
ask, Where are the problems that
were experiencing and how can we
resolve them?
Before employing any methodol-
ogy, the people in charge must fgure
out their departments and companys
value propositions and how theyre
measured, and then look at what is
slowing the delivery o that value,
Flahi said.
For British Airways PLC (BA), eco-
nomic necessity spurred the London-
based airline to adopt Agile practices,
believing they would speed up and
deliver new business value.
During the economic slowdown
in 2008, a focus on generating newrevenue led us to using Agile to both
drive the business proposition and
develop IT, said Mike Croucher, head
of IT architecture and delivery at BA.
Agile practices allowed BA to develop
new services, as well as make chang-
es to existing programs. Oten, the
AgilePracticesWooing the BusinessEnterprises are relying on Agile practices to create
new services and improve project managementacross business lines. By christina torode
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AGILE PRACTICES
WOOING THE
BUSINESS
PUTTING
CUSTOMERSNEEDS FIRST
3 AGILE PRACTICES WOOING THE BUSINESS
payback period or these investments
was less than a month.
The airline recently launched an
iPad application or its cabin service
directors to give them up-to-the-min-
ute inormation on the preerences o
executive club members. The applica-
tion went rom idea to production in
90 days using Agile practices.
Early demos o the application were
given to the service directors, and
their eedback played a key role in
the ultimate design. These directors
in turn gave direct feedback to BAsbusiness leadership team, which in
turn reinorced the positive view o
the project and IT delivery, Croucher
said.
The concept behind BAs Agile
practices is to go live with a minimal
set o unctions to derive an early
ROI, Croucher said. The process also
prioritizes requirements by value.
Projects are stopped once the major-
ity o the agreed-upon benefts are
achieved. Then the Agile team moves
on to the next idea.
AGILE PRACTICES AND
BUSINESS ALIGNMENT
Agile and lean are the frst practices
Ive seen in 20-plus years that aretruly helping to solve the business-
IT alignment issue, said Alex Ad-
amopoulos, CEO at New York-based
Emergn, an Agile and lean consulting
rm whose customers include BA,
Standard Life PLC and British Tele-
com. For the past two years, hes
seen Agile practices move beyond
sotware development into corporate
project and portolio management,
he said.
This movement, in turn, has led
CIOs to become more involved in
project management discussions.
The CIO is spending more time with
business heads and portolio heads,
becoming a true partner to them, ver-
sus [IT being] a cost center, Adamo-
poulos said.
The benefts o combining Agile
practices with lean methodologies
are becoming so pronounced that one
day a new term that encompasses
both will emerge, according to For-
rester Research Inc. It makes sense,
said Dave West, vice president andresearch director at the Cambridge,
Mass.-based consultancy. I youre
doing [an Agile] sprint o only three
weeks, you bet you have to reduce
waste, and you bet you have to econ-
omize the amount o unctionality, the
delivery and the code writing. Its a
Agile and lean arethe frst practicesIve seen in 20-plusyears that are trulyhelping to solve thebusiness-IT align-
ment issue.ALEX ADAMOPOULOS
CEO, Emergn
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AGILE PRACTICES
WOOING THE
BUSINESS
PUTTING
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3 AGILE PRACTICES WOOING THE BUSINESS
natural segue rom Agile to lean.
General Electric Co.s Software
Solutions Group (SSG), which is
replacing a mix o sotware develop-
ment methods, including waterall,
with Agile practices, appreciates the
connection. Its next step is interject-
ing lean into the process, not only or
sotware development but also across
such other GE business lines as the
engineering division, said Paul Rogers,
executive manager of SSG. Weve
gotten a lot out o Agile, but it is lean
that makes you hyperproductive.Lean optimizes the whole liecy-
cle o work, Adamopoulos said, and
its goal is to remove as much waste
as possible. Combined, Agile and lean
will ocus a project on three things:
nValue, to ensure that the team is
working on the right projects.
nFlow, so the team is working on the
right projects, in the right order.
nQuality, to make sure that quality is
built in early enough in the process.
Value, ow and quality [together
are] a means o defning Agile and
lean, and many o the practices are
synonymous, even i the terms dier,Adamopoulos said. In the lean world,
they use the term kanban board. In
the Agile world, its called a story
board, but theyre identical. Its a big
wall with our columns and Post-its.
Whether applied to the sotware
development liecycle or to the proj-
ect development liecycle, Agile prac-
tices, combined with lean, allow or
midcourse project corrections, which
are difcult to achieve with traditional
project management approaches.
They also simpliy release cycles
through iterations, and reduce waste
and complexity.
Companies should be prepared,
however, or a rough ride initially. The
other side o the Agile-lean coin is
culture shock. Business and IT groups
might have a hard time adjusting to
monthly or even weekly releases o
new eatures. Lean practices will rein
in Agile release cycles, but gover-
nance is needed too. Accordingly, BA
and GE both have a governance planin place, in some orm or another.
Christina Torode is executive editor for
SearchCIO.com. Write to her at ctorode@
techtarget.com.
Agile practices,combined with lean,allow or midcourseproject corrections,which are difcult
to achieve with tra-ditional project man-agement approaches.
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AGILE PRACTICES
WOOING THE
BUSINESS
PUTTING
CUSTOMERSNEEDS FIRST
4 PUTTING CUSTOMERS NEEDS FIRST
TO SEE ONES customers clearly, organi-
zational leaders must develop a clear
vision o whom they serve. At Aetna
Inc., a 160-year-old Hartford, Conn.-
based company, that required a radi-
cal shit in how the business viewed
its bread and butter: health insurance.
Previously, company leaders elt
the health insurance industry was
based on business-to-business trans-
actions. Recently, they realized the
advantagesreally, the necessityo
making sure customers has access
to as much inormation as possible,
leading to better decisions aroundhealth care.
Aetnas actions are part o a larger
trend o enterprises ostering a com-
bined technology and marketing
strategy. Rather than leaving custom-
ers shouting into the void, IT and
marketing are increasingly working
together to bring customers closer to
the business.
Aetna oresaw that shit our years
ago, when discussions with the CEO
led to the ormation o a technology
and marketing strategy at the core
o which was a commitment to put-
ting technology into the hands o
customers.
The challenge o bringing usable
inormation directly to consumers
meant tackling a 10-year-old infra-
structure that Aetna CIO Michael
Mathias called redundant, complex
and inexible. While the process isongoing, the inrastructure now is
integrate-able, extendable and scal-
able built-in, not built on, he said.
At the heart o this, SOA was the
buzzword; we made it work in a big
way.
As a result, Aetna continues to add
PuttingCustomersNeeds
FirstIT must work with marketing to develop Web services
that bring customers into the fold. BY karen goulart
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AGILE PRACTICES
WOOING THE
BUSINESS
PUTTING
CUSTOMERSNEEDS FIRST
4 PUTTING CUSTOMERS NEEDS FIRST
eatures to its interactive member
website and mobile app. Users can
access insurance cards and mobile
records; fnd the costs o plans and
surgical procedures; and even query
David, a virtual benefts adviser,
about health plans.
David is the direct result o a work-
ing technology and marketing strat-
egy at Aetna. Marketing identifed a
disconnecthuman resources sad-
dling employees with a bulky packet
o health insurance inormationthat
oten caused members to avoid pick-ing a plan. What i employees could
just hop online, answer a ew ques-
tions and get quick answers?
Its about understanding the prob-
lem and putting the technology be-
hind it, Matthias said.
ENGAGING CUSTOMERS
THROUGH TECHNOLOGY
Technology is contributing to a un-
damental shit in the way customers
engage with businesses and consume
their products and services, according
to Glenn Schneider, CIO at Discover
Financial Services in Riverwoods, Ill.
He aims to address this head-on by
orming an alliance with marketing,
e-business and other groups withinDiscover, he said.
We need to start building an
ecosystem, a marketplace. We need
to look at how we can converge
solutions so that we unction much
more as an aggregator o services,
Schneider said. People dont want to
have to go elsewhere, and we need
to make Web services available to
create that convenience or the cus-
tomer.
Version 1.0 of the technology and
marketing strategy alliance began
when Discovers IT department was
renamed the business technolo-
gy [BT] department, said Harit Tal-
war, president o the companys U.S.
Cards division.
Its not IT, its BT, and that seems
very trivial but it isnt, Talwar said.
It was a crucial frst step that curbedantagonism between the business
and IT in the name o enlightened
sel-interest, he said. That simple
change opened the door to partner-
ships between departments and lead-
ers like Talwar, Schneider and Vice
President for E-Business Mike Boush.
Those have allowed Discover to be-
come customer-obsessed, Talwar
added.
I think people are underestimat-
ing what it takes to succeed in this
marketplace, Talwar said. Theres
not going to be high ground in this
economy or long. There are market
pressures or [technology and mar-
keting] to work togetherotherwise,
we cant deliver more choices and
better services to customers.Its as simple and complex as look-
ing at what a customer does in real
life and making it virtual, Boush said.
Think about a customer paying a bill,
and the inormation he needs to carry
out the taskthe amount due, the
balance. Then imagine the customer
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AGILE PRACTICES
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BUSINESS
PUTTING
CUSTOMERSNEEDS FIRST
4 PUTTING CUSTOMERS NEEDS FIRST
gathering up the paperwork, the
checkbook, the envelope, the stamp.
O course, online bill paying is so
commonplace now as to be pass. Its
here where marketing provides the
next need or technology to ulfll. In
Discovers case, its the recent sot
launch o Money Messenger, an app
that lets customers use their cards to
do typical cash transactionspaying
the babysitter or reimbursing a riend
the $20 you owe himthrough Dis-
covers partnership with PayPal.
CLOSING THE GAP BETWEEN
TECHNOLOGY AND MARKETING
No enterprise with a successul
IT-marketing partnership got there
without someone taking the frst step.
It sounds obvious enough, but the
institutionalized discord between the
two departments is enough to make
that step eel like a giant leap. For-
rester Principal Analyst Je Ernst, a
ormer chie marketing ofcer, said
he understands the hesitation.
What makes it hard is where
theyre coming rom. History is their
biggest obstacle, Ernst said. Expec-
tations are super-high; theyre shaped
by the digital experience customers
are having with other companies, andit raises the bar. I youre not doing
the disrupting, youre going to be
disrupted.
Karen Goulart is features writer for SearchCIO.
com. Write to her at [email protected].
Enterprise CIO Decisionsis a
SearchCIO.com e-publicaton.
Rachel Lebeaux
Managing Editor
Linda Koury
Director o Online Design
Scot Petersen
Editorial Director
Christina Torode
Executive Editor
Linda Tucci
News Director
Wendy Schuchart
Site Editor
Karen Goulart
Features Writer
Corey StraderDirector o Product Management
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