A CIO's guide to relevancy during recession

David M Williams
Friday, 27 February 2009 17:00

IT Industry - Market

Hello, my name is David. I'm a CIO. I had to make someone redundant today. At the same time my own influence on the board is vanishing. If you’re making the same confession here’s a self-help program for you.

There's no denying we're in difficult days. The global economy has slowed down. It's equally well known that salaries and wages are a company's biggest costs. Put two and two together.

Cash flow is as important to business as blood is to the human body. If one of these stops pumping around, if one bleeds out, it won't be long before the vessel is in serious health issues.

In our case, we tried to avoid – or at least delay – reducing headcount. I would be asked if I thought it necessary.

I expressed hope – without any delusion of understanding economics - that the plummeting worth of the Australian dollar would make our exports more attractive. Instead the price of resources has continued to dive.

I hoped that even if our customers slashed their use of contractors they'd take the opportunity to perform maintenance, thus allowing another arm of the company to pick up work.

I hoped all sorts of things but in vain; the company had to reduce numbers to the tune of several million dollars per year. This included every department. This included my team.

So, I told a good guy today that his position was redundant due to commercial and operational reasons.



How do you soften a blow like that? I told him how hard it was to be giving him news like this. As if that mattered, I can't delude myself in any way it was easier for him.

I told him it wasn't him, heck, it wasn't even us. It was the situation the entire world is in.

While this was today’s issue, it’s far from the only matter pressing on my mind the last two months. One of the others is determining the appropriate response from a CIO or technology leader, and what can we be doing to get business on track.

Here are my steps for the road to recovery.

The first is to recognise the Finance department are running a lot of the show now.

For many people, that’s a painful admission and may require checking your own ego in at the door on the way in.

It's an age-old joke that the CFO and CIO don't understand each other, that the Finance and IT teams have a spot of biffo.

Now, and as creepy as it may feel, IT leaders must work with Finance more than ever before.