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Brian Comerford & Tommy Reed
'Get in the chair' of your audience and steer clear from acronyms and technospeak
Tommy Reed
MSOD
IMA Financial Group
With a background of 20 years in business technology, Tommy began his career at IMA in 2003 supporting enterprise content management, HRIS, LAN/WAN architecture, and a variety of M&A projects.
Steering transformational initiatives within business environment that typically required IT
We recently implemented high definition video conferencing in our major markets. This has been transformational in cutting down on the inefficiencies of travel between offices that were often times required for one or two meetings. Another value enhancement came through providing sensitive client information via an encrypted online portal– which is typical for consumerbased organizations, but has been more challenging for their commercial counterparts.
Things done to elevate IT’s relationship with the business
We recently completed the roll- out of our IT strategic plan. This departmental plan was specifically designed to work in concert with IMA’s organizational plan and had several goals in mind: complete engagement of the leaders of every division of our company, full transparency, and to shift our technology practices from that of “keeping the lights on” to being a partner driving and leading strategic change.
We recently completed the roll- out of our IT strategic plan. This departmental plan was specifically designed to work in concert with IMA’s organizational plan and had several goals in mind: complete engagement of the leaders of every division of our company, full transparency, and to shift our technology practices from that of “keeping the lights on” to being a partner driving and leading strategic change.
Manner in which data is used to head off problems and complications before they happen
This is an area where we are on the cusp of devising a more holistic approach. Currently we have a variety of data reporting and benchmarking tools in place that are individually attached to specific divisions and/or products. We have dashboards and procedures related to auditing, monitoring, and inventory and performance control, both for internal and client-facing usage, but spread across disparate platforms.
The areas in business environment where solutions do not yet exist or not up to the mark, and which if existed, would've made job easier
1. Interoperability is a must. The days of siloed systems are gone, and the flexibility provided by open standards now dictates what must be intrinsic to application architecture.
2. For any cloud- based product, some degree of standardization must be explicit, particularly for financial services or any industry type restricted by a myriad of compliance requirements.
Technology trends impacting enterprise business environment
2. For any cloud- based product, some degree of standardization must be explicit, particularly for financial services or any industry type restricted by a myriad of compliance requirements.
Technology trends impacting enterprise business environment
These trends are areas where the idea of “work smarter” will become even more tangible for our business. We expect that mobile will transform how we collect and interact with data. We particularly expect to reduce the number of touch points any business process will require: why collect data in one step and key it in another when those steps can be combined in the field? Why not execute documents without the involvement of the office? We’re exploring all of these.
Lessons learned and advice for fellow CIOs
Find the common language between business leadership and the company’s technologists. Solutions providers must be prepared to help IT leadership present this information in order to facilitate “the sale”. Without this information clearly presented– not just from a cost model, but from an efficiencies- gained perspective as well– CFOs and COOs will be entitled to drag their feet on approval. “Get in the chair” of your audience and steer clear from acronyms and technospeak. Create reductive examples to make clear what a product or solution will provide.
Brian Comerford
CSM
IMA Financial Group
With an inter-disciplinary educational background immersed in the areas of Communications, Art & Design, and Computer Science, Brian is a broad-spectrum professional with extensive technical production skills, project management, and organizational leadership in a variety of fields.
