"Understanding the role of technology and how it can be used to sustain and/or grow the business is crucial."

CAROL COPELAND
Director of IT
Robins & Morton

Carol has been the Director of Information Technology for Robins & Morton since 2008, a full time IT professional since 2000 and an employee of Robins & Morton since 1983. As a Director of Information Technology, she directed , planned and managed the technology operations, including all information systems and telecommunications services, for all Robins & Morton offices and jobsites. Over the past thirteen years she has implemented and managed a variety of technology driven initiatives. Carol raised the company’s IT department from 1 person and 2 servers to a department that now serves over 750 users utilizing 42+ servers. She was a past member of the Herzing College advisory board and currently a member of the Microsoft SMB Advisory Board since 2009.

Challenges in technology to meet enterprise needs in 2013 and expectations.
• Mobile devices of all kinds are finding their way into our environment. Controlling these devices and the company information they contain will continue to be a challenge as consumerization invades the business world.
• “Big Data” - how to store it, how to manage it and how to back it up. The growth rate of data just keeps increasing and we find ourselves struggling to keep up. Many lack a long term plan for managing this monster.
• Disaster recovery….old topic, but I feel it is still very important to a lot of companies. It’s one of those things you should have in place, but many don’t.

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.
• Providing technology that meets the business needs of the company while reducing cost. This also includes fully utilizing all current systems to maximize the ROI.
• Finding cost effective and efficient ways to meet the needs and expectations of end users while empowering them to be more self-sufficient.
• I think security has to be on everyone’s mind at some level. It is a constant challenge to stay on top of all the threats out there.

Technology Trends Impacting Enterprise Business Environment
• The increase of BYOD and mobile devices will have a dual impact. While they are becoming essential to daily business, proper control and management continues to be difficult. In our case we have to address not only the company owned devices but personal devices as well. We plan to utilize strong company policies and good management software to ease some of that challenge.
• We will be utilizing virtualization, though not a new trend, as an integral part and the first step to our disaster recovery plan. It will not only provide redundancy, but quick fail over in the event of a disaster while minimizing business disruption.

My roles and responsibilities as a CIO
My role has required me to become more of a strategic thinker and somewhat of a technology wrangler. I am no longer only responsible for creating IT strategy that aligns technology with company goals. With the increase of technology acquisitions within business groups, I find myself responsible for co-ordinating and tracking these acquisitions rather than making them. Technology savvy employees are no longer willing to be held hostage to long deployment schedules. It is critical to be involved in the process as early as possible by the business groups in order to insure proper fit and alignment with the overall company goals.

Lessons I learned as a CIO that can help you
• Understanding the role of technology and how it can be used to sustain and/o grow the business is crucial.
• Stay current on emerging technologies.
• Create peer relationships. They can prove to be very valuable assets.
• Work to create and maintain a positive face for IT. It will help prevent you from becoming a constant target.
• Stay flexible and open minded.