"Have the courage and be prepared to transform aging application portfolios to meet the future demands of the company"

CHRISTOPHER A GRAHAM
CIO
Church Mutual Insurance Company

Graham joined Church Mutual as Vice President - Chief Information Officer in 1997. Graham was an officer at a Milwaukee-based insurance company before coming to Church Mutual. He earned a bachelor's degree in business administration (marketing major) from Cleveland State University and a master's degree in business administration from the University of Wisconsin - Oshkosh. In 2005, Computerworld Magazine named Graham on its list of the Top 100 chief information officers in America. Graham is Vice Chair of the St. Francis Xavier parish council and serves on the UW - Oshkosh MBA advisory board.

Challenges in technology to meet enterprise needs in 2013 and expectations.
My biggest wish would be to have a tool that reviews critical business applications and can someway harvest the business logic that only exists in the code and is forgotten because the resources who created the solutions have left the company(retired) and the next generation of workers do not have the experience to maintain the and transform the business logic to a new set of tools

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.
We are in the process of switching technology stacks and migrating our core business  pplications to a new platform. Business logic and knowledge is embedded into the program  ode and does not exist in our documentation. If there was a way to harvest business logic from code to guarantee business functionality will not be lost, this would be very useful.
The switch in technology stack requires a more highly designed and tuned security solution. Data and service security from unauthorized access because of a cloud deployment needs to be more fully developed.

Technology Trends Impacting Enterprise Business Environment
The first trend is Big Data. Being an Insurance company means we have access to a tremendous amount of data. Building out a more robust Information based environment using the data is going to provide a real value to the organization.
Second trend is mobility and cloud computing. Being able to deploy key applications to the cloud and access the services through anumber of mobile access points will offer a more cost effective model and easier platform to conduct business.

My roles and responsibilities as a CIO
The biggest difference in my role as CIO is the change of focus from Solution Provider to more of Business/Enterprise Architect. More of my time is spent determining the impacts technology changes will have on the growth and profitability of the organization and how changes will impact the flow of work through the organization.

Lessons I learned as a CIO that can help you
One, Do not underestimate the complexity of moving to SOA and Agile methods. Two, Spend more time with the business to understand organizational change management with regards to technology changes. Three, Have the courage and be prepared to transform aging application portfolios to meet the future demands of the company. The cost of change is high both economically and professionally, but now our focus should be on sponsoring and implementing a set of modern services that will not limit business opportunities for growth and profitability.