“Create a strong relationship with the business at all levels as an equal partner, not as just a support function.”

STUART SCOTT
CIO
Tempur-Pedic

Scott leads Tempur-Pedic, the IT organization, globally. He served as Chief Operating Officer of Taylor, Bean & Whitaker Mortgage Corporation (TBW) since November 2007. He served as Chief Information Officer of Microsoft Corp., until November 2007 and served as its Corporate Vice President. He served as Chief Information Officer for multiple GE divisions at General Electric Co. (GE). He held IT management positions in Sales, Distribution, Marketing, Product Management, Customer Service and Engineering in GE Appliances. He has been a Member of CIO Advisory Board at Virima Technologies, Inc. since September 2010. He holds Bachelor's and Master's degrees in Engineering, Mathematics and Computer Science from the University of Louisville, as well as an M.B.A from Vanderbilt University.

Challenges in technology to meet enterprise needs in 2013 and expectations.

In a word…”Apps”. With the rapid growth of apps for smartphones and tablets along with the push for BYOD, end users have a high expectation on the enterprise IT organization to deliver always accessible, automated authentication, personalized and simple to use system delivered through mobile applications. Securely delivering on that expectation requires IT to rethink and retool. We need solutions from all our technology providers to facilitate this transformation.

The areas in business environment where solutions do not exist or not up to the mark, and which if existed, would've made job easier.

I sleep on a Tempur-Pedic mattress so I sleep very well! In a mid-size business we are balancing a mix of in-house and hosted SaaS solutions. Hosted solutions are excellent ways to deliver best-of-breed solutions that do not make business sense to manage in-house. But this creates the challenge of delivering an integrated workflow and data set to the end users.

Technology Trends Impacting Enterprise Business Environment.

Mobility, BYOD and Cloud. Consistent with my prior answers, these three trends are escalating user expectations and making IT’s drive to deliver to those expectations very difficult. In the world of IT, new exciting and challenging are ever present and why I love the profession that I have chosen.

My roles and responsibilities as a CIO.

Tempur-Pedic is going through a systematic upgradation and global transformation of our information technology. To help make that global transformation successful, my role has expanded to include business process and master data management. I have a team of dedicated business process owners that work with our business around the world to design and implement global, regional and local business processes. In partnership with senior executives, I sponsor several master data management forums where standards are set for Financials, People, Products, Vendors and Customers.

Lessons I learned as a CIO that can help you

There has been enough books written on this topic to fill a library. So coming up with something truly unique is difficult. In my experience some keys to success for a CIO are (1) measuring the success of your organization on business results, not indirect or internal metrics; (2) create a strong relationship with the business at all levels as an equal partner, not as just a support function; and (3) lead through empowerment and coaching of your people.