An unnamed CIO, who Patty Morrison once hired for one of her divisions, left within the first nine months to run a business unit in another firm.
Instead of lamenting the loss, Morrison saw it as an endorsement that Motorola was a desirable enterprise in which to work. “I think one of the indicators of a really strong organization is one that exports talent,” she said. “That also creates new opportunities for others to move up in the organization.
Morrison also believes her IT division was becoming known as a positive waypoint for business leaders to come in and gain work experience.
Based in the U.S., communications specialist Motorola had sales of $42.8 billion in 2006. Morrison, who is also an executive vice president, oversees all strategic, operational and financial aspects of the company’s information technology architecture, systems, tools, processes and infrastructure.
Before joining Motorola in 2005, Morrison served as CIO of Office Depot and The Quaker Oats Company.
Opportunities for talent
“Sometimes it means that the talent that we have developed gets exported and that is something you wish does not happen,” said Morrison. “But, for many, there are great opportunities for them to become CIOs, so I try to support them in that aspect of kind of career growth.”
According to Morrison, the reason that Motorola executives are so sought after in the industry is that they have earned reputations as business leaders, which stems from the philosophy of cultivating leaders within her division. When Motorola created a new integrated supply chain division that her IT division had to support, Morrison sought out Cathie Kozik, corporate vice president of IT, supplied her with the necessary resources and watched her create an effective IT group from scratch.
“I tend to create a leadership group that reflects how the company is organized so that it is very clear what accountability lies with each of my team members and what business area they are supporting and then delegating to them,” said Morrison.
She said the most important aspect of her work was to develop leaders; the right people who would ensure that everything was well executed.
Measure performance
One of her key methods to unearth leaders was to examine their performance. “You have to put individuals into growth situations,” Morrison said. “Give them an opportunity to step up, and ensure they have a track record of demonstrating the ability to build relationships in the business, execute programs, grow and develop their own organizations.”
This global CIO believes that what builds the capability of leaders was their experience gained from roles and responsibilities that were not just about executing someone else’s plan. “They need to have jobs where they have a whole end to end responsibility from developing the vision, the plan, getting alignment with the business, getting funding, putting their teams together and that’s really how you grow and develop those leaders,” said Morrison. She added that she spends every quarter going through the process of identifying leaders from her division.
The landing zone
A project Morrison is working on is one dubbed the “landing zone”. Aimed at reducing complexity within the IT environment, the concept is an architectural structure that gives a road map view of data and applications within Motorola’s infrastructure.
“You will have a variety of choices when in a project, you have an architectural roadmap to enable you to say what technologies do I actually utilize? What standards are important in the company to take advantage of?” said Morrison. According to her, over 88 landing zones have been defined and by the end of 2008, the project would be 75 percent completed.
According to Morrison, a hot topic for CIOs in 2008 would be on how to balance investments in technology so they create real value to their companies. “There will be a lot more focus on measuring and accountability for return on investment,” she said. “Always in the background will be the pressure to find the lowest cost methods to deliver those capabilities.”
The tools for CIOs in this area would include outsourcing and offshoring activities that offer cost effectiveness in countries like China and India. However, one challenge that CIOs have to face was the rapidly rising costs in these countries. To overcome that, Morrison said that Motorola has also invested in places like Vietnam, as an alternative.
Mobility rules
Another burning issue was embracing the implications of mobility within enterprises. Sales forces were becoming very mobile and other departments were also turning out mobile workers.
“When your people are continually spread out due to globalization, mobility becomes a very important strategic concept to embrace and so is wireless mobility,” said Morrison.
She also noted some issues that the IT industry should address collectively, such as encouraging business leaders to take assignments in IT. “I think every C-level aspiring person needs to have IT experience since it’s become such a critical part of delivering business to customers today.”
Huge software scope
One reason she sees as being behind the problems, is that the software companies over-achieved on scope. Vendors take too long and finally launch programs with huge sets of features. They attempt to support multiple vertical industries, taking in requirements from thousands of users from businesses around the world, and the software has to accommodate everything.
“I would rather have a smaller scope with feature upgrades that deliver predictably on time,” Morrison said. “When I am managing projects, my expectation is that what you’re promising to deliver on the timeframe. What I do not get will impact my ability to deliver the business value that I’ve committed.”
“But it is all of us together – the vendors and CIOs – who have find ways to come up with better solutions than we have today,” she concludes.
