Driving Business Value Through Innovation in the IT Executive Suite, Judy Homer

Long-time member Judy Homer is the President of JB Homer Associates, a retained executive search firm with the global experience, reach and assessment skills needed to source technology and operations executive talent in a global market. The firm’s searches cross all industries and all borders, with a completion rate within clients' desired time frames that exceeds 90% of search assignments. Here, she discusses how companies are creating innovation through information technology. 

Given the rapidly expanding and competitive global marketplace, and with fewer opportunities for growth, the demand for the innovation of unique products and services and expeditiously bringing them to market are dramatically on the rise. To successfully drive business value through innovation, information technology is evolving from being an order taker to becoming the central nervous system and a key strategic partner with the business.

We have seen our clients drive innovation through the establishment of business partnerships between information technology and the C-suite of executives, with business information officers imbedded in the business, and through sharing strategic plans with external vendors. By leveraging these relationships, senior technology leaders are establishing strategies for innovation in order to facilitate a competitive edge economically to their organizations. Strategies for driving innovation through information technology vary, but the common denominator is being able to provide new products and services to the marketplace ahead of the competition.

We have seen our clients establish research and innovation labs as a vehicle for both individuals inside and outside of information technology to create ideas for next generation products, and for the development of a process to get these ideas into production. It is important to develop a culture to allow people to go down the path of innovation and enable experimentation without them being criticized for ideas that do not come to fruition, as has been historically evident. Companies are immersing their information technology people in the business and having them interact directly with the marketing professionals and other key business leaders to create a “virtual water cooler” to foster innovative ideas.

It is important for technology leadership to have close interaction with their customers, both internal and external.

These partnerships can be maximized by assessing their needs and translating them to drive profound business value by leveraging emerging information technology trends. Creating dashboards to measure success is crucial as well, given the criticality of rapidly delivering new products and services to market. It is also important to constantly be on the forefront of technology as products can become obsolete. The convergence of the cloud, social networking and mobile computing is being closely looked at as leading edge technologies to help drive innovation.

Being able to get buy in from the board and senior management is vital for the successful creation and delivery of innovative products and services. A compelling business case and strategic rationale needs to be crafted in order to demonstrate the benefits of generating new ideas and aligning them with the business strategy. Acquiring the necessary funding and appropriating a portion of the information technology budget to innovation is imperative to effectively drive business value and therefore give your company a competitive advantage.