SIM International Resources

SIM’s Regional Leadership Forum (RLF) is a process, not a curriculum, which enables each participant to discover what makes him/her an authentic leader. RLF is about leadership in life: work, home, community, and country. Effective leaders possess the ability to combine their personal leadership traits with qualities learned or acquired throughout their lives through mentors, life experiences, or professional development opportunities. RLF takes participants through a process that helps them identify their own inherent leadership qualities and arms them with the building blocks and knowledge necessary to rise to the top of their professions.

IT executives continue to cite IT-business alignment as a key worry; at first glance, however, they shouldn’t worry — the boss likes them. On deeper reflection, many CIOs and their shareholders should worry because CEOs don’t expect much proactive behavior from IT. Forrester’s survey of top executives probed CEOs about their view of their CIOs and IT organizations. On the plus side, CEOs seem to be generally satisfied with IT and CIOs — most of all when hired personally, seated at the executive table, and experienced in the job. Unfortunately, CEOs admit to low expectations of the role that IT plays in the enterprise in terms of contribution to innovation, process improvement, and asset management. CIOs own half the responsibility for shaping the CEO’s low expectations — which means educating the boss to expect more.

Unless you’ve been incommunicado for the last few years, you’ve doubtless noticed the extensive press that SOA has recently received. Though the term can be intimidating, the fundamental concept is really quite simple – and very powerful. It’s that to meet your present and projected business needs, you can turn your software applications into “building blocks” that you can infinitely rearrange, and usually at great speed. It gives you a new way not only to “reconfigure” your business, but to connect to suppliers, partners and customers. Much like the Internet before it, SOA is sweeping through companies and industries, upending the competitive order. Thanks to SOA, companies are fast commissioning new products and services, at lower cost and with less labor, often with the technology assets they have right in hand. It’s like discovering that with your existing condiments, you can make an entirely new and unexpected recipe, to the delight of your diners and of course yourself. Most important, SOA is helping to put IT squarely where it belongs: in the hands of the business executive, under whose direction it can create the most value.

DALLAS – CEOs, CIOs, and other top enterprise managers are placing an increased emphasis on security technologies, business process management (BPM), and business intelligence, but aligning IT and business strategies remains their top concern. That’s according to a survey commissioned by the Society for Information Management (SIM, www.simnet.org). SIM’s annual survey, which included responses from senior IT leaders drawn from the association’s membership base, showed that web services ranks at the top when it comes to applications and technologies of importance to IT executives. It was followed by business intelligence resources, security technologies, business process management, customer portals, and applications and system integration.