A Conversation With Susan Cramm

Smart Insights August 2009

Susan Cramm understands better than most what businesses require of IT; she has been on both sides of the equation. The former CFO and Executive VP at Chevy's Mexican Restaurants, Cramm was also CIO and VP of the IT Group at Taco Bell Corp.

Currently, Cramm is President of the IT advisory firm, Valuedance, where she coaches IT leaders. Smart Enterprise Exchange asked Cramm to discuss the need for enterprise automation strategy in global enterprises.

Q: How will business processes evolve in the next 12 months?

A: As we continue to delve deeper into the symbiotic relationship between IT and business processes, it is becoming more and more important to manage the tension between process discipline on one hand, and flexible end-user empowerment on the other. Both concepts have to be in place before process automation can yield substantial benefits, and making them coexist effectively is one of the things that will determine organizational success or failure. Successful global firms will make better use of new tools, technologies and automated practices that facilitate top-down strategic initiatives while simultaneously re-empowering employees to take care of customers.

Too much uncoordinated activity can lead to inefficiencies that doom an organization. At the same time, a set of business practices that are too rigid or automated can alienate precious customers. The emerging generation of enterprise automation technologies, such as business process management and social computing, will allow managers and field-level employees to address and optimize this tension in a way that is consistent with the culture of the organization. And, of course, all of these variables — business processes, employee empowerment and customer demands — are going to vary from industry to industry, and company to company.

Q: What specific changes will be needed?

A: Companies will need to actively analyze and manage the data about key variables to determine where the optimal tension points and balance lie.

That is why a key development in enterprise automation management — particularly in the manufacturing and retail sectors — revolves around the evolution of automation all the way to the endpoint or edge of the organization and even beyond. As organizations embed technology into their final products — whether they are electronic tags in shoes or intelligent sensors in automobiles — executives are going to be challenged to figure out how to use this insight to further improve their relationship with customers. These new inputs will accelerate continuous improvement cycles that allow companies to serve their customers in a better, more cost-effective manner. For example, I’m working with a retailer that’s determining how to use customer analytics and tools to re-empower store employees. The company needs to balance its need for greater process discipline and efficiency with the understanding that every customer is different and unique.

Q: How do you see IT innovation affecting enterprise automation initiatives?

A: Innovation does play into this, but again, there are at least two dimensions of innovation that need to be addressed by business process optimization and automation. On the one hand, there is a strategic need to provide senior executives with the ability to set radical new directions based on interpretation of business intelligence. On the other hand, you have to provide frontline employees with tools to constantly hone and sharpen the way they accomplish their day-to-day tasks. 

In the first case, automation allows the organization to dramatically change the way it operates. Another of my clients, for instance, is determining how to improve topline revenue by shifting more of its business online. To achieve this, it first has to work out some of the bottlenecks that exist with the physical delivery of goods.

Additionally, automation allows employees to constantly — if incrementally — elevate their role in the organization. The next generation of enterprise automation solutions must support both of these scenarios.

Q: What are the biggest stumbling blocks to enterprise automation initiatives?

A: There are still serious misconceptions about the role that enterprise automation should play in the organization, which inhibits more robust implementation. To some executives, automation is a CIO responsibility but not necessarily an issue that nontechnical business executives need to worry much about. However, in a small fraction of businesses — probably less than 5 percent of organizations — enterprise automation is the foundation of the company’s operating model, used to define the core capabilities necessary to implement its strategy.

When business managers aren’t involved in automation initiatives from the start, the IT organization can be viewed as an impediment to innovation because the efforts are focused on technology standards rather than business processes and data. But when automation is at the foundation of the organization, it can promote innovation by coordinating enterprisewide capabilities to rapidly propagate changes.

Q: How can CIOs as well as non-IT leadership ensure that enterprise automation succeeds

A: Underpinning all of this is the importance of having collaboration across all levels of the organization while developing a meaningful architecture. There must be a solid understanding of market dynamics as well as technological capabilities.

In a recent survey I conducted of business leaders, only 25 percent consider themselves “IT-smart,” with more than half saying that they make IT-related requests without knowing the overall enterprise impact or the return on investment.

That’s a problem. I don’t care how great a leader you are, you have to understand the business implications of technology, and that includes the current and potential capabilities as well as the ramifications of how you are impeding or promoting enterprise interests.

The potential of business automation is limited if leaders — in and out of IT — are unable to connect the dots between current and target business processes and information, and between desired business outcomes and emerging technologies.

CIOs and other IT leaders need to get smarter about enterprise automation so they can educate their business counterparts. Once this occurs, businesses can define and manage projects that deliver value at the frontline and enterprise levels.

Ask the Expert:

Susan Cramm is the Founder and President of Valuedance, where she is an IT leadership coach. She is the former CFO and Executive VP at Chevy's Mexican Restaurants, and was CIO and VP of the IT Group and Senior Director for Financial and Strategic Planning at Taco Bell Corp.

Cramm writes the Harvard Business Review blog, Have IT Your Way, and is author of the book, Eight Things We Hate About IT: How to Move Beyond Frustrations and Form a New Partnership with IT, scheduled for release in the spring of 2010.