Most Helpful Customer Reviews
6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Business Executives Guide to Business Transformation Thru IT, February 11, 2010
This review is from: Blind Spot: A Leader's Guide To IT-Enabled Business Transformation (Hardcover)
Charlie Feld is one of the great CIO's that laid the foundation for the IT executive. In this most-readable book he explains his framework for IT-enabled business transformation.
His understandable, powerful framework has four planks 1. WHY (Why do anything?), 2 WHAT (What will we do?), 3 HOW (How will we do it?) and 4. WHO (Who will lead and manage the change?). Within those planks are time-boxed phases which set the pace and cadence of the business transformation. The focus of the book is on the framework; the four planks.
In many ways this book and the framework described is little different than the approaches of many consulting companies. But in critical aspects this book is very powerful. Mr. Feld is writing to CEO's, CFO's, and only somewhat to CIO's. He explains very well, and uses real company examples to illustrate, the critical role of senior business leaders in any "IT-enabled business transformation". Further, he makes it clear that any business transformation today has to be IT-enabled and senior executives must have a competency in managing IT as a critical part of their business.
This quick-read, unpretentious book may become a classic. It reminds me of Fred Brooks The Mythical Man-Month. Short, simple, full of important, useful information and makes some powerful points. I recommend it for everyone in the C-suite.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Was this review helpful to you? Yes
No
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Thought Provoking, March 28, 2010
This review is from: Blind Spot: A Leader's Guide To IT-Enabled Business Transformation (Hardcover)
Being a CIO is a tough job as Charlie Feld well knows from his many years as one. He wrote in an article I read some time ago that as a CIO "90 percent of what comes across your desk isn't good news." Having spent much of my own career as a CIO I can certainly attest to that and can appreciate the challenges one faces in attempting to use technology as one of the levers to transform a company.
Blind Spot is aptly titled as information technology for many executives is something that they fear, don't understand and, quite frankly, sometimes wish would simply go away. They also understand that IT holds the possibility, when properly used, to transform a business. Thus, IT is a blind spot for many executives.
I have found that business books generally fall into three categories:
1. "How To" books that prescribe a method for accomplishing something such as improving one's leadership effectiveness, managing change, or building teams.
2. "Fact" books. These are data sources containing facts and figures, results of studies and surveys or other such information. Their primary purpose is to inform or answer questions.
3. The final category are "Idea" books. Those that, through stories and example, serve to generate ideas and provoke thought.
Blind Spot falls into the third category. The methodologies (described by other reviewers so I won't repeat a description here) combined with the well-written case studies of Frito-Lay, The Home Depot, Burlington Northern Santa Fe and Southwest Airlines provide examples that, at least for me, served to stimulate ideas for different approaches to transformational initiatives within my own company.
Finally, this isn't an IT book, it is a business book. Even the most technophobic of executives will find this book useful. In fact, it is precisely these folks who may find it most useful.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Was this review helpful to you? Yes
No
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
It's about business model transformation for large enterprises, June 14, 2010
This review is from: Blind Spot: A Leader's Guide To IT-Enabled Business Transformation (Hardcover)
This book is about enterprise-wide transformation of business models for large enterprises. This book is more intended for CEOs than for CIOs.
The center of this book is about a management framework that was invented by the author for business transformation and used in many large enterprises over the last 30 years successfully (mostly). This simple and effective framework has four planks of foundation: WHY, WHAT, HOW and WHO and five phases of execution: Strategy, The Turn, Up & Running, Hitting Stride and Self Sufficiency.
The amazing thing is that it takes only a little over 2 years to complete a dramatic business transformation using this framework. This framework has been used in companies like Frito-Lay, Burlington Northern Santa Fe, Wellpoint, Coca-Cola, Delta Airlines, Kemper Insurance, Coors, Southwest Airlines, Home Depot, and so on.
The author repeated again and again the example of Frito-Lay. Clearly, the successful transformation of Frito-Lay using even the crude IT technology available during the mid-80s from a centralized business model into a hybrid model was a stunning success. But the bigger success should be the invention of the hybrid business model: a large, strong, centralized, efficient, leveraged core with flexible, innovative and customer-centric edge.
This book focused on the four planks and spent only a few pages on the five phases. But even the coverage of the four planks was not equal. Clearly, the author's passion was in the three planks of WHY, WHAT and WHO as these chapters literally have sparks flying off the pages. To be honest, the author is more of a business and people leader than a technology leader, which is probably why the HOW plank showed almost no spark at all.
The author again and again emphasized that the care, cultivation and promotion of talented people is the highest mission of a business leader. This ought to put most of today's business leaders, executives and managers in shame. To most of them, employees, talented or not, are just tools and means for them to achieve results. They spend little or no time in passionate care and cultivation of the people under them. To them, finishing tasks and achieving results are all they cared about. However, the author advocated that a business leader should spend about 1/3 of his/her time in cultivating talents. This is true leadership!
This book is about IT-enabled business transformation. In the author's framework, IT is only a tool, an enabling and integration function. This is an accurate position for IT within an enterprise.
This book should be read by all CEOs and CIOs not just for successful business transformation, but much more for learning and loving the cultivation of talented people under their leadership.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Was this review helpful to you? Yes
No
|
