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Unlock the secret to creating maximum business value from technology
Filled with case studies from leading C-level executives to illustrate concepts discussed, Breakthrough IT is a revolutionary approach to reshaping the corporate information technology function. This innovative, step-by-step guide provides concrete methods every business can implement to yield maximum value and competitive advantage from their IT organization.
Patrick Gray (Harrison, NY) is the founder and President of the Prevoyance Group, an IT strategy consultancy that combines project management and process improvement to ensure large IT departments deliver maximum organizational value.
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"Patrick Gray has done a very commendable job of delineating the evolution of information technology's (IT's) role: basic history, and the roadmap for supercharging the value of IT to the enterprise. It has robust content and the chapter material is well-conceived and logically sequenced. Breakthrough IT is a valuable read that should be kept handy." (New Jersey CPA, May/June 2008)
"examines what it means to be living in an era of corporate information technology and the step-by-step methodology required to create a value-based IT organization." (Bookviews.com, February 2008)
"IT today is being squeezed by a "Triple Threat" Gray does a nice job of describing." (Techrevu.com; 11/2/07)
From the Inside Flap
We live in one of the most interesting times in the history of the corporate Information Technology organization. The function of IT in today's organizations is no longer limited to providing a commodity service at the lowest possible cost and the CIO can no longer be seen simply as a "technologist." IT in the twenty-first century is all about helping your company execute on its strategic objectives, with the CIO playing a more proactive role in focusing IT's efforts on deliver-ing strategy.
A revolutionary book providing a step-by-step methodology for creating a value-based IT organization, Breakthrough IT details the multidisciplined approach companies must take to considering, selecting, and delivering large IT projects that generate maximum return on investment.
Filled with case studies, analysis, and commentary illustrating both successful and failed projects, as well as several enlightening interviews with leading C-suite executives in various stages of implementing Breakthrough IT in their own companies, readers will learn how IT is being used in various organizations and will gain insight from the front line across multiple industries, company sizes, and continents.
Combining several disciplines with the goal of making IT serve business objectives rather than provide and service tools, Breakthrough IT:
Reveals how IT should deliver and execute business strategy, and not just provide a portfolio of commodity services
Provides a methodology for transitioning IT from the old way of doing business into a Breakthrough IT organization
Explores how the CIO can be the primary person responsible for instituting process change, rather than a mere keeper of technology
Provides guidelines for the CEO and CIO to move their relationship from one of customer and vendor, to one of partners in fueling business growth
Spells out the critical roles of the CEO and CIO in driving change
Shows CIOs how to develop process expertise within their organization
With useful action points and an executive sum-mary at the end of each chapter, Breakthrough IT contains concrete steps you can begin taking in your organization to transform its IT function into a true Breakthrough IT shop. Guide your IT organization from an engineering, "utility-based," internal provider to a Breakthrough IT organization, capable of delivering predictable and measurable returns on IT investment. Equip your company to break through with Breakthrough IT.
Patrick Gray is the founder and President of the Prevoyance Group, located outside Charlotte, NC. Prevoyance Group helps organizations deliver breakthrough results through technology, combining traditional strategy consulting with technology as a "special sauce" to accelerate results. Past clients include Baker Hughes, CA (formerly Computer Associates), Gillette, Nissan, OfficeMax, Pitney Bowes, SAP and other Fortune 500 and 1000 companies.
Patrick graduated from Boston College with a triple major from the Carroll School of Management. After spending his youth "stuck" to the East Coast of the United States, Patrick's consulting career has allowed him to work in and explore the rest of the US, Asia and Europe, and he has recently spent several months working in China. Much of his work has focused on international projects, and he has enjoyed the impact of culture, geography and inter-entity relationships at play in this environment. Patrick frequently speaks for audiences large and small, and once had the opportunity to speak at a former Royal Manor House near Windsor Castle.
Renowned for exploring new ways to generate more value from IT, Patrick has been quoted numerous times in major publications such as the New York Times, CIO Magazine, CxO, InfoWorld and Business 2.0. He also publishes a monthly column on CIOUpdate.com and CBS Interactive's TechRepublic, and recently celebrated the publication of his first book: Breakthrough IT: Supercharging Organizational Growth Through Technology, published by John Wiley & Sons.
Also active outside the consulting world, Patrick is also a co-founder and member of the Board of Directors of Connected Minds, an organization dedicated to capturing often neglected perspectives of historical events. He is also on the Board of Directors of Junior Achievement of York County, SC, his local chapter of the world's largest organization dedicated to educating students about workforce readiness, entrepreneurship and financial literacy through experiential, hands-on programs.
Each year CIO Magazine's top IT initiatives lists "Aligning IT with Business Units" as one of CIO's readers' top goals. It's clear that IT management is hungry to work hand-in-hand with business units -- but it's not at all clear how to accomplish that goal. Some people recommend "using business language instead of technology jargon." Others propose playing golf with colleagues from business units. Still others recommend getting an MBA. While each of these is valuable in its own right, none of them really get to the heart of the matter: how do you manage IT *as* a business unit and infuse the company's objectives in every day processes and planning? "Breakthrough IT" addresses this with practical methods of moving IT from an operations focus to a strategy focus.
The book contains sections on creating the right employee base, applying portfolio analysis to your project list, implementing project budgeting discipline, and (as a last resort) how to kill a project.
If you want to move away from being a harried order-taker and become a peer of the other departments in your company, you owe it to yourself to read "Breakthrough IT."
This book does a great job of taking several broad areas and tying them together. Most other IT books dig deeply into a single subject, whether its portfolio management or governance, and they don't always show how that area relates to others, or to an IT organization as a whole. They also tend to stray into such esoteric aspects of the topic they cover that they would not help the average executive. This book took all the key areas for a excellent IT organization: strategy, portfolio management, human resources, etc. and tied them together, showing how all the "moving parts" relate to get IT aligned with the business.
Really like what he has to say. Definitely a must read for new and experienced IT managers. Great perspective with lessons that cannot but help us improve our IT organizations.
