La Fondation Gianadda est la seule en Europe à accueillir la prestigieuse collection Phillips. Des oeuvres de Renoir, Matisse, Monet, Gaugin, Cézanne ou Picasso qui vont attirer à Martigny des amateurs de toute l'Europe. Au total, 55 chefs-d'oeuvre de l'art européen. Une exposition à ne pas manquer!
[AM-CFDTD8]
¶ 4:04 PM 0 Comments
http://www.decisio.info/article.php3?id_article=73
Après l'éclatement de la bulle spéculative des années 90, les banques d'investissement ont dû repenser leur approche du marché. Pour Morgan Stanley, la rationalisation s'est traduite par la mise en place d'une direction CRM. Les objectifs : une réduction des coûts, une efficacité commerciale accrue et un pilotage de l'entreprise basé sur des indicateurs concrets et pertinents.
Lorsque Tony LoFrumento prend la direction du CRM chez Morgan Stanley, il découvre rapidement l'ampleur de la tâche. « Quand une entreprise manque de faits, les décisions sont essentiellement basées sur l'intuition, dit-il. Et Morgan Stanley manquait cruellement d'informations factuelles ! ». Si l'entreprise pouvait s'enorgueillir des 5 millions de comptes ouverts, elle était incapable de savoir combien elle avait de clients en portefeuille. Et les clients les plus fidèles, qui avaient ouvert des comptes multiples, recevaient en retour… de multiples factures. On était très loin d'un traitement VIP !
Rassembler l'information stratégique…
Après avoir mis à plat tous les besoins d'information des décideurs de l'entreprise, Tony LoFrumento et son équipe se sont attelés au premier de leurs chantiers : la migration sur une base unique de l'ensemble des données depuis plus de 30 sources différentes. Dès lors que les croisements de données devenaient possibles, l'information prenait un sens. Un exemple ? Connaissant enfin le nombre de ses clients (2,6 millions), Morgan Stanley peut désormais calculer son taux de pénétration pour chaque type d'investissement. Et donc orienter sa politique commerciale en toute connaissance de cause !
… pour une plus grande efficacité marketing et commerciale
L'exploitation de la base de données clients a d'abord permis une rationalisation des coûts marketing, en éliminant par exemple tous les doublons des fichiers d'envois de mailings. Sur une seule campagne grand public, le nettoyage des bases a abouti à la suppression de 350 000 adresses ! Corollaire immédiat : des opérations de marketing direct bien plus efficaces, et plus instructives. « Par rapport à l'année précédente, notre première campagne visant les particuliers a donné des taux de retour supérieurs de 40 % », se félicite Tony LoFrumento. De plus, l'analyse des résultats par catégorie de prospects permet aux équipes marketing de déterminer à chaque fois des axes de progression clairs.
Parallèlement, cette démarche a également permis de mettre en œuvre une politique de fidélisation des meilleurs clients. « Sur certains segments, nous avons constaté que 13 % des clients assuraient 75 % du chiffre d'affaires », témoigne Tom Tao, responsable des statistiques. Les équipes commerciales ont donc pu ajuster leur politique tarifaire en fonction du chiffre d'affaires généré par les clients.
Vers un pilotage pertinent de l'entreprise
Réduction des coûts, ciblage des prospects, fidélisation des clients… Les bénéfices de la base de données CRM de Morgan Stanley ont été considérables. Mais tout ceci n'aurait pas été possible sans une interface ergonomique permettant aux équipes marketing et aux courtiers d'interroger facilement la base. L'information est une chose ; sa mise à disposition en est une autre.
Forts de leurs succès opérationnels, Tony LoFrumento et son équipe s'attaquent aujourd'hui à une nouvelle étape dans l'exploitation de leurs données : le pilotage stratégique de l'entreprise. Au programme : des indicateurs communs et connus de tous les collaborateurs, dont les évolutions pourront être suivies en direct sur un Intranet. Un formidable outil de responsabilisation et de motivation ! « Pour le top-management, il est plus facile de communiquer sur la base de synthèses graphiques qu'en compilant des chiffres », souligne Tom Tao. Et T. LoFrumento de conclure : « Nous remplaçons l'intuition par l'intelligence. Sans des données fiables et directement exploitables par les décideurs, une entreprise est aveugle ».
[AM-IK8H6A]
¶ 4:01 PM 0 Comments
BY JOHN BALDONI
When Robert F. Kennedy adopted the cause of civil and human rights for the poor and excluded from society's mainstream, he paraphrased the playwright George Bernard Shaw with these words: "Some men see things as they are, and ask, Why. I dream of things that never were and say, Why not? That thought encapsulated Kennedy's quest for equal rights as well as echoing the convictions of his younger brother, Ted, the long-serving senator.
The Kennedy boys were born to privilege but raised to challenge the status quo. Democrats do not have a lock on embracing new visions. It was Ronald Reagan who looked at relations between the U.S. and USSR and envisioned a different reality. He broke with the engagement and containment policy of the State Department that held the peace during the Cold War. Reagan used his communications, backed by military buildup, to crack the monolith of Soviet hegemony. Less than three years after he left office, the USSR dissolved.
A Potent Word
One of the most powerful words in the English language is why. When asked as an interrogatory, why has the power to change assumptions, preconceptions and mindsets. It has the power to initiate change as well as the power to affirm the right course. It is a word that should be used frequently but with great care. When used the proper way, it can be one of the most effective tools a leader can employ. And it's totally free.
Why is a word favored by those not satisfied with the way things are. These individuals tend to be inventors, entrepreneurs, scientists, social capitalists and politicians. By nature, they are catalysts. Inventors and entrepreneurs wonder about alternatives using why to provoke thought about what might be and try and quantify it as a product or service. Scientists use why as part of the scientific method that begins with a hypothesis and ends with proof. Engineers use why as a means of diagnosis: what happens and why. Social capitalists and politicians alike use why to question assumptions about the way organizations and governments serve their constituents. For all of these types of people, why becomes the trigger word for invoking alternatives as well as beginning the process of bringing people along to alternate points of view.
How To Use the Power of Why
When used appropriately, the word why can enable people to look beyond themselves, to consider alternate points of view and to begin to change their own notions about self and others.
Here are ways leaders can put why to work.
* Burst preconceptions. People with restless imaginations, be they scientists, inventors or explorers, are forever peeking behind preconceptions with questions beginning with why. For two millennia, learned men believed the sun rotated around the earth. Copernicus asked why that was so and proved the opposite. Christopher Columbus challenged the notion that the earth was flat; why not reach the Far East by going west from Europe? He was partially correct, but in the process discovered the New World.
* Question assumptions. One of the most often heard replies to a why question is this: "It's the way we always do it." One entrepreneur inventor who did not accept this assumption was aviation pioneer William Boeing. It was said of him that he would sink any number of "dry wells" if he thought he was drilling in the right field. Minor setbacks did not deter Boeing, nor would he let it deter others. If the assumption was sound, he ploughed ahead.
* Raise the stakes. Why questions can elevate the playing field. Take Bill Parcells, a winning football coach with three different organizations. When he takes over a new team, he uses the why word to instill a winning attitude, as in, "Why can't you do this?". Like Vince Lombardi before him, Parcells raises individual expectations and thereby raises the expectations of the whole team.
* Enlist support. All organizations, especially those undergoing change, need the support of everyone. By giving honest and defined answers to employees' why questions (why do we need to do this, why is this way better, or why can we stay the same?) leaders can inform people and begin the process of rallying them to the cause. Harley-Davidson did just this when it was undergoing its transformation to a customer-driven and employee-owned business.
* Identify new challenges. Asking why will often point to roadblocks. One of the reasons Jimmy Carter has been so successful as an ex-President is that he has continued to asked why questions about human and civil rights: Why must children go hungry? Why must competing parties fight in the streets instead of through elections? Why must people suffer river blindness when there is a simple and inexpensive cure? Questions like these led Carter around the world pushing his humanitarian agenda, for which he was awarded in Nobel Peace Prize in 2002.
Inherent in the word why should be hope. A leader's responsibility is to instill hope, not to hide the truth or to sugarcoat present difficulties, but as a way to encourage people to consider alternatives. You can promise hard work and hard times and hard challenges ahead, as Winston Churchill did for the British people in the Second World War, but you must give them something larger than themselves to believe in, too. For Churchill, it was nationhood and national character; for leaders of companies, it is the power of organization and the benefits of its products and services.
Why can propagate hope by raising the possibilities of alternate solutions to current problems. Instead of making current problems worse, leaders can encourage people to ask why as a means of encouraging them to find new and better ways of doing what they do and, in the process, add value to the process, product or service they provide. All of this emerges from a sense of why.
Use With Care
Why is a powerful tool for a leader to use but it should be used with discretion. Overuse can lead to unpleasant consequences.
Past On Communication Leadership Columns:
* Helping Hope to Spring Eternal
* The Value of Thinking
* It's the Real Thing: Authenticity
* Let Your People Know
* Tackling the Tough Audience
For example, the manager who always asks why to any request or any issue risks trivializing the power of the word itself (as well as becoming extremely annoying). Too many whys will turn people off; they will feel that they are being questioned rather than their ideas. As a result, they will cease communicating to the manager, effectively cutting him or her off from information as well as relations with the team, a disastrous situation for any manager.
The power of why can also be turned inward; leaders need to question their own preconceptions and assumptions. Mother Teresa was someone who relentlessly questioned her beliefs, wondering at times she was doing God's will. If so saintly a woman as Mother Teresa can ask the eternal why, then leaders everywhere can look inside themselves.
When used correctly in the right situations, why has the power to get people to ask their own whys. They may discover new things about themselves as well as their work that will benefit their ability to grow as individuals and as contributors to the organization.
Which makes why such a potent word. Its strength derives from the power of individuals to make a positive difference.
---
John Baldoni is a leadership communications consultant who works with Fortune 500 companies as well as non-profits including the University of Michigan. He is a frequent keynote and workshop speaker as well as the author of four books on leadership; the latest is Great Communication Secrets of Great Leaders (McGraw-Hill). Readers are welcome to visit his leadership resource website at www.johnbaldoni.com.
[AM-LI2M7D]
¶ 3:58 PM 0 Comments
Patricia Wallington
CIO Executive Research Center
IN EVERY CAREER there are both milestones and plateaus, which are alike in that they take effort and new skills to hurdle. The single biggest challenge, however, is letting go of what I call the transactional level of leadership.
Remember how hard it was to learn to delegate in your first management job? You were in charge of a unit; suddenly you found yourself leading the organization. You stayed actively involved in the day-to-day transactions. After all, you had been the best salesperson, technologist or whatever in your particular field. You had made it this far on those skills. Therein lay the next challenge-and the key to advancing your career up the proverbial ladder. The things that made you successful in the past could be the very things that retard your growth to the next level.
I once worked with the president of a large company who had earned his stripes as a marketing executive before taking the top spot. Chaos reigned almost immediately. He did not fill the marketing position; he drove his staff through multihour meetings late into the night. He was literally working around the clock. He could not let go of the tasks that had made him successful. During one midnight conversation, I cautioned him, "You cannot do 37,000 jobs, but you can fail by trying." He gradually grew into the job but not before imposing a lot of pain on his organization and himself.
The challenge of letting go of transactional leadership exists at every level in organizations: when moving from a team member to head of the team, from manager to executive, from departmental executive to CEO. To be successful in these moves, you must move yourself from a transactional style.
There are several challenges that one must overcome in order to move through that transactional level of management to a big-picture leadership style. The term "transactional" as used here may differ from the academic definition, but it suffices to describe the conditions I have observed in real companies.
Letting go of the tasks that you have enjoyed doing and that led to your success may be difficult, but if you don't, you will remain mired in your experience rather than benefiting from what you have learned. Consider the question: "Do you have 10 years of experience or one year of experience 10 times over?"
A former colleague depicts a leader as a juggler, with more and heavier balls being added as you move up the ladder. Even the best jugglers will eventually drop a ball. Reaching for the lost ball, the juggler drops more balls and thus begins a cascade.
New leaders often ask how they can gauge whether things are moving in the right direction if they are not personally involved. There are lots of ways to keep one's finger on the pulse.
To succeed, the juggler has to learn that he can't keep an increasing number of balls in the air; he has to let some go. I believe the challenge is to be aware of your changing situation as you progress. In transactional mode, you are initially juggling the transactions of one organization. When you excel at juggling 20 simultaneous transactions in that organization, your reward is to add a second organization. As in the aforementioned case of the president, you cannot manage 40 simultaneous transactions. You must now become adept at juggling the people who manage those transactions while you concentrate on the bigger picture. And so on up the ladder. The next level is to learn to juggle organizations. To avoid failure, voluntarily toss a ball aside before it drops.
Here are some strategies you can consider to help move you beyond transactional leadership.
Get the big picture. Entangled in transactions and day-to-day crises, you cannot see the forest for the trees. But you need to understand the big picture. View your company from the outside without the distraction of politics.
Be cautious of extrapolating from today's situation. Aiming for progressively higher levels of your current goal may work for a while, but today everyone must consider the potential annihilation of the existing business by some external force.
Keep your finger on the pulse. New leaders often question how they can gauge whether things are moving in the right direction in their organization if they are not personally involved at the transaction level. There are lots of ways to keep one's finger on the pulse of the organization.
One of my clients has a "Top Two" meeting every Monday morning by phone. Each staff member briefly describes his or her top two priorities. This promotes shared communication and crisp identification of the hot items. Extended stays in the top two may indicate where there are problems that need high-level intervention. Develop critical indexes, such as customer satisfaction measures, ROA or productivity, that will allow you to manage in the aggregate.
Focus on what's important. Make sure the organization also has an effective process for setting priorities. Boiling things down to the vital few initiatives enables you to avoid the overreaching that is so common in resource-strapped companies. Rigorous priority-setting is always difficult, particularly when you have to say "no" to a business unit or customer. But with the appropriate rationale, the rigor at the front end is less painful than the multiple failures at the back end.
Treat time as the enemy. Does your day drive you or do you drive your day? It is possible to contain the hours but you must take control of your time. Set limits and stick to them. Be sure your assistant knows the boundaries for putting something on your calendar, so that your day is not eaten up with transactional decisions. Be sure to allot an appropriate amount of time to big-picture leadership. Don't allow yourself to drop back into the old mode.
Look to the future. Initial discomfort with the struggle to break through the transactional level can lead to regressing. I loved the excitement of working with the field organizations. When I was promoted to a corporate position, it seemed more stilted. I felt as though every one whispered in the halls. I missed the shouts of joy from the field.
It took some time and some persistence, along with the support of my mentors, to find the fun that lies in setting the direction for others to follow. I disciplined myself to move forward and not let the memories of the past pull me back. Now the strategy role is my favorite part of work.
Once you've moved past the transactional level you can reap the very real rewards. You will see the benefit of being able to leverage more than just your personal skill set.
* You will become a role model for your people, helping them to learn how to make a similar transition.
* Your contribution to the business will be enhanced.
* You will demonstrate your readiness for the next level.
* You will leave a sustainable organization-one that will be able to pursue its mission and goals long after you have moved on to your next opportunity.
The old saying goes, "It's what you learn after you know it all that counts." To succeed at a higher level, let go of your old job.
---
Send your thoughts on this column to leadership@cio.com. Before retiring in 1999, Patricia Wallington was corporate vice president and CIO at Xerox. She is now president of CIO Associates in Sarasota, Fla.
[AM-23TDSA2]
¶ 3:56 PM 0 Comments
BY MARTHA HELLER
A CIO I SPOKE with recently says he has had it with technology. "We have all of the technology we need," he says. "What we are lacking is the innovative use of that technology-that's the really tough part." I asked several members of the CIO Executive Council to talk about how they foster innovation inside their own companies. According to Council member Stephen Warren, CIO of the Federal Trade Commission, "Innovation is doing something in a new, unexpected way," he says. "It's an epiphany, an aha." But contrary to popular belief, innovation doesn't have to result in business transformation or a huge expense. As members of the Council demonstrate below, innovation can be subtle, manageable and a core part of the IT organization.
DELEGATE THE FIRE FIGHTING. "You cannot drive innovation while you're putting out operational fires," says Carl Ascenzo, CIO of Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts. "Hire the best operations team you can, and stay out of their way."
ESTABLISH CREDIBILITY. Trust breeds innovation, and communication breeds trust. Establish a formal communication program, as Jim Burdiss, CIO of Smurfit-Stone Container, has done. "Our Office of Continuous Improvement [OCI] is responsible for communicating with the enterprise on anything that has a technical impact," he says. "If power goes down at a plant, the OCI lets everyone know. Without the OCI, we'd have a tougher time innovating."
ACCEPT AND SEEK CRITICISM. "Not every idea is a good one, and some are downright lousy," says Dave Clarke, VP and CTO at the American Red Cross. "To improve your ideas, ruthlessly seek out criticism. If you can't bear to hear that your baby's ugly, you won't be a successful innovator."
PROVE IT. Does the idea save money? Does it increase real productivity? Will it work? "Nothing ruins your credibility faster than a business case full of holes," says Clarke. "Do your homework and get some feedback before you start shopping your idea around."
LOOK AROUND. Staying inside your organization and keeping the lights on may be instinctual during down times, but it is hardly a pathway to innovation. "You have to look outside your frame of reference," says Kent Kushar, CIO of E&J Gallo Winery. "You don't have to be the first wagon out of the fort, but if you want to be a fast follower, you have to get out there with your customers and see what's going on." The same goes for your staff, says Larry Brown, CIO of Arch Coal. "The people in the trenches need to know that they have the flexibility to look at innovative alternatives."
AVOID TECHNOLOGY WORSHIP. A project need not involve brand-new technologies to be innovative. "Stay off the bleeding edge," warns Jeff Peterson, CIO of UNICCO. "Innovation is much more likely with tested and proven IT. At UNICCO, for example, we used a low-end portal toolkit to test an innovative account-management concept for how we collaborate with our customers. After receiving overwhelming interest from our customer base, we moved forward with Websphere, a proven technology."
REVISIT THE STARTUPS. In addition to innovating inside their own companies, CIOs have a role to play driving innovation in the IT industry. As such, they need to start priming the startup pump again. "We all need to open the door a little wider for the startups that will drive the next generation of external innovation," says Scott Hicar, CIO of Maxtor. "If CIOs can collectively agree to take at least one startup technology into consideration for your portfolio, the stream will start flowing again."
TIGHTEN THE PURSE STRINGS. "Constraint breeds innovation," says Clarke. "It's very tempting, when money and resources flow freely, to stick with tried and true solutions. When money and resources are constrained, you have to find new and creative ways to solve problems."
WATCH YOUR TIMING. "Innovative technologies are like a joke. It's all in the timing," says Gene Elias, CIO of Quiksilver. "Expecting operating units to participate in a new project at the drop of a hat is a surefire formula for failure."
FIND OPPORTUNITIES IN PROBLEMS. Don't get so lost in a problem that you miss out on the opportunity it provides. "Let's say an application fails because some servers are misconfigured," says the FTC's Warren. "While you're doing a physical walk-down of your infrastructure to solve the problem, emerge with a baseline architecture."
[AM-SUUDJM2]
¶ 3:44 PM 0 Comments
Results of CIO magazine's recent survey, How to Run IT Like a Business, asked CIOs which of more than 40 business practices were most effective in bringing business discipline to IT. We also asked CIOs to list the greatest benefits their organization achieved as a result of implementing these business practices. The list of benefits includes:
# Increased IT credibility with the business
Consolidate vendors
Employ internal relationship managers/account executives to work with the business
Formally manage risk
Use a chargeback model
Create and use performance metrics
Conduct regular strategic planning meetings to achieve alignment
Conduct internal customer surveys
# Transparency of costs and benefits of IT
Consolidate vendors
Conduct regular strategic planning meetings to achieve alignment
Formally manage risk
Perform audits
Use leadership development programs
Assemble an IT board of directors drawn from IT and business functions
Competitively price IT services vs. outside providers
# Better ability to make IT staffing and outsourcing decisions
Consolidate vendors
Use a chargeback model
Perform audits
Create and use performance metrics
Assemble an IT board of directors drawn from IT and business functions
Conduct regular strategic planning meetings to achieve alignment
Employ internal supplier relationship managers/account executives
# Improved customer service/loyalty
Formally manage risk
Use a chargeback model
Consolidate vendors
Employ internal relationship managers/account executives to work with the business
Perform audits
Achieve most favored customer status
Formally manage risk
# Increase IT Staff productivity
Use a chargeback model
Consolidate vendors
Perform audits
Employ internal relationship managers/account executives to work with the business
Formally manage risk
Issue P&L statements
Implement quality improvement methodologies such as Six Sigma or CMM
# IT quality improvements
Use a chargeback model
Perform audits
Formally manage risk
Employ internal relationship managers/account executives to work with the business
Create and use performance metrics
Consolidate vendors
Establish a project management office
# Closer alignment with the business Expense reduction
Employ internal relationship managers/account executives to work with the business
Consolidate vendors
Issue P&L statements
Conduct regular strategic planning meetings to achieve alignment
Perform audits
Compensate/reward IT employees/managers based the IT org performance
Use a chargeback model
# Expense reduction
Issue P&L statements
Employ HR officer for IT
Use a chargeback model
Employ internal relationship managers/account executives to work with the business
Perform audits
Implement quality improvement methodologies such as Six Sigma or CMM
Formally manage risk
Survey results show that there is a core set of five practices common to, and associated with, achieving all of the benefits. The list of core practices is:
# Employ an IT-dedicated financial officer
# Regularly use portfolio management or other project prioritization methodology
# CIO is member of the corporate board or executive committee
# Win and showcase IT awards
# Regularly use project management methodologies
[AM-GL25N32]
