Jack Carlisle, CIO Essay

IZL is a growing financial services organization and there has been a sudden replacement of the CEO of the company. This lead the company in a state of turmoil and employees are uncertain about their job. Jack Carlisle was hired to organize the IT infrastructure in IZL. IT was not well managed in IZL to align it with the business strategy and a lot of restructuring was required. There was lack of infrastructure for applications as well as regulatory purposes. Physical infrastructure was not properly managed and people in the organization are not able to cope up with the growth in the company. IZL itself as an organization has many internal issues ranging from absence of proper business strategy to conflict amongst the business leaders. With new competitors entering into the market and lack of integrated business objectives with IT, the profits of the company have eroded and as a result, the stocks have plummeted. There is a need for the collaborative effort to put proper business strategy in place as well as standard operating procedures since the company has grown enough to be managed on adhocracy. Carlisle has been able to codify the management system and financial practices but most of the departments are not pleased with the â€Å"transparency†. Carlisle should try to get the business heads on board before defining the business applications for them as if they are not satisfied, technology will not be accepted. Moreover he was able to stabilize the current IT physical infrastructure. IZL has too many vendors and business volumes were not properly available to properly forecast the capacity required for the business. Many business areas go directly to procure a service instead of going through the IT division showing the lack of importance of IT in the organization. The business conducted over the internet has shrunk from 52% to 49% and since most of the financial service data was digital in nature, it could be very beneficial to the business. There is also lack of coordination between the sales people and the IT department. Alongwith improving the business and giving IZL a selling point, the conversion of business primarily over the internet will also help in integrating various departments. But all these plans were work in progress when Hansen was the CEO. But with recent change in leadership with Giles as the CIO, many of these ideas might not become concrete implementation. Giles’ communication has a lack of clear and direct communication which shows a lack of leadership as this could directly affect the future of the company. His employees are uncertain about what he thinks of them and are unable to relate to him. Furthermore, because of recent restructuring of human resources in the organization, especially with the key personnel being fired from the company, have created even greater uncertainty at a very sensitive time. This might show that he is probably not able to handle company transitions. The company is currently in crisis, because key personnel are not certain of their position and their future in the company Carlisle is a shooter personality who says things straight to the face which is quite opposite to the style of Giles who seldom gives comments on the situation. This might cause drift between the CEO and CIO which might not be beneficial for the company. Giles should take responsibility and properly communicate his plans to his employees to gain their trust and loyalty. He must reduce the uncertainty in the minds of his key personnel so that he may not lose any personnel he doesn’t want to. Considering the initial success of Carlisle, it would not be a good idea to let Carlisle go from the company. Giles should focus on designing a business plan which is suitable for the organization as a whole and ask Carlisle to design an IT strategy aligning with the business.