Bussmann is clearly a believer in the power of information, although it’s not clear whether he has had much direct experience with the SAP BusinessObjects products (BusinessObjects is used within Dresdner Bank, previously a subsidiary of Allianz, but the IBM Cognos web site features a success story for Allianz in Germany).

In the article On The Record With AZOA’s Oliver Bussmann he says:

“The insurance industry is heavily focused on managing data — the industry is dependent on IT, and IT can facilitate the flow and accessibility of data. We look for ways to leverage core and non-core parts of the business and how to enable new functionalities. This leads to competitive advantages in terms of both business effectiveness and efficiency. IT can enable the introduction of innovative products, bringing them to market more quickly, and improve customer service.”

The related article Carrier Confidential: Allianz of America gives a glimpse into Bussmann’s management style, based on IT shared services and close ties with the business:

“Other features of Bussman’s approach to driving AZOA’s success through the IT shared-services model include collaborating toward buy-in on the part of the business; regulating change efforts through project management, communications and business partner relationship management; tracking benefits back to the business; and, perhaps most important, hiring an experienced leadership team.”

He’s also a strong believer in performance metrics and measurement:

“One of Bockelmann’s innovations was to implement performance metrics for all IT employees. “This was a challenge because individual tasks are often not automatically measured, [as are] those in a call center or business processing department,” he comments.”

“Among the results of what Bockelmann calls “a highly successful year for operational transformation” in 2007 were CMMI (capability maturity model integration) compliance rates of 98 percent (which is well above the goal of 80 percent), owing to a concerted ongoing education and mentoring program put in place by AZOA’s audit team; a reduction in problem-ticket backlog by 24 percent; an incidence of defects for deployed solutions of less than 2 percent against a goal of 10 percent or less; successful sunsetting of 104 percent of identified applications above a goal of 80 percent; and an increase in throughput by 63 percent, due to work done in CMMI, IBM optimization, application sunsetting and quality improvements, according to Bockelmann.”

A presentation by Bussmann at a Global Services Conference earlier this year called The Portfolio Approach to Global Sourcing: Managing Risk and Returns shows that he takes IT vendor scorecards seriously:

Finally, an SAP sponsored white paper from the Economist Intelligence Unit is available called Managing New Technology Realities that details Bussmann’s advice on managing complexity and the importance of communication in successful IT projects – advice that equally holds true for the successful implementation of business intelligence and management information systems:

“It is important that you have teams that understand the different business domains, and also the applications, from an enterprise perspective,” he explains. “Then, if a new project arises, you won’t run into redundant development.”

“Having achieved buy-in initially from company leadership, IT must drive further communication to keep top management informed about ongoing developments and to brief all other stakeholders on the impact of changes. “I have spent a great deal of time over the last two years setting up relationships with the business leaders, updating them on a regular basis,” Mr Bussmann recounts. To reach the AZOA culture more broadly, his organisation has employed a variety of communication vehicles, including meetings, newsletters, workshops and advisory councils.”

I presented yesterday evening at an executive dinner forum for CIOs at Claridge’s in London. The event was part of The Economist Conferences’ CIO and Technology Leaders forum, which brought together CIOs from a diverse range of companies including Rentokil, Rolls-Royce, the Salvation Army, Tube Lines, BAA, and Aston Martin Lagonda.

Carla Rapoport of the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) took the attendees through the highlights of a new study of CIO attitudes: Staying the Course? Technology Decision-Making in Turbulent Times, and Royce Bell, CEO of Accenture Information Management Services talked entertainingly about the importance—and limitations—of today’s management information systems.

The main speaker was Jeremy Vincent, CIO of Jaguar Land Rover, who outlined how his organization was coping with the current economic crisis, and explained that increasing IT maturity means “CIOs have more of an opportunity to influence other senior executives than ever before.”

Discussions over dinner were led by Denis McCauley, director of Global Technology Research for the EIU. Attendees were asked if there was an opportunity for CIOs to take advantage of the current conditions, because “a crisis is too good a thing to waste.”

It was clear that the attendees represented a very diverse range of reactions to the current conditions, both in severity (some organizations were merely experiencing slower growth, while others had seen revenue drop by 50%) and in timing (one organization had a product lifecycle that lasted several decades and would not feel any direct effects for several years).

Those who weren’t suffering large cuts in their budget questioned whether there should be any change in strategy at all (because a strategic approach should have a longer-term horizon), while those who had experienced deeper cuts had had to make big changes.

Consensus answers from the group included:

• There is an opportunity to strengthen IT teams because layoffs have meant more well-qualified (and reasonably-priced) people are available on the market.
• Since capital expenditures have been sharply curtailed, there’s an opportunity to review business processes and systems. One attendee likened his company to a gliding swan – everything looks graceful, but a furious amount of paddling was still required below the surface, and he was using this “time off from growth” to set his house in order.
• Systems should be simplified as much as possible so that the organization is more agile for future growth. Once example given was a credit-approval process that had grown increasingly more complex over a series of company acquisitions. Not only was now a good time to simplify the process, but also faster customer credit approval could be a significant competitive differentiator under the current economic conditions.
• It’s not always about standardization and having “one system” – one company was in the midst of selling a large part of their business, and had to painfully separate the existing systems into two, after years of centralization.
• The current climate was a good opportunity to prune the portfolio of IT projects and push through other initiatives that would be politically more difficult in a context of general growth

Overall, the discussions were lively, sincere, and good-hearted, and the wine and food excellent. I’m obviously not a CIO, but on based on the reactions I saw, if you are one, you should consider attending one of the Economist’s events.

Technology is indeed the answer!

Or at least, that’s what is suggested by a new report from the Economist Intelligence Unit, Staying the course? Technology decision-making in turbulent times. The study shows that the current climate provides a good opportunity to drive through major initiatives, that business leaders are looking to technology as in important instrument to prepare their firms for recovery, and that the key importance of better information systems is to better understand customer behavior.

Key findings of the study, which was sponsored by SAP BusinessObjects, include the following:

CIOs are not losing their place at the table. Where they have gained a voice in major business and technology decisions, CIOs positions are not being undermined as a result of the current economic crisis. Very few survey respondents believe that the influence of CIOs in technology investment decisions will decline in their firm over the coming year. A sizeable minority, meanwhile, expect the CIOs involvement in high-level business strategy discussions to expand.

Opportunistic firms are receptive to renewed technology investment. A large minority (44%) of the firms surveyed say that they will be “on the business offensive” in the coming year, looking for acquisitions or openings to take market share from weakened rivals. These firms are more likely than those adopting a “defensive” stance to consider selective new investment in technology. Investment proposals will not enjoy an easy ride, however. More executives are now involved in the approvals process, and the volume and detail of information required is increasing. Higher rates of return are demanded, and projects with shorter return periods are being favored.

Most firms are averse to suspending existing technology projects. Less than one-quarter of survey participants believe that major existing technology-led projects should be suspended until business conditions improve. Indeed, many believe the crisis presents a good opportunity to drive through such initiatives. Few executives, however, even at growth-oriented firms, believe that now is a good time to launch entirely new IT projects. CFOs themselves support the continuance of major existing projects, but it is unclear how often spending requests in such areas will stand up to competing investment priorities in the business.

The focus of investment continues to be on improving customer relationships. Customer service will remain the priority area for IT investments during the coming year. This is for good reason, as evidence mounts from several sectors that customer loyalty is eroding and customer churn increasing. Information management will also be high on the priority list, especially when it comes to projects designed to improve firms’ understanding of customer behavior.

The full results of the study are available free of charge at www.eiu.com/sponsor/sap/technologydecisions

Even at companies like Google and eBay, where information is the lifeblood of the organization, the CIOs don’t appear among the other  top execs (at Business Objects, CIO Sheri Andersen makes the cut, but she’s shown at the back of the team, far from the CEO.)

What does this mean, if anything? The positive spin would be that information is so important to these organizations that it’s simply part of the business — but then what does that make the role of the CIO? Just implementation and plumbing?

This is not a new issue: this week’s posts from Frank Buytendijk and Tom Hudock cover the seemingly-eternal IT-business divide, and not much seems to have changed since Gartner’s take on things a few years ago:

“Most CEOs view their CIOs as effective operational leaders. Yet only a few view them as full business leaders.”

If you’re reading this, you probably believe, like me, that information is the last great underused asset in today’s organizations. And perhaps THE big problem preventing greater deployment of BI is that there’s no one person in charge of that making better use of that asset.

Various proposals have been put forward for Chief Analytics Officers, Chief Decision Officers, and Chief Knowledge Officers, but sightings of real-life specimens remain rare.

For a glimpse of the future, we should look at another often-overlooked strategic asset: the workforce. Despite general lip-service recognition of the importance of ”assets that wear shoes”, there are still very few Chief Human Resources Officers, and HR rarely gets the budgets and executive investment they believe is necessary.

Hence, sadly, I suspect that we’ll be talking about this issue for a long time to come…