The Journey towards agility (page 1 of 3)

To 100 of today's leading CIOs, agility means moving quickly and adapting intelligently to take business change by the horns.

Recognized in CIO magazine's 2004 CIO 100 Award, HP and 99 other companies — aptly called "The Agile 100" — know that building an agile or Adaptive Enterprise means building adaptive IT and business processes. And that doing so isn't like a reckless running of the bulls. It's an on-going journey, well-planned yet fraught with many barriers along the way.

According to honorees, inflexible legacy systems, a lack of necessary skills and a misalignment between IT and business needs all block the road ahead. But, after traveling that bumpy road — having entered the ring without getting skewered — they agree it's a journey well worth it.

HP's Adaptive Enterprise journey began years ago — jump-started by the IT industry's largest merger in history: the merger between HP and Compaq. Today, that journey continues as the company takes a natural next step: unifying Global Operations and IT into one organization: GO+IT.

The goal behind this combined organization is to keep IT and business needs in close alignment, simplify and streamline how HP operates on a daily basis, and to make it easier for customers to interact with HP.

Ready to GO

Gilles Bouchard heads up the combined GO+IT organization as HP's Chief Information Officer and Executive Vice President of Global Operations.

Announced by HP's Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Carly Fiorina in December of 2003, GO+IT was fully integrated in May of this year. GO+IT is now a 10,000-person strong organization.

Within most companies, these two functions operate as completely separate entities. HP has taken a bold approach by integrating its IT assets with key business operations, including supply chain, procurement, customer and channel operations, and e-business.

"The end goal is to break down internal silos, deliver more value to customers, reduce costs and become more agile," Gilles says. "That's what GO+IT is about."

According to Gilles, almost every large company faces similar challenges. "A lot of companies are trying to figure out how to get IT to work side by side with business operations so the two work together in lock-step, yet few have taken the steps to make that happen," he says.

"Nevertheless, in the future, we expect this kind of integrated approach will become more common. When I talk to customers and CIOs, many say they're heading in this same direction to make IT more responsive to business needs and business changes."

Simplifying Business Processes

A major focus for the GO+IT organization is to simplify and standardize business processes across HP to make the company more efficient and effective than ever before. The goal is to make HP better equipped to respond more quickly to customer needs and shifts in the marketplace.

As part of this effort, Gilles and the GO+IT team are developing the Business Process Architecture, a holistic framework that ties together all the elements of the company's operations, from business processes through business applications, down through the IT infrastructure.

"In my view the CIO's role is no longer just about IT," says Gilles. "Driving change company-wide requires you to work from the top-down, starting at the strategy level and the business process level. It's about understanding how to link business processes to IT to enable — rather than hinder — your company's business strategy."

The Business Process Architecture balances the need to integrate and optimize this entire ecosystem while enabling focused improvement in specific process areas.