Top of their game: CIOs who make it to top management must create strategy and execute it.

When Rich Agar stepped into the position of chief information officer for GE Insurance Solutions, the biggest skill set he had to learn was how to be a more effective global communicator. That's because the position reported to the chief executive officer, which meant information technology was treated as a strategic change management function instead of a cost function, said Agar, who is currently Global CIO and Shared Services Leader for the specialty reinsurer/commercial insurer.

At that level, "you have to have a strategy that's comprehensive across the business," Agar said. "You have horizontal responsibilities that require prioritizing funding across the functions. You have to think about how to drive productivity, consistent process management, globalization. You can't exist in the world today without thinking globally."

Agar is one of a new breed of information technologists who have risen to corporate leadership positions and are helping direct the business strategies of their companies. He will talk about this role and its impact on company success at E-Fusion 2005, A.M. Best Co.'s insurance and technology conference.

Although Agar didn't have to convince GE Insurance of the importance of having the CIO in a leadership role, he said a key to achieving that recognition is "establishing credibility across the business that you can think strategically and execute the strategy. The linkage of strategy and execution is important because too many people are just strategists."

Also, that credibility must be established in the first 120 days. "It's a critical window," Agar said. "You have to deliver credibility early at this level. You're going to have some failures--it goes with the territory--but you can have that if you have credibility."

As a guide to achieving that credibility, Agar offered the following suggestions:

Do an assessment. Meet with every functional and profit-and-loss leader and learn what they are trying to achieve.

Look at technology funding and resource alignment. Consider resource capability. Examine funding requirements that are built into the current plan. "Then you have to see if one plus one plus one equals three. If it doesn't add up, make a change," Agar said.

Do it across all profit-and-loss units. "For example, one [profit-and-loss unit] may want to grow their top line 20%. Are they doing that with a price increase or other means? How are they going to measure that? Does a plan exist? If not, you need to build the tool to measure the increase," Agar said. "That links technology to strategy. Then ask, do I have someone who can execute on that project? Is there funding available?"

Next may be a finance function. "They've got to close their books in 45 days, but they have many manual entries. Talk about how to automate that. Get process efficiency," Agar said.

Eventually the CIO will have to aggregate all of this information. In most cases, there'll be a limited amount of funding available, so the CIO has to prioritize. "That's when you need negotiation skills, prioritization skills," Agar said.

The biggest downside to being a CIO at that level is "it's high risk, high reward," Agar said. "Visibility is great if you deliver, but the downside could be your career. Truly, the downside of not playing at that level is you're not plugged in to where the business is going. You could be in a 'change the lights' situation instead of driving the enterprise."

Speaker Spotlight 

Rich Agar

Global Chief Information Officer and Shared Services Leader

GE Insurance Solutions

"Agents of Change"

Philadelphia

Oct. 17-18, 2005

www.efusion2005.com