When measuring the success of your organization’s IT innovation efforts, several things come to mind. Tangible metrics are certainly near the top. Establishing which key metrics are going to help achieve your organizational, operational, financial goals, and provide you and your team with valuable information is necessary for substantial growth and improvement.
But when it comes to finding ways to mindfully define the success of your innovative IT solutions, the answer should be broad. It should encompass a business perspective in addition to deliverable performance metrics. Just as the modern-day CIO role has shifted, the ways successful innovation is enabled, managed, and measured should too.
RG Conlee, the Senior Vice President and Chief Innovation Officer for Xerox, puts a strong emphasis on using a comprehensive business framework to define success. “What’s really important is how we have applied our innovation focus to our business process services,” explains Conlee. In doing so, Conlee and his team have established three generally business-wide tactics critical to helping define innovation success:
- Giving quality attention to employees. “Creating a great place to work so that our organization attract and retains talented individuals has been vital to our success. We continuously work to improve our own employee satisfaction by complementing their work with new applications of technology such as RPA.”
- Considering the IT and innovation influence on client relationships. “Being a key enabler for the Xerox team through the introduction of innovation is essential to improve our existing client relationships and attract new customers. It’s also very important for us to ensure that our clients can achieve higher levels of customer satisfaction with their own clients.”
- Contributing to conversations with important shareholders. “We’ve focused on improving the value of the Xerox enterprise so that we meet the market’s expectations for growth, margin expansion, and shareholder returns. I believe innovation is fundamental to that value creation, and that we can improve the return to our shareholders by reducing our cost structure, improving margin, and generating higher levels of revenue by expanding our business with current clients and being a very attractive option for new clients.”
Working closely with business leadership to operationalize innovation is a great start towards creating a company culture that embraces both business and technology change. What business framework measures are you and your IT team implementing to help define your innovative success?
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Registration for the CIO Strategy Meeting on January 30-31 is winding down! Be sure to request an invitation and save your spot at must-attend IT event of the year. Here you will have the opportunity to meet with Conlee during his group discussion on “Enabling and Managing Innovation,” as well as many other IT leaders and solution providers as you discuss your experiences, share advice, and network with your peers.