Implementing World Class IT Strategy: How IT Can Drive Organizational Innovation

With rare insight, expert technology strategist Peter High emphasizes the acute need for IT strategy to be developed not in a vacuum, but in concert with the broader organizational strategy. This approach focuses the development of technology tools and strategies in a way that is comprehensive in nature and designed with the concept of value in mind. The role of CIO is no longer "just" to manage IT strategy—instead, the successful executive will be firmly in tune with corporate strategy and a driver of a technology strategy that is woven into overall business objectives at the enterprise and business unit levels.

High makes use of case examples from leading companies to illustrate the various ways that IT infrastructure strategy can be developed, not just to fall in line with business strategy, but to actually drive that strategy in a meaningful way. His ideas are designed to provide real, actionable steps for CIOs that both increase the executive's value to the organization and unite business and IT in a manner that produces highly-successful outcomes.

• Formulate clearer and better IT strategic plans
• Weave IT strategy into business strategy at the corporate and business unit levels
• Craft an infrastructure that aligns with C-suite strategy
• Close the gap that exists between IT leaders and business leaders

While function, innovation, and design remain key elements to the development and management of IT infrastructure and operations, CIOs must now think beyond their primary purview and recognize the value their strategies and initiatives will create for the organization. With Implementing World Class IT Strategy, the roadmap to strategic IT excellence awaits.

About the Author

Peter A. High is the founder and president of Metis Strategy, LLC, a CIO advisory firm founded in 2001. He is an expert in business and information technology strategy, and he has been a trusted advisor to a wide array of business and technology executives ranging across Fortune 500 companies in various industries. Peter has developed several strategic methodologies that he and his firm have taught clients to use on their own in order to develop and update strategic plans, choose and manage the right portfolio of projects, and ensure that team performance is on the path to world class levels. The methodology described in this book was the one used to launch Metis Strategy.

In December of 2009, Wiley/Jossey-Bass published Peter’s book World Class IT: Why Businesses Succeed When IT Triumphs, which was named the third best IT book of 2009 by CIO Insight and the number one book to read to “be smarter than your boss,” according to Baseline magazine, among other accolades. Upon publication in China in late 2010, it climbed into the top fifty business books sold in that market.

Since 2008, Peter has moderated a widely listened-to podcast titled “The Forum on World Class IT,” which is available through iTunes on a biweekly basis. He writes the “Technovation” column in Forbes, and he is a regular contributor to CIO Insight. He has also written for the Wall Street Journal, CIO magazine, CIO Digest, Information Week, and On magazine, and has been interviewed and featured in many other periodicals in the United States, Canada, Australia, and China.

Peter is a judge both for CIO magazine’s CIO 100 Awards and ComputerWorld’s Premier 100 Awards.

Peter has been the keynote speaker at many corporate conferences in the United States, Canada, China, India, England, Ireland, and Australia, and he has lectured at several universities, including Georgetown University’s McDonough School of Business, the University of Washington (Seattle) Foster School of Business, the University of Maryland’s Smith School of Business, Virginia Commonwealth University’s School of Business, Purdue University, and the National Defense University.

Peter graduated from the University of Pennsylvania with degrees in economics and history.