Sue, the T-Rex, Holds Court at the TBM Conference Awards Gala

This week, I had the great privilege of presenting the CFO of IT Excellence Award at the TBM Conference 2015 in Chicago. The awards program honors excellence and innovation in Technology Business Management (TBM) and culminated in an evening gala held in Chicago’s Field Museum of Natural History.

The four-day conference featured some of the most prominent thought leaders and practitioners of TBM, the leading companies that have achieved great success because of it, and informative seminars offering insights into IT services transformation and business innovation. But, perhaps, the most memorable guest in attendance Tuesday night was Sue, the Field Museum’s 42-foot long Tyrannosaurus rex who stood center stage at the awards gala. As the rest of us discussed new ways of doing things, new technologies and new innovations, there stood Sue in the background, a constant reminder of all the dinosaurs that haunt the hallways of our own enterprises.

TBM and the CFO of IT Excellence Award are important industry agents for change, helping us evolve in our relationships with information technology, drive innovation and create a new era of collaboration between IT, Finance and other business units. Our demands on IT to be more efficient while helping organizations drive top line growth have never been higher. Let’s just say that pre-historic methods can often be barriers to success. The CFOs recognized at this week’s event are outstanding examples of what is possible. Their use of TBM enables them to deliver on those demands: to do more, do it faster and cheaper, gain insights into IT’s real value, use data for value-added analytics and shape IT into a strategic business partner.

I was very pleased to present this year’s CFO of IT Excellence award to Clorox, a company with more than 7,000 employees and net revenue of $5.5 billion. Its strategic use of TBM has increased its visibility, allowed IT project owners to get a better handle on their funding and budget—and more importantly—allowed IT budget owners to collaborate in a way that results in new and innovative business projects.

While forecast accuracy used to be between 50 and 80 percent, Clorox’s strategic use of TBM brought it to a consistent 97 percent for the past eight quarters and simplified the process of sharing the data across all business units. Because Clorox no longer uses those tedious spreadsheets, they save both time and money in the forecasting process. The CFO was quoted to say that he took one look at the new budget reports and declared them “the best level of information I’ve ever seen.” Congratulations to the Clorox team.

ISG helps enterprises navigate the TBM journey. Contact me to discuss further.

About the author

Todd Lavieri is responsible for ISG’s largest region, encompassing the United States, Canada and Latin America and representing more than half of the firm’s revenue. He also is responsible for the Pacific subregion, including Australia and New Zealand. He joined ISG in July 2014 with 24 years of experience in the global services industry. 

Previously, Todd was with IBM, where he served as general manager of IBM Global Consulting and more recently as general manager, Global Business Services, IBM Canada. Before joining IBM in 2010, Todd was president and CEO of Archstone Consulting, a strategy and operations advisory firm he founded in 2003 and sold to The Hackett Group in 2009. Earlier, he was a partner at Deloitte Consulting and a member of its Global Management Committee during a distinguished 13-year career with the firm. 

An expert on business transformation and growth strategies, he has personally advised Global 1000 clients across such sectors as manufacturing, retail, life sciences, healthcare, energy and consumer products. Todd is a graduate of Trinity College, Hartford, Connecticut, and holds an MBA from Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business.