Normally, GBS Heads and Chief Information Officers (CIOs) from various enterprises partner to accomplish organizational tech adoption goals. Yet, occasionally the urgency, the significance of form vs function, or even the two leaders’ vision may differ. Here’s the summary of the conversation between Michael Zill, CIO and CAO at Acadia Pharmaceuticals, and Markus Baumgartner, Head of Global Business Services at MIBA Group

1. IT does have to say no often due to a lack of resources and operational bandwidth! – IT often doesn’t have enough resources, doesn’t have enough money, and is always being over-tasked with what’s at hand. So we end up being the ones that have to prioritize, and SAP and Oracle tend to be the most critical things that affect the most people here at IT. So, in the end, if the business doesn’t get prioritized, we end up being the office of the No.

2. Managing IT spending better and treating it equally to your other business spending – Many organizations do limit their IT spending, and I have this conversation a lot with my CFO and my business teams on how to manage IT spending better. I see IT spending just like you would focus on process spending or on labor spending, or anything else. It’s a tool that gives the ability to move the needle and create new opportunities and capabilities. Many organizations just spend 2 to 3% of their budget on their IT investments which is fundamentally wrong. One can’t limit the budget and needs to be agile in case of new opportunities to remain competitive and profitable at the same time.

3. GBS is a key neighbor for digital transformation! – GBS must be positioned in that way to act globally. So GBS should be on top of the technology stack if it provides value to the GBS organization and the company. However, the GBS stance has changed in the last few years and has become more of fixing the basics. Over the last few years, we have a myriad of technology available. We should focus first on fixing the underlying process and then adding the new technology or subtracting one from the technology stack, whatever is necessary. If we add something, it must have a positive business impact, otherwise, it gets really difficult to justify unless it’s a legal necessity or it adds another must-have security layer.

4. Standardization drives operational excellence – Standardization is a necessary precondition for operational excellence. And so, the fewer interfaces you have, the more user acceptance and end-user engagement you can drive. The more systems you have in the company, the less possibility you have for standardization.

5. Focus on slow & steady implementations. Make them big eventually – There’s an obvious observation that large companies are doing super large projects, but they’re also carving out some trial and error, some fast failures, and some experimentations on the side as well. It’s better to have both if you’re going to advance in a large organization setup. But, doing things in an agile kind of way, not trying to boil the ocean, is the way to prove out some value, and then nothing succeeds like success. So once you get a little success, people are going to jump on board. That way, you earn credibility to drive implementations successfully.

6. A culture of investment accountability drives digital transformations – If you’re used in the company to provide a business case and are held accountable for your results, then the investment is a no-brainer. It gets approved. But if you’re just allowed to invest in your technologies and not being held accountable, not even being questioned about your investment.

7. We need to fish where the fish are! – We need to be honest with what we think is going to happen. We want to try to swing the limited dollars to a place where we’re not going to get a big bang for the buck right at the end. And especially when we don’t give businesses, and business functions their own sort of investment budget. If we leave everything at the top, the two big problems are always going to get the money. The 25 little things will have less value, and they won’t get the money. So we have to think a little differently.

8. GBS-IT leaders or the GBS leader shouldn’t go carte blanche to do everything they want. There should be a set of rules and objectives, and then we need to give the authority, responsibility, and capability to let GBS continue to drive its mission through labor arbitrage into the process of improvement in the era of digital transformation and automation. Otherwise, it’ll never happen as GBS responsibilities stack up. But it’ll be enough to successfully drive implementations with a competent IT leader in GBS who knows the technology and resources.

9. Patience and communication is the need of both worlds! Sometimes we have to realize that CIO has security issues, all kinds of risks, and different ideas pouring across the entire enterprise, and it’s never as easy. There are things that are outside GBS’s visibility that are sometimes big and dominant in terms of resources and speed-to-value. So, patience from GBS can work wonders. On the other hand, CIOs should run the playing fields and give GBS the guardrails.