A New Perspective on C-Level Cooperation

Chief Financial Officers and Chief Marketing Officers are not traditionally thought of as best friends. It might have something to do with the juxtaposition of left and right brain thinking, or differing views on how to measure the performance of marketing programs and their impact on the bottom line that keeps these two executives from sitting next to each other at the lunch table.

Yet this relationship is becoming more important as both executives realize the value of more specific marketing and customer information to help drive strategic decisions; a merger of the creative and analytical minds can clearly help improve performance and fuel growth.

Many clients of BearingPoint’s World-Class Finance practice were asking about this, so we decided to partner with APQC, conduct a survey, and report our findings on the topic. You’re invited to read the resulting report: “CFOs and CMOs: partners in information management”.

One of the disconnects highlighted in the report is around the availability of data for customer segmentation and profitability analysis: while 80% of CFOs said they are providing sufficient data, less than 40% of CMOs said they are getting the data they need to make good decisions.

We hope these findings are helpful. Please feel free to share your comments and ideas here once you’ve read the research.

Author: Monica Huber

Getting Greener via Facebook

Environmental concerns are not new and Green IT efforts are gaining ground at many companies, both big and small. Green IT solutions are available of course, but how else can businesses become more green? BearingPoint is searching for some new thinking on the topic.

We launched a contest on Facebook for the best new opinions on how businesses can become more environmentally conscious in their operations. Facebook users can contribute their ideas for the enterprise and pass those (and others) along to their friends and the larger Facebook community to vote on by Nov. 15. (And yes, the winner gets a green prize.) While a contest or giveaway on Facebook is not new, the use of Facebook as a method of cultivating ideas is something few companies are doing. The contest hopes to unearth some new approaches that businesses can take to increase their environmental efforts while also increasing their bottom line.

Contribute your ideas on how businesses can be more green.

Getting customer feedback through social networking sites

You might have run across a customer survey while surfing a business site or received an email to give your feedback on a product or service you currently use. While these survey mediums have been the norm in collecting consumer opinions online, they are no longer the best way to get the true pulse of your customers.

More and more companies are turning to social networking sites, like Facebook, to get consumer input on their products and services. The thought of “going where the fish are” is true in this case as more and more people join and actively participate in these types of sites. The use of networking sites represents a shift in gathering consumer data and reaching your target audiences. An effective survey coupled with the right incentive or reward can spread virally and increase the sample size to get a large number of survey completions and feedback.

BearingPoint has partnered with a leading bank to develop a survey using Facebook to extract opinions on consumer banking habits. The survey recently launched on Facebook and is being monitored to determine its effectiveness. The survey offers a $25 gift certificate from Restaurant.com as an incentive to attain customer feedback. Stay tuned to find out how effective the survey was in an upcoming blog.

View the survey

Stimulating Innovation: Meeting IT’s New Mission

A survey conducted by IDG Research Services with CIO magazine sponsored by BearingPoint

Does innovation drive cost savings? Or does cost savings fuel innovation? The answer to both: Absolutely.

CIOs can introduce tremendous value into their organizations by optimizing the way that they manage their companies’ IT systems. They can deliver even more value, however, when they focus on executing strategic cost takeout, IT optimization and IT governance in ways that encourage and support ongoing business innovation.

That’s one lesson learned from a recent survey of 150 CIOs conducted by IDG Research Services. Among survey respondents, 66 percent cited the need to reduce costs as a driver for innovation.

The IDG survey makes an important point: Businesses that consistently press to cut costs have an advantage over those that don’t. After all, the former can leverage savings to support and stimulate further innovation, which strengthens the collaborative partnership that’s necessary between the business and its IT operations.

“CIOs are tired of cutting costs. And because the challenge of containing costs is not going away anytime soon, CIOs have an opportunity to turn this into an advantage by developing a business case for using savings to fund innovation and by rigorously managing their portfolios.”
— Pierre Champigneulle, managing director at BearingPoint

Access the full article for more information about this study.

IT priorities for battling the economic slowdown

Recession fears have grown over the last three quarters as the implications of the US credit crunch have deepened and spread abroad to become a multi-region contagion. With costs for commodities, especially energy, soaring as well, businesses will have to adapt quickly to mounting economic pressures in order to maintain growth and profitability.

BearingPoint and HP initiated a structured review, based on a survey conducted by the Economist Intelligence Unit, of how the current economic landscape has affected the business outlook for UK CEOs and how, in turn, this will impact their expectations of the IT function.

Specifically, the survey was designed to reveal answers to the following key questions:

• How will CEO priorities, in the light of the credit crunch, translate into business implications for CIOs?

• How can CIOs best position the IT function for these predicted changes?

• In what ways are CEOs expecting CIOs to use information technology to improve the situation?

One of the findings of the CEO survey which bucked reported trends was confidence. Despite media consistently claiming that the economy looks certain to slow to dangerous levels, Britain’s CEOs remain more optimistic. Whilst there was concern, the majority felt that with good planning and sensible actions the next 12 months were navigable. In fact many felt that in areas such as customer focus and cost reduction, the financial climate had simply forced them to take actions which were probably overdue.

This survey revealed some new thinking that businesses can utilize in times of economic slowdown. Review the survey analysis.