“Our culture is filled with change; it’s poor in growth.” Eugene Peterson

I wrote earlier this week that on Monday, Britain’s last coal-fired power plant closed, ending 142 years of coal-generated electricity. In 1990, coal provided about 80% of Britain’s electricity. Ten years ago, coal generated a third of Britain’s electricity. By 2023 it stood at 1%.

Dhara Vyas of Energy U.K. said, “To get to this point a decade later, with coal's contribution replaced by clean and low carbon sources, is an incredible achievement. It’s worth remembering that few back then thought such a change at such a pace was possible.”

You know one thing is true about the transformation from coal to low carbon source energy: an investment was made.

You need your company to enthusiastically invest in technology. No news there. I am working with one company who said, “The only department with a blank check is IT.” That’s the mindset, and they put their money behind the message.

Not every company shares the mindset. How do you change it?

CIOs who effect greater outcomes have learned to focus their technology in four key areas that justify spend.

Resilience

Optimizing what already exists produces short growth spurts. Yet, optimization is often the core focus of IT leaders.

But optimized products and processes cannot survive in a changing world. 

Smart CIOs build for long growth, and that means resilience, the ability to implement new ways to grow revenue or improve customer experience. Resilience is the genetic code that drive the great buzzwords of innovation and disruption. 

Building for resilience is driven by business outcomes, how technology will get the company from where they are to where they must be, especially as businesses are committed to being steps ahead of their competition.

Is the technology you are focused on and needing investment for building resilience so that the company can move, shift, pivot and shoot forward? Will the absence of what you build cost the company top and bottom line numbers and timely, opportunistic strategy?

Problems

Resilience thinking is around opportunity. Problem identification is about solutions.

IT is not just about function. You have known this for a generation at least. But that doesn’t mean it hasn’t stayed as a primary argument for getting our budgets approved.

You and I know that business leaders view problems as obstacles to their outcomes. Obstacles are to be removed; problems are to be resolved. Yesterday, not tomorrow. 

How does the technology you need invested in solve the problem your business wants to be rid of?

Space

Space must be filled. Gaps must be bridged. 

When business leaders recognize that they are without what they need, they want it as soon as possible. 

I’ve written about this before: The space between a preferred state and the current state creates desire, and desire must be fulfilled. Or, in your case, funded.

Outcome oriented CIOs understand how to identify the spaces between their business and what the business needs, often by awareness of what the competition has or will soon have. That’s why the CIO is critical to the business. In the world of technology, they know what is coming. 

Name the space and you create the desire. Create the desire and you fund your solution.

Capacity

You can build the technology to be resilient, to solve the problem or to fill space. But if you don’t have the capacity to respond, growth falters.

People. Security. Data integrity. Talent. These are capacity issues essentially tied to growth, not just to change. 

Investment is informed by return on value. CIOs who justify their budgets tie capacity needs to outcome. Again, what is the consequence to the business without? What is the gain that will or won’t happen?

People embrace change when it is toward their fulfillment. 

That’s why CIOs who seek significant investments are outcome based. They understand the difference that will be made is the desire that the business seeks.

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