| | February 20169CIOReviewuse cloud solutions where they can provide a distinct advantage to us in terms of speed to market, cost savings, or taking mundane commodity types of activities away from our staff. We are taking steps to get more experience with the cloud and exploring how to take advantage of the range of options available.One of the benefits of the cloud is that it helps level the playing field. UniFirst is a large organization in our industry and we compete with many smaller businesses. The cloud has put vast computing power and software capabilities in the hands of firms that could not previously afford it. Small firms have reliable, virtually unlimited processing capabilities and storage, along with sophisticated applications and analytics at their disposal. So companies like UniFirst, with great size and experience, cannot rest on our laurels; we are forced to continue to push forward. Role of CIO in the Last Couple of YearsWhile the role of CIO has changed tremendously over the last few years, the role of many IT professionals has changed as well. These changes are occurring because IT is instrumental to almost any initiative in the organization these days. Today, the CIO has the opportunity to be much more strategic than in years past. The role is not about just keeping the lights on to make sure the invoices go out on time--although that responsibility has not gone away either. IT can view all the critical information of the business units within an organization, and with that ho-listic view, CIOs are able to evaluate data and recognize potentially missed opportunities for coordination among those business units. In prior years, we would optimize within our own individual departments, but now you can opti-mize across them. However, simply understand-ing how data or systems can be leveraged is not enough. One must work with, educate, share, and communicate these insights with oth-ers. To move the organization for-ward, CIOs often have to ask-even convince-others in the organization to take business risks. Communication skills are more important now than ever. Not just for the CIO, but for many posi-tions in IT. Another big change that we often overlook is that every person in the company and every cus-tomer is a more sophisti-cated user of technology today than they were ten or even five years ago. The computational power now housed in our smartphones would have filled a room a few years ago. (The Apollo Guidance system performed 41.6 instructions per second and the iPhone 6 can perform 3.36 billion instructions per sec-ond. The Cray-1 super computer in 1975 could perform 80 mil-lion floating point operations per second (FLOPS) and the iPhone 5s graphics processor produces 76.8GLOPs.) But it is not just the computing power, it is the access and interaction with the soft-ware that makes everyone more experienced with systems today. This means IT professionals have to work harder to stay ahead of their "non-technical" associates. Yes, IT is more challenging today. But it is also more fun with the results having a direct impact on the business.Advice for Fellow CIOsThe CIO role is about bringing change and improvement to an organization by utilizing technology. Business comes first, then technology. CIOs need to learn how their particular business operates- really get to understand what your business peers are struggling with. Then you can apply technology in an effort to solve the problem. Also, establish relationships with people before there is a crisis. This makes communication easier. The executive team here eats lunch together every day. As CIO, this is great. Yes, a lot of time is spent talking about football and kids and jokes. Sure, business sometimes. But as CIO, this time is precious to me. When there is a problem, that foundational trust and relationship is already established. When I have to tell someone bad news--maybe it's about their project being delayed, or a software outage--we already know each other and that makes it easier not only to deliver the news, but provides credibility for what I am saying. We are taking steps to get more experience with the cloud and exploring how to take advantage of the range of options availableBrad Whitehall
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