CIO: take a lesson from Speedy Gonzalez

Do you remember Speedy Gonzalez, “The fastest mouse in all Mexico?” He never lost to his nemesis, Sylvester, known south of the border as El Gringo Pussygato.  He was hero to his mouse compatriots because he was smarter and faster than the competition guarding the cheese factory. If Sylvester wasn’t tricked into consuming large amounts of tabasco sauce, the cartoon wasn’t over yet.

But what does this have to do with a successful CIO? Everything.

The CIO needs to be a hero

With so much talk of consumerization, SaaS and the demise of the CIO, today’s IT badly needs a hero. We spend a great deal of time talking about Big Data, cloud, mobility, events, analytics, Internet of things, in-memory computing, customer experience management, BPM and a host of other things. Each of these capabilities in isolation is…interesting…but only when taken together does the big picture emerge. Today’s hero CIO makes the organization smarter and much faster at making crucial decisions by putting together the fastest decision making platform possible. Everything else is secondary.

The most interesting technology today is the technology that makes us know enough, fast enough to decide where to spend, where to save and where to take fast action to prevent problems. It really doesn’t matter if the topic is security, collaboration, research, supply chain, finance, sales, marketing or customer service. It no longer matters the industry either, as digitization of everything around us disrupts even the most staid of organizations in the most traditional of industries.

Every important piece of today’s enterprise needs very, very fast decision support.

In the words of Speedy Gonzalez

So to the CIO who wants to stay relevant, I say, “¡Ándale! ¡Ándale! ¡Arriba! ¡Arriba! ¡Epa! ¡Epa! ¡Epa! Yeehaw!” Look to a little mouse from Mexico and don’t get distracted by shiny technology objects…focus on the most integrated, fastest, and best decision support platform you can buy. You’ll need it.