I want to share a recent conversation I had with Jim Stikeleather, Chief Innovation Officer for Dell in the USA.  He is travelling the globe presenting the highlights of a ground breaking report that Dell commissioned, The C-suite Challenges IT – New Expectations for Business Value.  It has important implications for businesses everywhere.  The report confirms the findings of the Big Kahuna Leadership Survey, that technology leaders need to move up the influence curve.

Five hundred leaders from around the globe were interviewed for the Dell study.  A key finding was that nearly half of the CEOs surveyed, viewed their CIOs negatively.

We hope to entice Jim to Australia in the coming months to help us understand what is behind the conclusion and more importantly how Australian business leaders can respond to this global challenge.  In the meantime, he generously shared his insights into the results of the study in the video interview below.  There is gold in what he has to say and well worth the investment of about thirty minutes of your time.  The research he has spearheaded has uncovered a significant shift in the mindset of CEOs.  The three-part framework for how they are thinking about the future of their businesses is fascinating.

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Jim Stikeleather – Chief Innovation Officer at Dell speaks to Brian Donovan – Director, Donovan Leadership from Brian Donovan on Vimeo.

About Jim Stikeleather:

For more than 25 years, Jim Stikeleather has designed, developed and implemented information and communications technologies that help businesses and institutions succeed. Organizations worldwide rely on Jim for guidance on digital infrastructures, evaluation of emerging technologies, and strategic guidance on their application. He participates in international technology standards bodies, has multiple book and industry-article contributions to his credit and advises a number of technology incubators. Jim’s leadership experience includes technology based services start-ups and turnarounds as well as the information technology departments within large global enterprises.

Additionally, Jim holds two patents. Jim came to Dell via Perot Systems, where he was a founder of the Technical Resource Connection (TRC), which was acquired by Perot Systems in 1996. Currently, Jim serves as Executive Strategist, Innovation for Dell Services, the approximately $8 billion IT services arm of Dell, where he leads a team of information technology and business experts who identify, evaluate and assess the future potential of new technologies, business models and processes to address evolving business, economic and social trends for the company and customers.