A Unum Case Study: Successful IT Transformation to Business Relevance

Envisioning how mobility will transform your business in the near future and beyond can be difficult, however there are practical strategies you can adopt today that will help accelerate your mobility transformation.
Join Arun Bhattacharya, Advisor, Product Marketing, CA Technologies as he discusses the core tenants of a successful enterprise mobility strategy and provides practical guidance for business and IT Leaders on how to manage their businesses’ mobile future.

For many businesses today, generally only two things are certain: uncertainty and an accelerating pace of change. In this environment, the ability to develop and implement new strategic initiatives and change rapidly is becoming a key differentiator. Organizations focus on defining major strategic initiatives but many companies struggle to implement those initiatives. The PMO plays a crucial role in enabling this by actively supporting the implementation of key strategic programs.

In this session, Jennifer McCaffrey of PMI examines the capabilities necessary in the PMO in order to shift emphasis away from process and towards the more important role of contributing to value delivery. Partnering with respected research firms including The Economist Intelligence Unit, Forrester Consulting and the Boston Consulting Group PMI will provide valuable insight and statistics that reveal the critical role of the PMO - to serve as enablers of strategic change in any organization.

The role of Stage-Gate® and Agile in New Product Development is a hot topic of interest. Are they complementary or mutually exclusive? Michelle Jones will reveal the real reason why so many businesses have come to rely upon the Stage-Gate Idea-to-Launch System for the successful execution of their product innovation strategies. She will also discuss the pros and cons of Agile project management techniques as they relate to product innovation and offer practical advice when integrating Stage-Gate and Agile for project success.

IT is not the marginalized organization it used to be, and is now intertwined with the business. Creating IT-enabled business value therefore requires line of business and functional leaders, including the CIO, to work together from a common agenda. Join this session to see how to create and make that agenda visible, so that the organization as a whole understands what it is getting. Business heads will then be able to understand application requirements and consumption, and make portfolio decisions based on business need. Smart organizations are making the CIO a business partner who can tell the business exactly how and what it’s consuming and how it could be more effective.

Will Simmons, New Product Portfolio Support Manager at Tata Steel Europe, will take you through the processes and techniques used by Tata Steel to bring new products to market. New offerings in Tata Steel’s extensive product portfolio follow a lengthy and finely-tracked process from concept stages to R&D, and through the first years of sales, all managed with a PPM system. Join us to learn proven techniques for managing new product development based on Tata Steel’s use of PPM for areas including portfolio management, value management, and marginal analysis. David Werner of CA Technologies will join Will Simmons to answer questions submitted by the audience.

Realizing benefits is no easy task, especially when everyone has a different definition of value. Join Dr. Jim Noble and Alan Guibord of The Advisory Council to gain insight and insider secrets to how some of the world’s top organizations create measurable benefits from their strategic plans and operational outcomes, and thereby position the IT leadership as outcome-driven rather than as merely enablers.

Many organizations today are focused on making the annual planning process more strategic. There is an increased understanding that the portfolio of projects has to be managed against organizational goals and objectives. That can mean perfectly good projects must stop or change because they no longer align with what the organization needs to achieve. Simultaneously, organizations are driving themselves to become more flexible and adaptable, further driving change into projects. Are these two concepts creating a harmony among executives and execution teams, or are they causing confusion and challenges?

The recent research report Top Down Planning and Bottom Up Execution – Harmony or Discord? reveals some surprising results. Join the author of the report, Andy Jordan, as he discusses the findings and offers recommendations to ensure your projects stay aligned with strategic objectives. Topics will include:

• Open communication around planning
• Importance of a formal portfolio
• Frequency of planning cycles
• The role of Agile in planning
• Importance of PPM maturity level

David Werner from CA Technologies will join Andy for the live presentation and Q&A from the audience. All attendees will receive a complimentary copy of the report.

Nearly all business transformations today are technology-dependent and focus on breaking traditional business silos. CIOs are in a unique position to exploit their knowledge of both business and technology to influence or even drive the direction of the transformation. Join this session featuring guest speaker Marc Cecere of Forrester Research to unveil the different types of roles CIOs play in business transformation. Determine which role you can play as Leader, Diplomat, Influencer, and Tactician to achieve success.