The IT Manager Competencies. the Challenge of Organizational Integration

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The IT Manager Competencies

in the SaaS

Era:

the Challenge of Organizational Integration

Alessandro Zardini – Università degli Studi di Verona

Cecilia Rossignoli – Università degli Studi di Verona

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The IT Manager Competencies in the SaaS Era

RESEARCH QUESTION

How

do

the

emerging

changes

in

IT

sourcing

strategies influence the IT department’s role and

the competencies requested to IT managers?

Is the so‐called “IT commoditization”

jeopardizing the strategic role of the CIO?

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Exemplary cloud‐based innovation strategy:

SaaS CRM

• SaaS (Software as a Service): a software vendor hosts, operates, and

manages a software service for clients, on a paid subscription basis.

Customers can be provided with the application and with support

services (e.g. data integration or data management support services).

• CRM (Customer Relationship Management): ICT‐supported

management approach aimed at effectively interacting with customers

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• _Given

_the

_exploratory

_nature

_of

_our

_study,

_we

decided

to

conduct

a

qualitative

research

by

investigating

exemplary

cases

through

semi‐

structured interviews .

• _We

_selected

_four

_{medium‐large}

_{Northern‐Italy,}

companies,

representing

four

different

sectors),

that

had

successfully

adopted

a

SaaS‐CRM

system for at least three years.

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• _{We arranged}

_five

_{semi‐structured}

_interviews

_in

each company: one with the general manager (or

President or Vice‐President or CEO), two with the

CIO‐IT

manager,

and

two

with

the

marketing

manager.

These

interviews

were

conducted

during the years 2010‐2011.

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• Company Alpha is a world’s leading manufacturer of an important synthetic textile fiber. It is active in three continents and seven countries.

• This is a B2B business: company Alpha’s customers are few large enterprises in the automotive, furniture or clothing industries. Company Alpha studies and develops its products following the requests of (and often cooperating with) client companies, whilst many production phases are outsourced.

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• Company Beta is a leading firm in the field of wine and alcoholics. These products are sold through tens of thousands of supermarket and department stores, where company Beta continuously launches sales promotions.

• These pricing and promotion activities implied costs that were difficult to control and to optimize through traditional methods and tools. As a consequence, the marketing department needed advanced support to manage its complex relationships with large‐scale retail trade.

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• _Company _Gamma _is _a _world’s _leading _engineering _firm, specialized in transportation infrastructures (subway lines especially) and environmental services (water works management).

• The main expected achievements of the new SaaS CRM system were (i) to optimize marketing and sales processes and (ii) to control the related costs.

• _In _this _case, _the _high _ICT _skills _of _Company _Gamma’s personnel allowed a particularly successful cooperation with the SaaS CRM provider during the implementation phase.

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• Company Delta is the Italian branch of a world’s leading temporary recruitment agency. This company is the largest recruiting agency in Italy and has opened more than 400 local offices throughout the whole country.

• Company Delta’s main activities include employment services, HR consulting services, and training services. For each recruitment process , a huge number of contacts with potential workers is generated and must be recorded and managed.

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The four SaaS CRM cases were surveyed in search of success factors, and more specifically in search of

•features of the process of SaaS CRM adoption, •boundary conditions, and

•behaviors, skills and attitudes of the IT managers and IT departments involved,

that seemed essential for the achievement of the desired outcome (improved efficiency and/or effectiveness of marketing and sales processes) in each case.

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• _“Our _efforts _have _been _{concentrated,} _first _of _all _on _the

choice of a trustworthy vendor, and then on a very thorough definition of SLA” (Company Beta).

• “Our IT Department has been a very important actor, because it had the responsibility to choose both the product and the supplier, to take care of the contractual aspects connected to the SLA , and to safeguard the satisfaction of business needs” (Company Delta).

• _“Before_adopting_it_[the_SaaS_CRM_solution],_there_wasn’t

any supporting system for the critical CRM process: the idea that marketing and sales processes should be optimized didn’t even exist” (Company Alpha).

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• “The most critical aspect was to integrate the application with our systems. In that situation, the support of our IT personnel has been fundamental”

(Company Gamma).

• “It is interesting to notice that one of the final users, a key account, has cooperated with the SaaS CRM provider during the whole phase of the implementation. Therefore he was able to personally assess the ease‐of‐use of the software” (Company Beta).

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Cooperative SaaS CRM Adoption Process

- Cooperative interaction style - Effective contracting

‐ Mktg & Sales process optimization

- Data / System integration - Users involvement Boundary Conditions A - Acceptance of SaaS as a sourcing approach - Management commitment Improved Marketing/Sales Performances

• Efficiency (cost control) • Effectiveness

Boundary Conditions B

- (Perceived) Capability of the SaaS provider to develop a successful long-term

partnership with the customer - (Perceived) Security and connectivity performances of the SaaS service

- (Perceived) Capability of the SaaS CRM to provide the customer with an ever-evolving adaptable solution for long-term sustainable competitive advantage + + + + + IT Department / IT Mgmt

Capabilities _• _{Understand business needs and actively safeguard them}IT Department / IT Managers Capabilities

• Be responsible for the implementation project as for time, cost, performances

• Compare and evaluate different potential IT outsourcers • Cooperate for the definition of outsourcing contracts and SLA • Integrate the outsourcer’s data and systems

• Support the IT vendors for fast and smooth implementation

• Cooperate to, and/or coordinate, the optimization of the processes involved in the IT innovation

• Manage the long-term relationships with the outsourcers • Understand the users’ needs, suggestions and complaints • Manage the change process

• Create conditions for positive long-term evolution of the adopted IT solutions, so contributing to refresh the competitive advantage throughout time

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