Pilots have worked for him in the past, he says, because they help people visualize the upside. By consolidating information into a data warehouse and gleaning updated, accurate procurement and inventory information, Balsnes and his IT team proved that Rolls-Royce Marine could bring consistency to its manufacturing processes and products. Balsnes's team also showed that the company could eliminate costly redundancies in spare-parts procurement and reduce the time needed for parts procurement from three or four weeks to literally seconds. Balsnes's team used the data-warehousing pilot to bring to life a business case for an IT project. The ultimate goal, decision makers on both sides of the table say, is for projects to go so well that CIOs establish credibility with other business leaders and improve the IT-business alignment by creating an atmosphere of teamwork and trust.
Some initiatives are easier to justify than others, of course.
Executives love to hear business cases expressed in terms of cost, and CIOs who can attach dollars and cents to their projects are at a great advantage. There is an expectation from senior management that for every IT dollar we spend, there is an amount that we will deliver back to the organization over time. In those cases, CIOs sometimes have to work around executives' need to see a bottom line. Balsnes's pilot strategy can be an effective tool. Another tactic is to paint a picture of the company without the proposed IT investment and explain how the company will fall behind if it fails to make a critical technology move.