Thursday, November 12, 2009

What I want for Christmas

I had a stunning revelation during our annual tour and I’d like to share it with you. And no, it does not involve a ray of light, a church and paying an orphanage overdue taxes.

I took the picture above at the Heathrow airport, those giant displays are used to show departure and arrival information. Serge was with me, eating a pastrami sandwich while reading People magazine. I said to him, you know what Serge, we should put technology to better use. You want to upgrade to Windows 7 he asked, while keeping his eyes on the Angelina Jolie picture.

Of course not, I want those huge displays, I said. Serge looked up, choked on a sandwich bite and interrupted his reverie. Why do you want those things anyway? Watch AVI files?

This is the way a CEO should manage his organization I said. I need a couple of displays like this in my office, so I can monitor all the financial vital signs and check on what’s important. First panel should display weekly revenues per business unit, the next one should display expense reports per locations, and then time sheets to approve, the works. This will be my PeopleSoft dashboard, this is the only way for me to get the BIG picture.

If I walk into my office and immediately see that our U.S. North East revenues were down 1% last week compared to our yearly average, I can pick up the phone and act on it.

Do you see the potential? This is the only way to track down the smallest financial details of CGI. Imagine working on a 30-foot high spreadsheet. Any CEO should have this.

Serge was first doubtful such an investment was worth it, but when he saw the sparkle in my eyes he immediate knew I would track pennies across the world and CGI would quickly recuperate the cost of those screens.

I’m all excited as I write this post, like a teenager getting his first sports car.

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