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CIOs are facing growing pressure to execute digital plans, but strategies can quickly fall flat without skilled teams. Increased turnover and poor relationships between business units and IT only add fuel to the fire. 

Michael Eubanks, EVP and CIO at goeasy, crafted a three-part plan to build up the credibility of the technology team within the financial services company, which serves around 1.4 million Canadians. 

1. Use open roles to bridge skill gaps. 

2. Instill clear processes to ease knowledge management, repeatability and scalability.

3. Create a learning program for employees to build business acumen. 

“You can imagine, as many of you are technologists, you’re still running a business as you’re trying to deploy those three solutions,” Eubanks said during the Gartner IT Symposium/Xpo in October. “We did have some ongoing issues.”

One of the problems was an ERP implementation to the core lending platform that Eubanks inherited when he joined the organization. Despite the initial goal of deploying a customized version of the platform in 12 to 18 months, retention challenges pushed the goal beyond reach. 

Holding onto talent is a perennial challenge and it isn't getting any easier. Nearly half of technology workers say they expect to have a new employer by next year, according to a Harvey Nash report published in October. Attrition can impact culture, leave institutional knowledge gaps and derail project timelines. 

The ERP implementation at goeasy was surpassing 24 months and not even halfway through when Eubanks was joined in 2020. Many of the workers, who had the institutional knowledge to build the expected customizations, had since left the organization. 

“Those are telltale signs that you’re in trouble,” Eubanks said. “Like in any situation, when you figure out that you need to pivot, then you need to pivot, and that’s what we did in this case.”

Restarting from scratch

Effectiveness is vital to IT teams building trust within the organization, especially as enterprise success becomes more intertwined with the performance of technology. 

Nearly two-thirds of IT leaders say their success is measured by impact on revenue, cost and strategy alignment, a ServiceNow survey published this month found. 

Knowing when to stop a project is hard. Eubanks described the ERP implementation cancelation as “horrible,” but ultimately necessary.