How is the new services economy changing business? At FinancialForce Community Live in Las Vegas, Michael Krigsman (industry analyst and host of CXOTALK) sat down with our customers to discuss everything from the changing world of finance to IT innovation and customer experience.
In the latest installment of CXOTALK, we hear from Farnaz (Ferny) Bengali, VP of Applications at MicroStrategy, a worldwide leader in enterprise analytics and mobility software. In her role, Ferny sits under IT, and manages all of the company’s software applications. Notably, however, she had never worked in IT before joining MicroStrategy.
Formerly working in consulting and accounting, Ferny applies her business background to assess every department’s unique needs, serve them as unique clients, and modernize processes and workflows for changing expectations in the new services economy.
Some key highlights from her conversation on CXOTALK:
IT should treat each business unit like a paying customer. Ferny’s job is to optimize processes for every team at MicroStrategy. Doing so requires approaching each business unit, understanding their needs, and tailoring a solution just as an IT consultancy would do with its customers. In other words, Ferny says she is transforming IT into a services organization.
One piece of technology may have unexpected and valuable applications. MicroStrategy initially purchased and implemented FinancialForce in order to manage projects for its consulting group. After seeing the value of services automation, however, Ferny extended use of FinancialForce to the IT department to manage internal projects.
IT must have a seat at the table. Ferny has made it her mission to bring value to the broader business by making the IT department’s value proposition more widely understood. To do so, Ferny ensured her own team was bringing a unique and rich set of expertise. So in addition to hiring the right IT personnel, she makes sure to tap people representing the interests of marketing, finance, sales, and so on. As a result, Ferny says her team has “been brought to the table. Our adoption is a lot better and we’re not necessarily just back-end people implementing systems anymore.
Watch the full CXOTALK interview with MicroStrategy here, and see the previous video in the series here.
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