Lessons in IT Transformation: Technology Expert to Business Leader

IT as a Tool to Drive Revenue

Many CIOs are focused on the cost side of the financial equation. For most IT organizations, containing costs is the primary focus when it comes to their financial contribution to their companies. However, in these challenging economic times, that is not enough.

Technology and information provide a number of opportunities to help directly and indirectly drive new revenue and enhance existing revenue streams. One of the most obvious opportunities is to be able to sell your products and services online. Most people today conduct a large portion of their purchases online—whether that be books, music, clothing, or even tickets to sports and entertainment events. Another obvious opportunity is to leverage social media to help get your marketing messaging in the public's eye. But there are also less obvious opportunities.

In my current role, we were able to leverage existing wireless networking technologies to, in essence, expand the footprint of our point-of-sales capabilities. Therefore, standalone kiosks that previously had only been able to take cash tender were expanded to accept credit and debit card transactions. As you can imagine, this had a significant positive impact on food and concession revenue. Another thing we leveraged was access security. Most events have a limit to how many fans they can accommodate before running the risk of having a public safety issue. However, by knowing real time how many people are on site, you now have the opportunity ...