By annie shum | March 31, 2010
– Thomas Wailgum, CIO.com March 29, 2010
Stuart McGuigan will patiently talk with you about business-IT alignment, though he doesn’t seem enthralled by the topic. To the CIO of CVS Caremark, one of the largest retail and pharmacy chains in the U.S. with 60,000 pharmacies, the conversation almost seems like it’s “been there, done that.”
Sure, the 51-year-old is aware of the infamous business-technology alignment issue that continues to plague so many of his contemporaries. And he’s witnessed the sometimes disastrous results that such a disconnect can deliver. However, at the $99 billion CVS Caremark, it’s simply not an issue, McGuigan says.
That type of IT governance awareness comes from the top, he says, and is ingrained into every technology-related discussion.
“It’s about recognizing that there’s no such thing as technology projects,” McGuigan says. “They are all business projects with technology components.”
He took over the CVS Caremark IT reins in December 2008, having worked chiefly in the insurance industry before that. While McGuigan concedes that his predecessors laid a solid foundation for him—especially in terms of fostering IT governance practices—he’s continuing to roll out new systems and technologies that improve business efficiency and give the company a competitive advantage.
CVS Caremark’s IT efforts haven’t gone unnoticed—especially by those financial analysts on Wall Street. In a January 2010 report, Citi’s influential retail analyst Deborah Weinswig proclaimed that “CVS is the clear technology leader” within the retail sector, besting even Wal-Mart’s (WMT) efforts. Weinswig notes that “while CVS is ahead of the retail industry in terms of technology, the company continues to implement new systems to improve efficiency in its stores and at the pharmacy.” (For more, see Retail Tech: Whose IT Is Tops, Who Needs to Restock.)
CIO.com Senior Editor recently spoke with McGuigan about the strengths of the company’s Rx Connect implementation, why business execs should “unlearn their expectations” about technology projects, and how he keeps his IT staffers focused on the business needs first. http://www.cio.com/article/print/588467
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