New Firm Provides Practical Advice To CIOs And Other Tech ManagersNew Firm Provides Practical Advice To CIOs And Other Tech Managers

During her 25 years as an executive at technology companies such as Hewlett-Packard and Siebel Systems, Patty Azzarello has attended many customer meetings where the CIO isn't present or is ill-prepared.

Now that she's started her own consulting firm, Azzarello is hoping to change that by providing practical advice that can help CIOs and other technology managers to build their creditability as leaders within their organizations.

"I'm not about research and analysis, I'm about you've got a strategy for your business and your career and I'll provide you practical advice that's useful," said Azzarello, who officially launched Azzarello Group this week, in an interview.

"The alignment [of IT] with the business has been talked about for decades, but there's been no tangible action or tools for how to communicate with stakeholders, how to build services so that a company could understand" their value, she said.

"CIOs are so focused on service levels they often miss opportunities to build creditability within their companies," said Azzarello, who until 18 months ago was chief marketing officer at Siebel, and was also previously CEO of Euclid and also served as VP and general manager at HP OpenView.

For instance, some of the seemingly simple things that are often overlooked by CIOs is building a solid brand image with users within the company, she said. "The help desk is the first impression of IT, and if users have a crappy experience, they think the CIO is crappy too," she said.

So, creating effective interfaces to the IT help desk -- whether the back-end is outsourced or handled in-house -- is very important to building up a good brand image of IT within the company, she said. "A help desk interface should say 'report a problem,' or 'request IT service,' not 'trouble ticket' -- that's not a human word," she said.

It's these sort of seemingly simple but practical tips that Azzarello is looking to share with CIOs and other IT managers and leaders. Her Palo Alto, Calif.-based firm is providing these tips online as downloadable tools priced at $375.

"There's a big gap between strategy, ideas and execution," she says. "This is can help change that gap and change careers," she said.