The High Price of Hired Guns

CIO: What happened at this previous employer?

Ioli: Instead of training the incumbents, what they did was bring a lot of people in from the outside to provide the skill sets that were needed. They didn't give [the incumbents] the opportunities to learn these skill sets.

Why did upper management turn your approach down?

The management reaction was "we need to deliver these benefits soon." If we had waited for the new systems until after the existing staff had been trained, in their mind some of those up-front initiatives would have been delayed.

What was the impact of the decision to bring in outsiders to implement the system?

Nick Ioli

We had probably an 18 percent turnover rate in less than a year because of our inability to do what I wanted to do. It probably cost us an extra 10 percent to 15 percent of the budget, and it didn't save any time. We got the technology in, but some of the [business] process benefits weren't realized right away. The lack of experience of the consultants hampered the ability to achieve the expected benefits.

Furthermore, by bringing in outsiders unfamiliar with the business, we negated the time benefit we were expecting. The company didn't gain as much as it thought it would. Once the other senior executives realized the consultants were not as good as they thought, they saw the light. Then we were able to move in the right direction.

What advice do you have for maintaining existing systems while implementing new ones?

Have your core people work on learning technology in the critical areas the business needs. Those are the systems that retain or attract customers. Concentrate the existing team on frequent-buyer programs, customer-sensitive information, merchandising efforts and promotional opportunities.

What else did you learn from this prior job?

What I had assumed I would be given latitude to do I wasn't. Going into A&P, everything was on the table up front.