I enjoyed reading Jill Dyché’s recent blog on a BI team’s letter to the CEO of one of her pharmaceutical clients. According to Jill, it “outlined how much money the company could save by pushing out accurate physician spend figures; made the case for integrating R&D data; and outlined the strategic initiatives that would be BI-enabled. It was also specific about new resource needs, technology upgrade costs, and why they were part of a larger vision for an information-driven enterprise.” Her client led a meeting with the CEO, the CIO, the VP of Sales and Marketing leaning on their letter and succeeded in getting a renewed commitment from the executive team, including a 30% budget increase.

The notion that information is truly the differentiator is permeating through to the executive ranks. Of course your application and infrastructure must run smoothly with optimized processes. Many organizations are at parity there. But it’s hard to deliver timely accurate data consistently. It’s not that your CEO does not want to invest. CEOs are feeling skeptical after their previous IT investments did not generate returns that they expected. They don’t know all the complexities, not only around the technical solutions but also cultural and political dynamics, which resulted in undesirable outcomes. In many cases, CEOs never get to the bottom of what is impeding the company’s ability to use information as a differentiator.

This is where you, as an information management professional, come in. Many in IT tend to be forced to work within the philosophy of IT optimization and cost reduction. But information management is much more than that – it is integral to business innovation. How can we acquire and retain customers more effectively? What infrastructures do we need to attract new customers? How can we increase the share of wallet while containing the cost of support?

To prepare for a CEO letter of your own, your first task may be to create a 360 degree report on the current environment. The key is to quantify the value of what your team delivered in time and monetary terms and what additional innovation opportunities you see in integrating additional areas. Of course you should include the costs saved, risks mitigated and regulations complied with. That’s the baseline. But then you can look for additional areas of opportunities on how to support the end-to-end revenue generation cycle. The common theme across verticals is to close the loop across customer, product, supplier data and supporting operational data in real-time and historical terms. Don’t forget to underscore why it is urgent. What kind of opportunities is the company losing if this isn’t done now?

Once you have the relevant information, put yourself in their shoes. A good CEO is concerned with the company’s standing in the market, the kind of interactions customers are having with your company, how their resources are performing, and if there are organizational or cultural issues that are impeding or blocking their success. So start out with what customer expectations are like in your industry, including how your competitors are faring because of their information management practices – a wealth of case studies are available publicly. Next illustrate what value your team already delivered to gain equal business stature and increase credibility. After that you can discuss a new approach of managing information to be more innovative. Then provide three to four bullet points on possible areas of expansion with specific use cases including expected benefits. The final and most important step is to tell them EXACTLY how you want your CEO to help you. Program approval? Budget? Sponsorship? Cultural tone reset? All of the above?

I imagine you would have to prepare much of the information for your immediate management anyway. If you just go one step further, you may be surprised to find out that you can gain more confidence and ammunition to approach your CEO, who in turn will likely appreciate your courage and diligence to put your company on a better trajectory.