The most profound of our priorities is to rebuild the culture of the company. Simply put, I believe that to be successful in building the world’s leading management software company we must have a performance-based culture based on integrity, accountability, teamwork and innovation. We approached this challenge in the usual way, by writing down our values, principles, and objectives. We produced a charter that articulated our mission, vision, and values. And we buttressed this core document with a Code of Ethics.
Then we began the hard part – making sure that everyone in the company takes these values, principles, and objectives to heart. As senior management, we lead the effort by example. We strive to live our values every day. So I look back on the past 18 months as a time of substantial progress. We had some remarkable successes, along with a few inevitable surprises and disappointments. We come away armed with valuable lessons and great confidence in our future.
This is my 30th anniversary in this industry. From my start as a junior engineer programming process control systems, I have seen amazing progress in our ability to apply IT to solve more and more business problems. And along the way, as we continue to automate business processes, we have added new layers of hardware and software, leading to the growth in the complexity of IT, which I’ve talked so much about.
At the same time, I’ve seen wave after wave of innovation. I’ve seen “The Next Big Thing” come and go more times than I can remember. Some of these innovations even delivered profound benefits to business and society. Yet too often, I’ve seen these innovations disappoint. I’ve seen them fail to deliver on their promise. I’ve seen customers struggle with implementation and integration. So I think we’ve reached a critical point in the development of IT.
Today I want to issue a challenge to the entire IT industry to do more to address the enormous complex we as an industry have created. I want all of us to become deliverer of real innovations that reduce complexity – while, at the same time, provide value and better return on investments. I want to emphasize the urgency of this call. If the IT industry fails to help its customers deal with the complexity the industry has created – we risk losing their faith and confidence. Finally, I would like to challenge all of you too. Think about your job differently. Think about how you can manage IT differently.
