A chat with your CIO.

• Author: Sommer, Brian R.
• Position: Chief information officer

The next time you're lunching with your chief information officer, try these conversation starters.

If you're worried your CIO may be heading in a direction that doesn't parallel yours or the company's as a whole, perhaps you should take the time to ask some version of these 10 basic questions.

1. Why are we custom-building this application?

   Most high-end application software packages sell for approximately 1 percent of their development cost. With this sort of pricing, it's sometimes difficult to justify developing and maintaining custom-based applications, especially those of a more tactical nature.

   For instance, frequently we see little competitive value in payroll check-printing processing and fixed-assets depreciation calculations. On the other hand, custom development efforts are often encouraged at the strategic end of the continuum - in such areas as procurement and order entry - since these applications uniquely identify the company to its customers and to the marketplace.

2. What are we doing in information systems beyond transaction processing?

   It isn't by coincidence that most package software vendors have created incredible transaction-processing products for their portfolios. Almost any major package software vendor will have accounts receivable, accounts payable and payroll application modules. These three modules usually represent the three most significant cash receipt and disbursement modules in any company. Yet these same software vendors rarely provide any cash management functionality to complete the integration of these three modules. Why? Many companies' information systems exist solely to support the planning, tracking and reporting of business transactions. Therefore, many application software vendors, like most information-technology shops, exist to process these transactions - not to build or grow or manage the company's assets.

   Obviously, your firm has many assets that don't show up on the left side of the balance sheet: your intellectual capital, your customers and noncustomers, your suppliers (and those who aren't your suppliers), your image, your quality, your customer satisfaction scores, your reputation and so forth. What data does your system track to support these assets? What information systems exist to help you and your people focus on these critical components?

3. What are we doing about the Internet?

   Since many information systems are egocentric, many firms have been slow to pick up on opportunities to use...