The constant demand for innovation and growth plus mounting economic pressures push today’s CIO to stay focused on ways to build a high performing IT team and strong relationships with stakeholders and C-suite colleagues. Organizational strategies and models like having a managed services partner can help keep teams nimble, employees fulfilled professionally, and IT operations evolving.
Varun Gadhok, Chief Information Officer at Surgery Partners, joins Phil Sobol, Vice President of Business Development at CereCore, in an opening episode of The CereCore Podcast. Varun shares his leadership philosophy and advice on a range of topics from communication to managed services partnerships and the importance of having mentors.
Gadhok shared, “CIO’s are being tasked with more and more and in earning that seat at the table. It's no longer a transactional element. It's an expectation that you are strategic with the business.”
He goes on to talk about how to earn and build trust as a member of the leadership team and how CIOs often serve as the connective tissue between departments, business functions and IT. At the same time, IT can’t do it all.
“Sometimes as an organization you have to take a step back. If we don't have a core competency here, should we go develop it or should we leverage a partner that's already solved for this and can do it at scale so that we can focus on areas we do want to be our core competency.”
Gadhok talked about his experience with managed services at Perot, Tenet and Surgery Partners and what he has learned about developing partnerships. The value and success of managed services partnerships go beyond service level agreements but stem from the relationship.
Listen to this conversation on The CereCore Podcast.
Talking points:
- Leadership philosophy on building a high performing team
- Strategies to help keep your IT team nimble
- How to build strong C-suite relationships so you can collaborate and communicate on IT strategy
- Benefits, challenges and advice for having successful managed services partnerships
- Lessons learned and why you need a “personal board of directors”
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