My latest article for editorial website CIO Dive is a profile of Trish Torizzo, CIO at Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Co. (HMH) after about a year on the job. Her goal is to modernize the back office of the book publisher amidst a business turnaround. (HMH is trying to evolve from print classroom textbook publisher to providing software-based tools for education.)
So far, Torizzo’s team has accomplished the following:
- revamped the IT department to focus on the needs of business teams
- developed an online self-service application so customers can determine the status & whereabouts of their orders (without a phone call)
- introduced the company to robotic process automation (RPA), resulting in two ”digital workers” (RPA bots) that can log into systems and perform repetitive tasks in the finance department.
Overall, the new IT operating model sets the stage for more business/IT collaboration and innovation, as well as a greater emphasis on the customer experience.
Ampersand Reports 