You might not agree with everything President Obama says and does, but it seems you can’t lose by choosing a top member of his team as a keynote speaker.
Back in April, David Plouffe, Obama’s former campaign manager, spoke at CEA’s Washington Forum about the importance of establishing a rock-solid campaign message, and using technology and creativity to carry it through. Plouffe’s execution followed basic but powerful business strategies we believed any retailer could apply to build successful sales and marketing campaigns. His speech was as informative as any MBA class (probably a lot more so).
We were struck with the same impressions during a keynote at the recent CEA Line Shows by Aneesh Chopra, the nation’s first chief technology officer and director of technology of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. His goals and method of accountability provide a practical model retailers can use in communicating and executing key strategies to employees. Here are a few takeaways:
– Identify a major, underlying challenge your team has to overcome to achieve its overall goals. It’s best if that challenge touches a majority of your company’s divisions. One of Chopra’s major challenges is to ensure there’s a robust, reliable and secure enough wired and wireless national network to support future demands and initiatives.
– Clearly outline the most important initiatives your company must execute. Chopra has broken down his goals/action items into four pillars:
1. Harness the power and potential of technology and innovation to achieve economic growth
2. Create an “innovation platform” to achieve the president’s top priorities: reforming health care; creating and implementing clean, sustainable energy sources; and improving the workforce through education and training.
3. Create a safe, secure robust and reliable networking infrastructure
4. Using technology to improve the delivery and efficiency of government services.
– Establish a system of accountability. Chopra said he’s currently preparing a scorecard that he’ll have administration’s major stakeholders sign. He will also set specific milestones throughout the year that the public can comment on in his upcoming blog.
Chopra received high marks as Virginia’s former Secretary of Technology. We have no doubt he’ll do as good a job in his new role. Those types of clear goals, strategies and methods of accountability he and the administration have set have been helpful in driving Obama’s earlier initiatives and certainly won’t hurt now.
Executives at retailers of all sizes can adapt Chopra’s pillars to fit their own initiatives and build the right strategies to ensure a competitive edge. After all, the future of your business is based on harnessing technology and innovation to stimulate and improve business.
