By Karen J. Bannan

It's no longer enough for CIOs to simply become innovative business leaders. In these difficult times, CIOs must also demonstrate the value proposition of their innovations — and do so in terms the business can understand and appreciate. To learn more, we asked leading CIOs to outline their IT strategies for doing just that.

ALAN FARNSWORTH | Senior VP of Customer Service and IT, Corporate VP and CIO
Bausch & Lomb Inc.

Our focus is on alignment—getting the IT team aligned with the needs of the business. To that end, I'm putting a great deal of emphasis on ensuring that our IT staff understands the business. Our first priority is on our products: how they work, how they're positioned, how they're bought and used by customers and end users. Then there are the customers themselves, their operating processes and mechanisms.

I'm also making sure there is enough of an external team focus, so that everyone within IT knows what's going on in the greater IT world. This allows the IT team to be a great source of input into what's possible to solve business problems, what's possible for IT to drive the business and, more importantly, what's most applicable to Bausch & Lomb.

In many cases, we have capabilities within our current systems that either aren't being used effectively or, in some cases, aren't being used at all. IT can help lead the way on how those capabilities can better serve the business.