And the most rewarding thing?
The most rewarding thing is getting positive feedback from customers. There is no doubt that is important. It's validation.
I take huge pride in my team. I like to see the success of my people.
Software companies used to deliver the software they thought customers needed rather than asking customers what they needed and delivering that. There's been a dramatic shift over the last 10 years or so. Unless you have that input from customers you can't really develop software to help bridge that gap [between business and IT demand].
What's the biggest mistake you've made?
It's not a mistake I made but one that involved me...
Early on in my career at CA, we overstated our capabilities in a specific industry to get a client meeting. It was quite possibly the worst customer meeting I've ever been in.
It was a lesson in understanding our strengths. Our customers will always know more about their business than we do.
And your greatest success?
There are two aspects. I take huge pride in my team. I like to see the success of my people.
From a customer perspective, it would be the relationship we have built with Tesco. I've worked with them for 12 of the 15 years I've been with CA.
How big a role will cloud computing play in/for your organisation in the next three years?
There is no doubt it is going to have a huge impact. You end up with hybrid IT where you have in-sourced infrastructure, outsourced, cloud-based, virtualised and so on. There is a huge amount of complexity.
CA uses cloud-based services. For me it is another IT delivery platform that needed managing. It is hugely important thought and impacts all of our customers.
What other technologies are you watching?
I don't think there are necessarily specific tools but the way we interact with our customers is very different. I think it's really unique.
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