ConNEXTions 2013: Presents a Mover & Shaker Interview with Ralph Loura, CIO of The Clorox Company

-- ConNEXTions 2013 is set to be a high-level, hands-on event for senior level IT and Telecommunications Executives

MOUNTAIN VIEW, California, Dec. 17, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- ConNEXTions 2013: A Frost & Sullivan Executive MindXchange,  takes place on January 27 to 29, 2013 at the Stanford Court Renaissance Hotel in San Francisco, California. Participants will benefit from 17 interactive sessions, delving into the heart of their challenges, and providing actionable steps to improve the quality of their communications programs.

This premier event will include a Mover & Shaker interview with Ralph Loura, CIO, The Clorox Company. Loura is an IT leader well known for his strategic, far-reaching thinking on critical IT matters. He maintains there are two critical paths to achieving CIO goals. One is to take the steps necessary to prove IT's true value as a business enabler. The second is to move aggressively to embed IT directly into the business. The last includes evolving IT into a role as business enabler.

"In IT, there are many operational legacies. This type of legacy thinking includes the way we structure and deliver systems and value," said Loura. "We have to continually challenge ourselves to stay current, stay close to the business and understand their needs. Lastly, there needs to be a scan of the industry for solutions that fit into that need set, as opposed to solutions that fit our paradigm of how we've structured delivery in the organization."

Loura admits that "services-oriented architecture (SOA), will forward the cause of IT as a business enabler. With SOA, it's a question of how to take features, functions and capabilities from different disparate systems that were designed and operated in different ways, and brings them together to create a new model of a business process. SOA, is at the heart of the solution."

The task of embedding IT directly into the business may be the key to achieving end-to-end business insight to generate competitive advantage.

"Despite legacy IT technology issues, the bigger challenge is overcoming the human obstacles. In IT, people are rewarded and trained to be risk averse, as well as to build stable and controlled systems. It takes a certain mindset to compete at that front edge, while bringing technology to the business," said Loura.

Loura will join this high-level program that will be beneficial to senior level IT and telecommunications executives, particularly those in C-Level positions. The speakers at ConNEXTions 2013 are pillars in the information technology industry, from a variety of industries; including; healthcare, government, education, agriculture, finance, retail and manufacturing.

The core of this event is based on market trends found through Frost & Sullivan's industry research, in which the following four strategic event modules were created: Enterprise Mobility; Unified Communications & Collaboration; The Changing Face of Security; and Partnering for Success. A popular panel discussion at this event is "Building Momentum: Bring Your Own Device and The Consumerization of IT."

Click here to register for ConNEXTions 2013 and join in on the interview with Ralph Loura, or visit: www.frost.com/next. For more information, please email: events.us@frost.com. Also, feel free to join the conversation on Twitter through #NEXT2013.

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SOURCE Frost & Sullivan