{"id":6497,"date":"2019-10-08T00:21:21","date_gmt":"2019-10-08T00:21:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cioleadersaustralia.com\/?p=6497"},"modified":"2022-05-12T09:10:41","modified_gmt":"2022-05-11T23:10:41","slug":"interview-damien-scalzo-mercedes-benz-financial","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/focusnetwork.co\/cioleadersaustralia.com\/interview-damien-scalzo-mercedes-benz-financial\/","title":{"rendered":"Interview with Damien Scalzo from Mercedes-Benz Financial Services Australia\/New Zealand"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft wp-image-6499 size-medium\" src=\"https:\/\/focusnetwork.co\/cioleadersaustralia.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/47\/2019\/10\/Damien-Scalzo-Headshot-450x450-300x300.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/focusnetwork.co\/cioleadersaustralia.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/47\/2019\/10\/Damien-Scalzo-Headshot-450x450-300x300.png 300w, https:\/\/focusnetwork.co\/cioleadersaustralia.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/47\/2019\/10\/Damien-Scalzo-Headshot-450x450-150x150.png 150w, https:\/\/focusnetwork.co\/cioleadersaustralia.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/47\/2019\/10\/Damien-Scalzo-Headshot-450x450-125x125.png 125w, https:\/\/focusnetwork.co\/cioleadersaustralia.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/47\/2019\/10\/Damien-Scalzo-Headshot-450x450-75x75.png 75w, https:\/\/focusnetwork.co\/cioleadersaustralia.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/47\/2019\/10\/Damien-Scalzo-Headshot-450x450-100x100.png 100w, https:\/\/focusnetwork.co\/cioleadersaustralia.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/47\/2019\/10\/Damien-Scalzo-Headshot-450x450.png 450w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/>Damien is the CIO of Mercedes-Benz Financial Services Australia\/New Zealand.<\/p>\n<p>For over 15 years, Damien has combined his business and technology experience as a CIO, Management Consultant, Systems Integrator and Chartered Accountant to help organisations use technology to add value to their core and new business processes across industries including Financial Services, Manufacturing, Utilities and Public sector. Damien is passionate about technology and also spends time mentoring startups to grow and scale.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"><span style=\"color: #000000; text-decoration: underline;\">Interviewer: What do you feel are the biggest challenges IT leaders are currently faced with?<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\"><strong>Damien: <\/strong><\/span><span style=\"color: #000000;\">&#8211; <strong>Transformation vs BAU:<\/strong> being able to balance Transformation and Business as <\/span><span style=\"color: #000000;\">Usual Activities. IT leaders need to manage this balance carefully to ensure they are not at the mercy of their technology debt.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\">&#8211; <strong>Continuous Security:<\/strong> keeping their landscape more secure than ever on top of Continuous Delivery. IT Leaders need to balance security being a blocker to Continuous Delivery vs. the risk of cyberattacks.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\">&#8211; <strong>Business Integration:<\/strong> being more than just \u2018IT\u2019 and being truly part of and integrated into the businesses you serve. IT leaders need to be embedded in their business, truly part of making business decisions and on the front foot with\u00a0technology solutions before the business has come for help.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\">&#8211; <strong>Reducing<\/strong> <strong>Cost:<\/strong> delivering more whilst lowering costs. IT Leaders will need to do more with less or do more with your budget by looking at different ways to\u00a0structure your landscape, staff and suppliers.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"><span style=\"color: #000000; text-decoration: underline;\">Interviewer: Where do you see the industry headed within the next one to five years and what do you feel will be the biggest game changers?<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\"><strong>Damien: My presentation \u201cHow the Role of IT Leaders and Emerging Technology are Converging in the Future\u201d covers the answer to this. Hope to see you there.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"><span style=\"color: #000000; text-decoration: underline;\">Interviewer: What is the best piece of advice you have received within your job over the years?<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\"><strong>Damien: Deliver quality over volume. Whilst it is imperative to deliver to the internal or external customer on time, it\u2019s more important that you get it right. A customer will always remember something that didn\u2019t work, didn\u2019t meet their expectations and was frustrating, rather than something that was delayed. I believe this sets apart technology leaders over project delivery professionals.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"><span style=\"color: #000000; text-decoration: underline;\">Interviewer: What advice would you give to someone trying to excel in the IT industry?<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\"><strong>Damien: &#8211; <\/strong><\/span><strong style=\"color: #000000;\">Future proof your skillset:<\/strong><span style=\"color: #000000;\"> IT roles are in the process of transforming and this will continue and evolve for some time. Because of this, IT professionals should focus on getting exposure to as many roles as they can in the software development cycle. I believe IT professionals who do this will effectively \u201cfuture proof\u201d their resume and ability to transfer their skill set to a future role.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\"><strong>&#8211; Understand the business you serve.<\/strong> The more you can understand the businesses you are delivering to, the further you will go. I believe IT professionals who can independently understand, identify and resolve key business challenges will be at the top of the pecking order.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><strong>ABOUT <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mbfs.com\/home\">MERCEDES-BENZ FINANCIAL SERVICES <\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Mercedes-Benz Financial Services is a leading, captive financial services provider and the global financial services company of Daimler AG. Doing business as Mercedes-Benz Financial Services and Daimler Truck Financial, they provide financing for automotive and commercial vehicle dealers and their retail consumers in the United States, Canada, Mexico, Brazil and Argentina.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-4684\" src=\"https:\/\/focusnetwork.co\/cioleadersaustralia.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/47\/2019\/08\/mercedes.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"110\" height=\"85\" srcset=\"https:\/\/focusnetwork.co\/cioleadersaustralia.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/47\/2019\/08\/mercedes.jpg 110w, https:\/\/focusnetwork.co\/cioleadersaustralia.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/47\/2019\/08\/mercedes-75x58.jpg 75w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 110px) 100vw, 110px\" \/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Damien is the CIO of Mercedes-Benz Financial Services Australia\/New Zealand. For over 15 years, Damien has combined his business and technology [&#8230;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":106,"featured_media":6501,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"image","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6497","post","type-post","status-publish","format-image","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-interview","post_format-post-format-image"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v25.7 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Interview with Damien Scalzo from Mercedes-Benz Financial Services Australia\/New Zealand - CIO Leaders Australia<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/focusnetwork.co\/cioleadersaustralia.com\/interview-damien-scalzo-mercedes-benz-financial\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Interview with Damien Scalzo from Mercedes-Benz Financial Services Australia\/New Zealand - CIO Leaders Australia\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Damien is the CIO of Mercedes-Benz Financial Services Australia\/New Zealand. 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