In India, the eGov foundation's ) DIGIT ) platform has contributed to effective digitization of government services with an open source platform. It is used extensively in many states of India for revenue collection, reporting, etc..

This was made possible by passionate technology professionals who wanted to make a difference "Keeping citizens at the heart of public service delivery"

I liked that BCC publishes its meetings for public viewing and scrutiny now.. at https://ancillary-proxy.atarimworker.io?url=https%3A%2F%2Fbirmingham.public-i.tv%2Fcore%2Fportal%2Fwebcast_interactive%2F877369.

Wish they did that with the code to begin with.

Hello HappyDude

As a manager / supervisor of operations or projects - what do you think leadership means for any company CEO ? Who would the CEO value more ? WHY ?

A manager - needs to think about improvement of services, optimization, do more with less, innovate, basically better Return on Investment. ( From the CEO's / CFO's perspective )

You are in an excellent position to manage those services technically. However, as an operations manager - you need to think like a "service provider" - a profit center manager. Example: What if I made you the Head of Operations and Customer Support at Apple - to keep the whole itunes, appstore front etc running and customers happy. And you are told - to manage it profitably. How would you think ?

This is how I would respond to HR...

Example: All those services that you mentioned - would cost the company atleast a 20 million in Hardware and services costs annually. The business relies on these systems and the business revenue from these systems may be atleast 10 - 100 times the 20 million. i.e 200 mil - 2 Bil.

As a manager of these services, I would lead a team ( either internal or contractors or service providers) with a total salary of about 2-4 million. I would manage contracts, hardware/software/services/outsourcing/insourcing etc of atleast 20million per year.

If I provide new benefits of 10% either improved productivity or cost savings or new opportunity - that would be 2 million per year.

If I take away 10% of that as my salary - that would be 200,000 $ per year as a manager.

Now, I can definitely make arguments about the size of contracts that I make decisions on - the 20 million - and say how I can benefit more - by understanding product lifecycles, selecting better partners - so in the long term, I may benefit the company more - selecting better technologies etc. Thus providing 1 - 10 % productivity gain on the business revenue impacted - i.e. 1 - 10% of 200 Million or 1 - 10% of 2 Billion.

That would mean - I can benefit the company by atleast 2 Million - to a max of 200 Million.

How much should I ask for such benefits to the company ????

200,000 to 2 million $ per year.

NOW:

Can you make such commitments and take accountability for the said department ? Then you are the leader HR is looking for.

cheers
venu

PS: Most often - a manager / any person falls into the trap of self pity - and blows his chances of success. Focus on the results and the conversation is of a higher quality and helps all. ( I learnt this the hard way - I got fired before I generated results more predictably )....

REFERENCE: Read - "Leadership and Self Deception" by Arbinger.