By Nick Lord

Microsoft's record breaking bond deal last week reveals much about the market. In particular it shows how clever corporate finance only available to the biggest companies can be used to gussy up shareholder value.

Here are some surprising (and not in a good way) things you can  learn from a recent issue of the Cutter IT Journal, in the article "The Right Way to Recruit CIOs" by Robert Gariano, an executive-search veteran and founder of search firm Robert Gariano Associates:

Office products company Acco Brands Europe is implementing Basware’s invoice automation and purchase management offering to reduce costs in its supply chain, according to GTnews. The goal is to centralize and automate purchase-to-pay processes across the 12 countries in which Acco Brands operates.

Financial and treasury technology provider SunGard has launched MarketMap Mobile—a mobile version of its real-time market data and information terminal, for the Blackberry.

Of course, this only scratches at the surface of what IT leaders can do with an effective marketing strategy. For instance, how many IT organizations do you know of that provide digital or print brochures which break down the various services they offer along with the unit costs?

Not many, I bet. And while IT services catalogues aren’t required by all IT organizations, there is an obvious need for CIOs to push internal IT services more aggressively as cloud and SaaS-based support become more viable options for business leaders to consider, helping to fuel rogue IT spending.

Instant gratification is part of who we are sometimes. We want to see the results of our labor immediately.  We have been programmed to believe in "instant" as a way of life even as a way of looking at business and the decision making process.

 As business leaders and CIOs we strive for quick and instant results. The stress we realize as CIOs comes from being responsible for activities that are outside our direct control. We must relegate and trust our department heads to be on top of all aspects of the information flow and systems within our organization. How can we minimize our stress levels and motivate our direct reports to achieve the results mandated by the C-Suite?