Growing bank embraces strategic IT vision to meet business goals

Banking on an experienced IT leader to support new demands

For more than 130 years, Sunflower Bank has provided financial services and solutions to meet the personal, business, and wealth management objectives of customers across the US. As market forces reshape the banking industry, Sunflower Bank builds on its rich history to meet the demands of the future.

Helping the bank navigate the technological complexities of a competitive and fast-paced new world is CIO Brian Mulcahey, who brings his own rich experience to the role. Since his early days on a Commodore 64, Mulcahey has been unwavering in his passion for technology. Over his career, he has held increasingly challenging IT roles, including many years in banking, before joining Sunflower Bank in 2017 as CIO. Today, Mulcahey tackles the technology demands of this $7-billion organization as it keeps pace with a rapidly evolving financial services industry.

Taking an enterprise-wide approach to strategy

As technology became integral to the success of the organization, Mulcahey has recognized the need to better position IT to support the bank’s strategic goals. This realignment has required Mulcahey, his team, and the organization to embrace IT as a strategic function.

When recent mergers and acquisitions at Sunflower Bank presented Mulcahey with the challenge of amalgamating separate IT groups and disparate systems, he recognized it as the perfect opportunity to boost the department’s strategic credibility. “Five years ago, we had a very disjointed technology stack. In the last couple of years, we’ve shown the organization the benefits of an enterprise architecture approach and how much more efficient it is to have everybody on the same stack of applications,” said Mulcahey.

"In the last couple of years, we’ve shown the organization the benefits of an enterprise architecture approach and how much more efficient it is to have everybody on the same stack of applications.”
– Brian Mulcahey, CIO, Sunflower Bank, N.A.

Building a stable foundation for business trust

By rebuilding the entire network infrastructure with full redundancy to address system instability, Mulcahey created a system designed to prevent downtime and improve business trust. Mulcahey paired the achievement with the smooth integration of a more recent merger: “The business learned to trust me because there were fewer problems and their systems ran smoothly. That’s when I started to get some traction. During our last merger, we brought the acquired company on to our systems efficiently, despite a lot of complexity. Our CEO stated that it was one of the best conversions he’s ever seen.”

When Mulcahey joined Sunflower Bank, he set out to find research and advisory services to accelerate IT decision making and build the skills he and his team needed to elevate their relationship with the business. He chose Info-Tech Research Group over other advisory firms: “I needed to find a partnership that could help us access trusted research, make IT decisions faster, and give me and my management team the leadership skills we needed to build relationships with the business.”

Gathering critical input to build effective IT

To gain insight into the organization’s perspective on IT performance, Mulcahey leveraged Info-Tech’s CIO Business Vision survey-based diagnostic program. By gathering and analyzing feedback from IT stakeholders, the diagnostic identified opportunities for improvement around employee onboarding and service desk ticketing. Mulcahey explained, “In terms of the IT team’s performance, customer satisfaction is our key metric. The CIO Business Vision diagnostic helped us establish a baseline satisfaction score, and the comments revealed how our stakeholders feel about us and what they want us to focus on.”

Mulcahey used another Info-Tech diagnostic tool, the CXO/CIO Alignment program, to get additional insight into their top stakeholders' perspectives. “I did this diagnostic with several top executives at Sunflower Bank. It helped me understand what the CEO wants the organization to do and how IT can bridge that gap,” said Mulcahey.

Building a common understanding to accelerate strategy

To further guide IT’s efforts, Mulcahey took advantage of Info-Tech workshops to bring stakeholders together in weeklong intensive sessions on IT strategy and data governance initiatives. He explained: “The IT strategy workshop was very enlightening. I brought my whole management team to get them in the mindset of building a new strategy that is business-focused rather than IT-focused. I shared it with the entire leadership team at the bank, and I believe it gave me more accountability with them. Now, when I have conversations with the business about what they want to do, I’m able to tie it back to the outcome of that workshop to ensure it aligns with key initiatives.”

Mulcahey noted the value of a session on data management: “The data governance workshop helped by lending the voice of experts to share with leadership, my peers, and other business lines about the importance of data. It changed our mindset and prepared us for the launch of a data governance project.” To further a shared understanding, Mulcahey brought his IT management team to Info-Tech’s annual conference, LIVE. “We wanted to be more aligned, speak the same language, and focus on the same strategies. It was a great experience.”

“The IT strategy workshop was very enlightening. I brought my whole management team to get them in the mindset of building a new strategy that is business-focused rather than IT-focused. Now, when I have conversations with the business about what they want to do, I’m able to tie it back to the outcome of that workshop to ensure it aligns with key initiatives.."
– Brian Mulcahey, CIO, Sunflower Bank, N.A.

Charting a course for success

As Mulcahey checks the results of their latest CIO Business Vision survey, he is thrilled to read stakeholder comments describing Sunflower Bank’s IT team as “the best IT team I’ve ever worked with.” He celebrated the progress made: “When we did the first CIO Business Vision survey, there weren’t that many compliments.”

With upcoming initiatives in data management, organizational change management, onboarding, and project intake, Mulcahey and his team continue to focus on earning business trust and supporting their strategic vision. He noted that Info-Tech is part of the formula for their success: “All of my direct reports would be unhappy without Info-Tech – they love this relationship because of the value they realize in the day to day.”