Will you drive home a New Year's resolution to advance your career?

There’s still time for another New Year’s resolution! How about looking into what it takes to prepare for your next career advancement? It pays to be ready, so let’s talk about where you are, where you want to be, and what it will take to get there. A practical example will help drive home what climbing the career ladder requires.

By Michael Goul  |  Chairman, Department of Information Systems

There’s still time for another New Year’s resolution! How about looking into what it takes to prepare for your next career advancement? It pays to be ready, so let’s talk about where you are, where you want to be and what it will take to get there. A practical example will help drive home what climbing the career ladder requires. Here’s the context: a company engaged in what economists call a two-sided market. The firm’s major sales fall into four sales time slots, and the sales are located in four western U.S. cities — one city per time slot.

The sale held in January 2014 sale in Scottsdale, Ariz., performed the strongest of any in the company’s 43-year history, totaling more than $113 million. Celebrities, aficionados and collectors from all over the world were there in force; approximately 300,000 attended overall. Scottsdale resorts were filled to capacity. The whole sales event lasted only six days, and five television and cable channels (FOX Broadcast, FOX Business Network, FOX Sports 1, FOX Sports 2 and the National Geographic Channel) carried reports: 36 hours of HD programming overall.

One unit sold for $3.85 million and another for $2.86 million. The whole event has become so well known that other, similar events are being conducted simultaneously. A novel industry cluster has grown up. By now you are wondering what company we’re talking about — maybe some sort of new version of Home Shopping Network with loads of expensive items up for sale? Nope. This is the Barrett-Jackson Auction Company and its annual Scottsdale, Ariz. auction.

Barrett-Jackson offers car collectors some of the world’s best investment-level automobiles. Top record-breaking sales for the 2014’s 43rd annual auction included a 1967 Chevrolet Corvette L88 two-door coupe, which sold for $3.85 million — the highest price paid for any Corvette in history. A 1957 Thunderbird 'E-Bird' convertible broke the record for that model by selling at $330,000. The auction included foreign cars as well: a 1955 Mercedes-Benz 300SL Gullwing Coupe went for $2.09 million, and a 1998 Ferrari F300 went for $1.7 million. Simon Cowell’s (X Factor) 2008 Bugatti Veryon 2 Door Coupe went for $1.375 million. Barrett-Jackson also works with charities — this year they raised $1.4 million for philanthropy. Very few of us can afford to drive home in a car off this auction block, so how exactly does Barrett-Jackson relate to career advancement? I decided to take a look at recent high-level job openings that have already been filled at Barrett-Jackson with an eye towards required responsibilities and skills.

The auction compresses a great deal of business into a short period of time. And the business is complex — some of the complexities include getting top-notch car owners to list their vehicles, managing all related content and financial details, getting people to attend, supporting the bidding processes, getting the cars across the stage in the right order, capturing the sales and communicating accurate results to the media. All of the IT-related systems have to be in-sync with all of the business requirements — and it is mission critical to have everything operating at full speed and capacity for 6 intense days. For Barrett-Jackson, the key is that both sellers and buyers have significant trust in the company as they buy and sell through its service-based business.

The information systems can’t fail. The first Barrett-Jackson position relevant to career advancement is titled information technology director. This position requires 5 or more years of experience, technical background as well as excellent managerial skills, strong interpersonal and communication abilities, ability to do the IT hiring and analytical thinking. Experience in a start-up or another entrepreneurial context is preferred. Responsibilities include analyzing workflow, delegating, implementing and monitoring projects, overseeing network security, oversight of all IT related purchasing and budgets, capacity planning and vendor negotiation, ensuring all operations are consistent with overall company goals and objectives and developing/monitoring performance standards.

The second Barrett-Jackson position relevant to career advancement I came across is titled chief technology officer. This position requires more technical skills than the first, likely those gleaned from the minimum 12-15 years of total experience expected, and a preference for 20-plus years. But it also includes translating and articulating administrative goals from the business side into technical initiatives, and includes a responsibility for communicating effectively with management on issues, risks and opportunities related to progress towards business goals.

While I didn’t find a specific job posting, there are Android and iTunes apps for collectible car buyers that put data analytics as a service at the fingertips of bidders who might be knee dip in a bidding shootout. I am sure the apps saw major usage during this most recent Barrett-Jackson auction in Scottsdale. The apps link buyers into the Black Book (a Hearst Business Media company) pricing data on more than 15,000 rare vehicles. A recent, but now filled job posting for a business intelligence director at Hearst Media describes a new role tasking a data services team with “Developing Hearst’s enterprise-wide data capital and promoting business decision making utilizing that data.”

Further, it requires the management of business intelligence relationships as the company develops what they refer to as, “ … this new emerging business model.” What do all three of these positions have in common? They are the types of positions that W. P. Carey degree programs prepare you for. I urge you to compare the responsibilities and requirements directly with the curriculum in the programs. You will clearly see a match-up. The Master of Science in Information Management (MSIM) program is offered both on-site and online. The average work experience of entering students is 11.5 years. The on-site version of MSIM was included in U.S. News & World Report’s recent Number 2 ranking of the W. P. Carey School’s online graduate programs.

There is also a version where students can earn dual MBA and MSIM degrees. Consider these programs in the context of the Information Technology Director and Chief Technology Officer at Barrett-Jackson. There is a new Master of Science in Business Analytics program — offered for its charter cohort this first time in 2013-14. Beginning fall of 2014, the program will be offered both on-site and on-line. We also have a new Bachelor of Science in Business Data Analytics program that will begin in Fall of 2014. In addition, we continue to offer the Bachelor of Science in Computer Information Systems degree — a degree with a strong record of placement in some of the best local and national organizations at among the highest average undergraduate degree salary.

Consider these programs in the context of the collectible automobile data as an app service and the associated Hearst Media position as business intelligence director. So — if you have room for one more New Year’s resolution for 2014 (and you should make room if not) it should be to consider how to best prepare yourself for your next career advancement opportunity. The W. P. Carey School of Business has choices that offer many possibilities. While you may not be a collectible automobiles aficionado, the types of jobs associated with the recently completed and highly successful Barrett-Jackson’s 43rd Auction in Scottsdale, AZ give rise to pondering what could be in your future. While maybe you didn’t drive home a classic Corvette, Thunderbird, Mercedes-Benz or Simon Cowell’s Bugatti this January, rest assured that you can drive home a career-advancing New Year’s resolution by investing in yourself.

Photo courtesy Barrett-Jackson