How credible can a technology solution provider be if it doesn't embrace the same strategies it advocates for clients?

That's one reason $1 billion integrator Softchoice (#33 on the 2014 CRN Solution Provider 500 list) turned to one of its long-time marketing and operations executives when naming its current CIO, Francis Li (who holds the official title of vice president for information technology).

Li has been with the company since 2002, holding positions in operations, direct marketing, front-line telesales and e-commerce strategy. His college degrees: economics and political science. He was chosen as director of the company's IT strategy to help build more empathy between line-of-business managers and internal developers and engineers.

In his current position, Li has already handled a CRM overhaul and the development of an internal collaboration strategy. "It has become a lot more important for someone leading IT to be viewed as someone who understands business processes, rather than someone who just understands the IT organization," he said.

Here are two big ways that Li's perspective has changed Softchoice's internal processes, knowledge that also helps inform its outward-facing client strategy:

It's more metrics-driven. Using the company's SharePoint collaboration technology, the Softchoice IT team conducts ongoing surveys about satisfaction with eight core technologies used to run the business. Employee reviews are now based in part on the tone conveyed in that feedback.

It ditched the term "user." Taking a cue from consumer products companies, the Softchoice organization made a conscious decision to what it calls the employees it supports. "We're not going to refer to our employees as 'users', we're going to view them as customers. If they don't get what they want from us, now they have another avenue other than us to procure this," Li said.