Will the CIO role change in the next 5 years? If so, how...and why?
Just a general question to see what others are thinking.
I believe that the CIO has to move into a more senior level leadership role on par with the COO, CFO and other Chief officers. To do this, the CIO has to show a real ability to think and act strategically.
Do you agree? If so, how can the CIO make this move?
If you don't agree, tell me why
Answers (8)
Hi Eric,
I believe the CIO role has evolved in some companies to the level that you have identified, so that will continue.
If you think of how a large corporation is organized, you realize it is usually comprised of several vertically aligned business units with key performance metrics being revenue generated and profit margins. The IT department is horizontally aligned and generally considered a support organization and is part of the corporation's TCO.
IT departments will morph into what could conceptually be thought of a business unit that is measured by service delivery metrics as opposed to revenue or profits.
One of the more significant trends is the IT department partnering with the business units to identify key technologies or ways to leverage technology to achieve a greater ROI. Being horizontal, the IT department can further leverage enabling technoloies and best practice across the corporate business units.
So as this happens, the IT department will increasingly become an accountable partner with the business units to achieve greater ROI.
The next generation of CIOs will will need to have some CFO and CEO skills and their direct reports will need to have more knowledge in the business units they support and less in the details of the technology.
Any thoughts?
Tom
Dave G.
Dave Guerra is Evangelist for Superperforming Organizations and People I Author, CEO I Co-Founder & Chrm, THRIVE
Best Answers in: Organizational Development (4), Staffing and Recruiting (1), Change Management (1), Project Management (1)
Yes absolutely. CIOs WILL HAVE to move up in the future, and to do so they will need to find their right brains. Strategic and intuitive thinking, agility, self-organizing teams, servant leadership, and stakeholder involvement will only grow in significance for the new CIO. Speaking on this very issue at Houston Techfest this September.
Links:
Dave G. also suggests these experts on this topic:
If the position will be allowed to continue on the org chart, I think that CIO's will need to be much more aware of the business strategies and plans for the growth and sustenance of the business in the coming years. This will require that those individuals in the CIO roles must become even more a trusted advisor to the rest of the "C" level club so that there is a closer connection and interdependence between these people at the strategic level.
Wolf R.
Senior Director of Enterprse Architectural Transformation at HCL Technologies
Best Answers in: Enterprise Software (3), Corporate Governance (1), Computers and Software (1)
Contrary to what has been said here, Brian Watson, the Editor in Chef of CIO Insight Magazine had written recently in eWeek that "CIO are disappearing" as a title or even a profession (see "The disappearing CIO" eWeek April 20 p. 39).
Why? Is that right? It is a complicated problem, as I see it. I will probably blog at it myself soon. See my blog 'Enterprise Architecture Watch' at : http://wrivkin.wordpress.com/
Eric
I strongly concur with Tom Golway's remarks, particularly with regard to having and/or developing CFO and CEO skills...I think he captured the fact that while the job title contains and infers IT and technology, its about the business - supporting, growing, protecting the business.
To your remark about "...having to move to a more senior level leadership role on par with other CXO's...," that will occur when the business is improved, not simply by virtue of the title.
While every CXO role is challenging, the CIO may have more on their plate than other executives because of the sheer multitude of quickly moving and morphing parts - regulation/compliance, technology changes, sourcing options, organizational and generational integration/acceptance, capital constraints, and the list continues to change.
As the adage goes, "to whom much is given, much is expected."
In spite of Nick Carr's treatise, IT does matter...but it (IT) exists for the sake and benefit of the business.
Dan N.
Knowledge Assets Management Consultant
Best Answers in: Change Management (1), Quality Management and Standards (1)
It is my opinion that CIOs today deal mainly with Information Technology and not with the organization's information assets. There must be a separation between technology: hardware, infrastructure, systems software, and so on, and between information assets. The computers technology manager doesn't have to be an executive level manager. The CIO of the future will be responsible for the information architecture, knowledge management, competitive intelligence and business intelligence.
Any executive in the "C" office needs to think and act strategically. Their job is not simply operational execution, but broad leadership to the organization and honest advisor to the CEO/COO.
The CIO position runs the risk that the CQO position had in the '80s-'90s or CMO position in the 00s. These were premium hires, and the executives were given broad charters to move across the functional organizations, but they and their staffs had to fight for resources when times got tough, and it was very difficult to show the financial impact of any of their broad investment initiatives. Without tangible return, the projects can easily be postponed.
What I am seeing now is that organizations for which IT is truly a strategic investment - banking/money management, certain retailers, and firms in the IT services business - have placed the CIO in the top ranks of executives, and the CEO is usually quite savvy and aware of the impact of investment leadership in IT. For many other firms, IT is simply a 1-2% expense, like advertising; while important to run the business, it is an expense category to be managed in a competitive range.
A CIO that wishes to change the company strategy and culture to reward IT needs to show the tangible benefits of IT leadership to the top as well as the bottom line. Don't just benchmark competitor expense levels, but examine how a creative IT solution can leapfrog the firm ahead of its competitors, with higher sales, higher margin, better inventory management, creative analysis of customer positioning, etc.
Thorsten C.
Senior Investment Manager at T-Venture of America, Inc.
Best Answers in: Business Development (1)
A good research source is the CIO Magazine Council. For details, go to http://council.cio.com or look at http://council.cio.com/content.html?trt=2
