Changing Role of aCIO

CIOs these days are not just into the management of IT infrastructure. Their role in organizations has changed from implementing networks and the latest in technology to being recognized as a visionary, who now actively works with CEOs in formulating and implementing business strategies. Reducing costs, driving innovation and developing business strategies by incorporating a correct mix of technologies are some of the new roles that organizations expect from a CIO. In this story, we look at how the role of a CIO has evolved over the years. We also speak to CIOs to find out how comfortable they feel with this new role

Saturday, July 04, 2009

The past few years have seen executives with newer and more innovative designations taking charge in many big organizations: Chief Compliance Officer, Chief Risk Officer and Chief Technology Officers, etc. Amongst all these designations, the one officer that has gained prominence over years is the Chief Information Officer (CIO). The role of a CIO originated in the early days of IT because other executives, namely CEO or CFO, were not supposed to have the knowledge of technology. CIOs were therefore meant to manage the use of technology for an enterprise's business requirements. These CIOs rose from the ranks of techies and were responsible to manage IT deployments from as basic as an enterprise network to as complex as an ERP system. It was considered a difficult job due to the complex and integrated nature of business with the then available modern technology. The creation of CIO position was a rational decision for an enterprise to manage its technology needs for business. But, this role of a CIO no longer exists. It has evolved to be much more demanding and more focused towards the business.

The modern-day CIO is not merely managing the IT needs of his organization, but is finding himself to be at the decision-making table amongst other C-level executives. He is the right hand for the CEO, and has an equal say in implementing business strategies for the organization. As enterprises are
trying to be more efficient through process automation, and have more global presence in the competitive environment, it is the CIO who is leading the charge on how to achieve that in a low-cost and efficient manner.

N Nataraj, Chief Information Officer, Hexaware Technologies A CIO should keep himself abreast with the latest developments in technology and its effective usage. He has to work as the right-hand of the CEO in ensuring that business delivers the best, in the least possible time. 'Time to Market' is one component where a CIO can contribute a lot by using the latest technology. He has to understand business challenges and the opportunities on the horizon. A CIO also has to keep himself updated on various checks and balances that can be put in place and understand various security standards and their relevance to the organization.

The role of a CIO is something that has evolved over the past 25 years. Managers of Information Systems of yesteryears have transformed from being pure technology leaders to business managers. The reason for this being, the change in the way technology impacts life today. 25 years back, IT was seen as an enabler for doing better business, today it is IT that runs a business. Hence, IT strategy and an enterprise's business are no longer differentiated from one another, rather these two go hand in hand.

Eventually, for every enterprise it is the 'profit' that matters from their investments. It is the responsibility of the CIO to deliver and communicate profits from an IT investment to the management of the organization.

Craig Hergenroether, Chief Information Officer, Barry-Wehmiller Companies, Inc. A CIO is expected to continuously improve technology, which is backed by huge budgetary spends in normal times. In uncertain times prevailing now, the CIO is expected to bring in technology innovations that can cut costs, but with stricter budgets than before. We have been fairly successful in achieving this through better consolidation and optimization of technology infrastructure throughout the group. The CIO needs to keep himself abreast with the way business processes are executed across the industry that he is in. He can also do a lot of good if he can implement best practices in business processes from other industries too.

New-age CIO
If we trace back the role of a CIO in past, he was a person who manged the infrastructure of the company. And primarily hardware and software constituted the core of the IT infrastructure during those days. Now the focus has shifted to providing IT systems as a value add-on to the enterprise, and this value add-on is of two kinds: one is to identify what kind of investment is being made and correspondingly what value does it adds to the business processes. These IT systems when used provide some process form indicator matrices like enhancement of productivity, on-time delivery, quality and customer satisfaction, etc, when they interact with the enterprise's business environment. For instance, how a service based model will work for the enterprise or how can virtualization be beneficial for the organization's business or what social networking tools could be used for enterprise's intranet portal. The performance of these indicators which IT is expected to provide is directly related to the CIO who is supposed to make this transition happen. Therefore the CIO's role which was focused on technology and getting the people to build and operate applications has transitioned into understanding the business needs from a competitor's perspective to customer profiling of the business, to understanding the key strategies that enterprises are trying to achieve in short term and in the long run. The role of the CIO thus, has extended from just IT infrastructure management to business management as well now. They are also required in the business transformation process. Hence, today's CIO is not just a “reliable service provider” but also a “transformational partner”, helping the organization transform with the ever-changing business scenario.

SV Ramana, Chief Information Officer, Tulip Telecom The CIO is not just required to be only a technology person but also a business oriented person understanding the market, customers, sales, competition and therefore he is now an intermediary between the technology and business. To be a CIO, a person ideally should have to be from technology background to incorporate new technologies in the organization. He has to understand the trends and technologies which are happening across the globe related to what his business needs in the organization and see how minimally he can add value through minimum costs, because a lot of investments in IT infrastructure are not being used by organizations per se.

Duties a modern CIO adorns
Today, there's a greater focus on strategy in the CIO's role. He has to look at areas such as business-IT alignment, finding out ways for IT to streamline the business processes for value or supply chain efficiencies, or evaluating business opportunities in new technologies. Moving ahead from IT

infrastructure management, the role of today's CIO encompasses following areas:
Law and compliance issues - With increasingly complex regulations emerging, CIOs are required to design and build business processes, systems and organizational structures that not only are compliant with today's stringent rules, but also anticipate the direction of future regulations.
IT and Business integration - Information and technology are levers for trimming and simplifying business processes for the organizations, and building stronger, more effective partnerships and supplier relationships. CIOs are taking a leadership role by showing business executives what IT can do for them and for the organization's profits.
Creating value - CIOs must work with their fellow business leaders to shift projects and assets to areas most likely to generate returns, and shed or streamline assets and operations that are destroying value.
Managing risks - Need to identify threats, balance risk and cost, and test vulnerabilities, plans and assumptions
to ensure the safety of goods, people, information and facilities.

Muralikrishna K., Vice President and Head, Computers & Communication Division, Infosys Technologies A CIO needs a strong understanding of all the processes in an organization to analyze where these can be effectively automated. They need to appreciate the needs of the key stakeholders in the organization because they have the task of enhancing their decision-making. A CIO has to frequently work with external suppliers and clients to eliminate costs by fashioning intricate supply chains. They record the business accounting details and work intimately with the finance department in producing the quarterly reports. Then they have to manage people and projects. Finally, they find themselves at the cutting edge of all the business trends because of the ramifications these have on IT. To be a CIO, one has to develop the necessary skills and experience and understand their strengths and weaknesses. A key tool that is necessary for a move in career to the business side is education.

Career path
There is no strict career path that one needs to follow to reach the position of a CIO. Anyone who has a deep understanding of the way business thrives in the industry they are in, coupled with good understanding and appreciation of technology, can become a CIO. One also needs to keep himself abreast of latest in technology to get to the top.

A professional who eyes the coveted designation of the CIO has multiple paths to follow. One, goes through the development-the person will have ample software development skills and knack to deal with software related problems. He can begin his journey as a developer, and then gradually while walking on this path and crossing the milestones like senior developer, team leader, module leader, center head, he is ready to adorn the garb of a CIO. Because by that time, he would have had enough exposure to manage delivery and development of major projects and major systems across the organization's business processes.

Ahmed Mahmoud Global CIO, AMD The CIO should keep himself abreast with latest technologies that will give him essence of the industry trends. My advice to CIO aspirants would be to broaden their business acumen by gaining experience across organization's business processes. I have noticed a lot of young folks work hard to advance quickly up the career ladder and in doing so they do not add substance to their capabilities. They should try to get business knowledge of various business processes, and if a person is in a leadership position, then he should try to support various parts of businesses like HR, finance, operations, etc rather then restricting himself to one function. This way he would develop the necessary business acumen, as by then he would have done jobs in all IT supporting aspects of the business. This is the kind of experience that enterprises seek from prospective CIO candidates, as experience can only be gained and not taught.

The other path that one can proceed through goes through the operations side. He can start off as an Operations Engineer, and then hone his operational and management skills by getting into the shoes of: a team leader of operations, the head of operations (who manages larger teams managing operations), and the Project management head. After this, he has got a fair chance of becoming a CIO, but quality and excellence are the other must-haves.

What it takes to be a CIO
To be a CIO, certain necessary skills and experience are required but besides this an understanding of their own strengths and weaknesses must be there; this helps when they have to deal with issues that pertain to technology or people management. A CIO should have the knack for technology, but it is not necessary that he has to be from a technology background, though an engineering background is the initial requirement, good educational qualifications are one of the pre-requisites along with a degree or diploma in business administration. Managerial skills are also very important and an MBA degree would be significant in pursuing a career as a CIO.

Sumit Chaudhary, CIO, Reliance Communications He should definitely be an engineer. A reason why engineering degree is required is because engineers are taught to work within constraints and there is never an open book that provides all solutions. So they have to come to terms with technology and financial constraints and find solutions to business problems within those constraints. They have to come back to the top management with the solutions and one of the necessary skills which engineers are taught is to understand and break down a problem into manageable chunks and then put a solution for it. CIOs need to have a business management background to sell, communicate, do business cases. Business communication, presentation skills and people management skills are other pre-requisites. A CIO must undergo some form of training in risk management because they are chartered to manage risks for businesses.

The top management would any day prefer a person who understands their business. So, if a CIO is where you see yourself tomorrow, or want to be say five to ten years down the line, understand the business you are in, obtain the appropriate cross-functional experience that is required to move up the corporate ladder and you are all set to go.

Today's CIOs are not just 'geeks', but a planner, a strategist and have enough business acumen to achieve profitability and success for their enterprises.

Page(s)   1