By: Rob Nelson
Gone are the days when the Chief Investment Officer could isolate him or herself and their team, choosing when and how to engage. Today’s CIO is faced with a drastically different landscape than even a year ago, let alone a decade ago. The successful Chief Investment Officer of today will align with the CEO strategically and be positioned as a trusted adviser on such matters as revenue drivers, innovation as a competitive weapon and enabling growth and change.
Chief Executive Officer’s will always require CIOs to have the pulse of systems’ effectiveness, but the advent of such things as social media and a truly global market require the CIO to do more than just manage technology infrastructure by becoming a strategist on par with the CEO. The CIO’s that will survive will turn from being internally focused to focusing on such matters as the market, customers, profit, growth and other core business drivers.
For some, changes aren’t coming; at least not easily. For the past six years, Gartner’s CEO research has shown that more than 60% of CEO’s view their IT team as having a restraining effect on organizational change. This positions the entire CIO profession at a crossroads, which could lead to a complete paradigm shift in the role of the CIO and entire IT teams in the future. The CIO of the future will be equal parts business visionary and technological expert. In fact, innovation will be the required talent of tomorrow’s CIO, rather than systems expertise.
CIOs possess a critical information channel that CEOs must tap. The CIO understands the systems infrastructure across the enterprise and how it affects each department. What CEOs then need is brisk strategic assessment from the CIO regarding changes to technology and innovative ideas, balanced against their affects on individual departments, the enterprise, customers, competitors and more.
Do you think the CIOs of the future will be viewed as trusted advisers on matters well beyond IT systems?
View source: “What CEOs expect from CIOs” By Richard Pastore
[...] is not asked more often. With the current state of the economy, you would think CEO’s and other decision makers would want to review their options and hear out what competitors have to offer. Ask yourself [...]