CIOs ramped up in importance

Chief Information Officers think more today like CEOs than in recent years, and are "uniquely positioned" to help their organisations cope, offering "visionary plans" to increase competitiveness. That's according to IBM, which has published a study into the role and environment facing CIOs.

The study was conducted over a four month period between November 2010 and February 2011 by IBM, with over 3,000 CIOs across the global, and from across both the public and private sectors.

According to the study, over 83% of CIOs participating in the survey said they had visionary plans that include business intelligence and analytics. Nearly three-quarters (74%) said their plans involved mobility solutions, with over two-third (68%) looking to virtualisation. Cloud Computing, has proved to be of increased priority for CIOs in the two years since IBM last conducted its Global CIO Study, rising from 45% in 2009 to 60% this year, tied in fourth place as a priority with business process management.

"Both Cloud Computing and outsourcing are critical tools for CIOs to reallocate internal resources from routine system maintenance toward tasks that are most valuable to their organisations," said the study.

The study also identified four distinct "CIO Mandates" that CIOs are virtually responsible for, which are "based primarily on how each organisation views the role of IT": Leverage (where organisations view IT as a "provider of fundamental technology services"); Expand (where CIOs are expected to manage a "balanced set of responsibilities from fundamental to visionary"); Transform (where IT is seen primarily as "provider of industry specific solutions to change the business"); and Pioneer (where IT is viewed "predominantly as a critical enabler of the business/organisational vision").

IBM's study reiterates the need for CIOs to understand the objectives and needs of their organisations in order to deliver on "their unique mandates," and it is vital they communicate effectively with other C-level colleagues so an agreement on how IT can support objectives. The study presses the point that CIOs are "uniquely positioned to help their organizations cope with the volatility and complexity of the twenty-first century- by generating valuable insight from data and serving as catalysts for innovation".

It continues to explain that CIOs are "essential" if organisations are to capitalise on the complexity and management of external forces and their impact on the organisations". At a time when "the generation, collection and analysis of data rises in importance to organisations of all stripes, so does the role of the CIO". The increased value of both structured and unstructured data also means CIOs are shifting closer to the core of power within their organisation, adds the study, "Therefore, it should not come as a surprise that there is a stronger alignment in the thinking of CEOs and CIOs".

"Our research suggests that this new alignment comes as CEOs better understand the importance of technology," says the study. "They increasingly rely on CIOs to turn data into usable information, information into intelligence and intelligence into better decisions."

As for the public sector specifically, the report reveals advances with the popularity of the internet has enabled "vast improvements" in the delivery of public services. It does warn however that while deliverer of those services is "relatively stable" in the short term, the biggest challenge remains achieving digital public service delivery to citizens at a lower cost.

The study also offered points enabling CIOs to deliver on each of the four mandates:

Deliver on the Leverage mandate

• Open new communication channels.
• Tap the right team.
• Standardise and consolidate.
• Update and renew.
• Discover the dashboard.

Deliver on the Expand mandate

• Enable state-of-the-art collaboration
• Tighten business and technology integration
• Focus on the core
• Simplify, automate and integrate
• Advance the metrics

Deliver on the Transform mandate

• Simplify, simplify, simplify
• Make it real
• Extend the value chain
• Harness more real-time data
• Analyse!

Deliver on the Pioneer mandate

• Innovate on the top line
• Act on deep customer understanding
• Exceed the expectations
• Develop a culture of analytics
• Add dials to your dashboards

Ultimately, the survey suggests the most successful CIOs will be "those who understand and deliver on their mandates". It adds agreements with C-level colleagues must be "widely and clearly disseminated so that all parts of the business understand and accept IT's primary focus". It also specifically says that CIOs need to innovate: "With ongoing technological shifts, the seemingly endless onslaught of data and the increasingly frenetic pace of change, making incremental improvements to operations may no longer be sufficient."