Meet the New CIO
Successful CIOs - and their vendors - must understand and embrace the dramatic evolution of the technology leadership role in order to remain a productive part of enterprise management.
By S. Sadagopan, Satyam
Nov. 19, 2007
Mark Hurd surprised attendees of a technology conference recently. The HP CEO spent a significant portion of his time at the speaker's podium discussing HP's efforts to transform every dimension of the company's IT - from internal systems to application usage to management of the IT organization.
Why? Hurd believes HP wants the same return on its IT investments that its customers do. This includes dramatically reducing IT maintenance spending, halving IT's overall cost, providing instant access to information across the corporation, lowering risk, and producing a measurable suite of products along the way.
Although HP's IT transformation is a work in progress, every firm can benefit from Hurd's advice. The bar for today's CIO has been raised significantly - and every technology vendor must understand the new roles, opportunities and challenges they face in order to become a productive business partner.
Fulfilling the "Chief Information Officer" Title
Globally, the business demands are increasing. Recent surveys show, three out of every five enterprises are looking to expand their market share. Their executives expect the CIO and the IT organization to play a significant role in improving current business processes, controlling enterprise costs and raising workforce performance.
These are the near-term business expectations. Longer term expectations for IT call for building new strategic capabilities that will use information to attract and retain customers and create new market opportunities.
Outside the enterprise, an increasingly sophisticated market in outsourced IT services is offering efficient, low-cost enterprise IT operations on demand - and at unimaginably massive scale. Inside the enterprise, the IT organization is applying sourcing decisions to move away from lower-value activities and towards higher-value ones.
This is pushing the CIO beyond the traditional role of improving existing business processes to a more strategic role of activities aimed at improving growth, innovation and competitive advantage. Proactive CIOs are looking to grow IT's contribution by connecting with growth and competitive advantage in substantial ways.
Historically speaking, the CIO role was created to signify an increasing sense of awareness that information had to be managed similar to other important resources such as people, finance and materials. This required managers to plan, budget, evaluate and use information efficiently and effectively.
This new function of managing centered around information called for a different breed of manager - one capable of understanding the management of information and IT in the context of the business's priorities and challenges. Today, across industries, leading-edge enterprises are completely dependent on IT as their internal engine. When the business model needs to be adapted, changed or shifted to changing economic or market circumstances, it turns to the IT engine to make it happen.
The CIO Dilemma
Paradoxically, in this information age, corporate data is increasingly becoming a company asset. While data and information may not manifest on the balance sheet, these are critical business enablers and differentiators not unlike Google's brand or 3M's innovation culture. Gartner recently did a survey with Forbes magazine that found fewer than 50% of CEOs surveyed hold the CIO responsible for the strategic exploitation of information today, but expected that that the CIO would wrest back this responsibility in the coming years.
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Why? Hurd believes HP wants the same return on its IT investments that its customers do. This includes dramatically reducing IT maintenance spending, halving IT's overall cost, providing instant access to information across the corporation, lowering risk, and producing a measurable suite of products along the way.
Although HP's IT transformation is a work in progress, every firm can benefit from Hurd's advice. The bar for today's CIO has been raised significantly - and every technology vendor must understand the new roles, opportunities and challenges they face in order to become a productive business partner.
Fulfilling the "Chief Information Officer" Title
Globally, the business demands are increasing. Recent surveys show, three out of every five enterprises are looking to expand their market share. Their executives expect the CIO and the IT organization to play a significant role in improving current business processes, controlling enterprise costs and raising workforce performance.
These are the near-term business expectations. Longer term expectations for IT call for building new strategic capabilities that will use information to attract and retain customers and create new market opportunities.
Outside the enterprise, an increasingly sophisticated market in outsourced IT services is offering efficient, low-cost enterprise IT operations on demand - and at unimaginably massive scale. Inside the enterprise, the IT organization is applying sourcing decisions to move away from lower-value activities and towards higher-value ones.
This is pushing the CIO beyond the traditional role of improving existing business processes to a more strategic role of activities aimed at improving growth, innovation and competitive advantage. Proactive CIOs are looking to grow IT's contribution by connecting with growth and competitive advantage in substantial ways.
Historically speaking, the CIO role was created to signify an increasing sense of awareness that information had to be managed similar to other important resources such as people, finance and materials. This required managers to plan, budget, evaluate and use information efficiently and effectively.
This new function of managing centered around information called for a different breed of manager - one capable of understanding the management of information and IT in the context of the business's priorities and challenges. Today, across industries, leading-edge enterprises are completely dependent on IT as their internal engine. When the business model needs to be adapted, changed or shifted to changing economic or market circumstances, it turns to the IT engine to make it happen.
The CIO Dilemma
Paradoxically, in this information age, corporate data is increasingly becoming a company asset. While data and information may not manifest on the balance sheet, these are critical business enablers and differentiators not unlike Google's brand or 3M's innovation culture. Gartner recently did a survey with Forbes magazine that found fewer than 50% of CEOs surveyed hold the CIO responsible for the strategic exploitation of information today, but expected that that the CIO would wrest back this responsibility in the coming years.
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