CIO Role Will See Three-Fold Increase In Focus On Innovation: Forrester

The changing role of CIO is a subject that more often than not finds its way into the many CIO forums and discussions, with the ‘I’ in the CIO being interchangeable for ‘Information’, ‘Innovation’, ‘Integration’, etc. The CIO, undoubtedly, wears many hats from time-to-time depending on the situation or circumstance that demands his attention. The key in all this is the fluid nature of the CIO’s state of affairs. And perhaps, it’s this fluidity which keeps the CIO function alive and thriving.

At the recent Forrester CIO Summit 2012, while talking about the CIO’s role in the empowered Business Technology (BT) era, John Brand, Vice President and Principal Analyst for Forrester’s CIO Group specifically highlighted the role of the CIO as the Chief Information Officer and the Chief Vendor Manager. These are the two roles that Brand sees undergoing shift as their relative proportion of the CIO’s function increases significantly.

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Three-Fold Increase In Focus On Innovation

Quoting from ‘The Empowered BT CIO’ report from Forrester, Brand stated that the CIO’s role will see a three-fold increase in the focus on innovation. As per the report, almost 15 percent of the future state of the CIO will be as Chief Innovation Officer.

Innovation, which is often an overly misused and misconstrued term, will account for the third largest chunk of the CIO’s future state. Brand described it as CIOs trying to get the most value out of the information assets that they have, and using that information most effectively.

Giving a CIO’s perspective of innovation, Vijay Sethi, CIO of Hero MotoCorp tries to clear the air around ‘innovation’. “The issue is that most people think that innovation is about large changes. Take for instance, the various inventions like the mobile, Internet, etc. And, that’s where we go wrong. Equating innovation with invention is the reason why most CIOs do not become Chief Information Officers,” he explains. He further adds that what CEOs expect from their team is not ‘inventions’ but ‘innovation’.

So, what is innovation then? According to Sethi, it could be a mere change in the thought process for doing something, an improvement to some existing processes, or even useful application of new inventions and discoveries, combining two or three concepts together. In the corporate context, it can be defined as the profitable implementation of ideas. “Innovation doesn’t mean ‘big bang changes every time. You can also go for OPEX, i.e. One Percent Excellence – small regular improvements,” he adds.

While innovation should not be confused for invention, CIOs need to effectively tap the inventions to bring about innovation. For instance, the mobile phone, which is an invention, can be used to bring innovation in the way banking is conducted, or using the same invention to bring about innovation in ticketing, etc. In the said context, some of the inventions that can be effectively leveraged individually as well as in combination to drive innovation are the mobile, cloud, social media, analytics, collaboration, etc.

Outward Looking Focus

Along with innovation, the CIO will need to equally devote his time and energy to manage the organisational risks. As per the ‘The Empowered BT CIO’ report, the role of the CIO as the Chief Risk Officer is tied in with that of the Chief Innovation Officer at 15 percent proportion each.

Interestingly, the Chief Vendor Manager part will account for 20 percent of the CIO’s future state, as per the report. This, again, will be a significant increase from the existing focus on vendor management. Brand noted that vendor management is going to be a critical part of the CIO role in the future “Traditionally, the role of the CIO was a more internal focused one, and that now is rapidly changing,” stated Brand. Here, we will see that cloud computing will be playing a significant role in changing the CIO’s role.

Along with vendor management, the CIO as the Chief Enterprise Architect will also account for the second largest chunk of what the CIO’s role will be at 20 percent, preceded by the role of Chief Maintenance Officer at 25 percent.

Skills To Hone

Even while the roles of maintenance and that of being the enterprise architect will continue to take up majority of the CIO’s time, resources and energy, CIOs will need to brace themselves and be prepared for the changes that their other avatars need to undergo. This needs focus on refining and honing skills in the key areas of governance, sourcing and innovation, along with becoming an influential business partner and business service orchestrator.