Move On, CIO: It's 2012

Technology is, and will always remain, a CIO’s bread and butter. But CIOs of today cannot afford the proverbial sin of playing the fiddle while Rome burns. Technical know-how needs to be backed up by a very thorough understanding of the business, a clear vision of what goals have to be achieved and how to drive his team towards getting them. While most of the CIOs and industry experts have been voicing this out loud for long, it’s finally time to set it in action in the year 2012.

“2011 was the beginning of the trend of the business expecting the CIO to have more business skills and be a business leader. 2012 will be a tipping point where the CEO will actually expect the CIO to be a business leader first and then the technology leader,” says Partha Iyengar, VP, distinguished analyst and regional research director, India for Gartner.

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Technology Alone Doth Not A CIO Make

It has always been wishful thinking to say CIOs should possess business skills. But looking at the Indian environment it’s becoming an imperative. “There has been a rapid change of pace in competition, consumer demand, opportunity and globalisation which has impacted companies across industries. The CEO has realised that the company cannot respond to these four forces without significant leverage of technology,” says Iyengar.

The model of the past has been the CEO articulating the business opportunity for each of these technology-driven impacts, hand that over to the CIO and tell him to execute it further. But now, the CIO needs to step up and be a part of the executive committee which is debating business issues together. He then has to wear the technology hat and figure out how those business issues can be sorted - whether it is setting up barriers to entry, establishing customer loyalty or establishing a new revenue stream. This is where the CEO would expect valuable inputs from the CIO.

Tips To Getting The Business Edge In 2012

So what should CIOs do differently this year to ensure they get that business edge?

Spend more time in the business:

According to Iyengar, CIOs should be able to spend 70 percent of the time in the business and only 30 percent time managing the technology aspect, while unfortunately, it is the other way round for most of them. “Spending more time in the business will establish their own credibility with the business peers and the CEO and will ensure that they are not automatically excluded from the major decisions but are actually sought after to provide their views on the same,” he adds.

Proactively take on a business responsibility:

Another recommendation from experts is to proactively take on a business line responsibility. “We do have examples in India of CIOs also being the Head of Industry Relations, Head of Customer Support or Head of Strategic Planning. So, CIOs who wish to fast track their movement into the business leader paradigm, should actively seek out a business role if they don’t have it today,” Iyengar explains.

Seek mentoring from business leaders:

Iyengar also advises CIOs to seek out mentoring from senior business leaders. It will help them to pick up the ropes of the business if they are not already equipped to do so.

Get into business-level KPIs:

Partha Kundu, Executive Director, PwC India, suggests that CIOs should get into the business-level KPIs and convince other CXOs how IT as an organisation can contribute towards achieving those KPIs. “Simply IT cost reduction is not the only KPI that the CIO will look into. IT can also be looked at as an enabler to tap into new markets and mindshare of customers. CEOs are expecting CIOs to come up and tell them how technology can play a value-adding role in making the business economics look good. And this meaningful and interactive IT-Business rapport is what CIOs should focus on this year,” he advises.

CIO To CEO?

So much has been deliberated on this business-IT alignment over the last year that a new school of thought has emerged which says a CIO’s natural progression should be that to CEO. According to a report by CA Technologies, CIOs are sharing the sentiment that the C-level management team sees the role of the CIO as becoming increasingly important within the organisation. Of the Indian CIOs surveyed for the report, 60 percent agreed that technologies like cloud computing enabled them to spend more time on business strategy and innovation and hence better positioned them to take on this major responsibility.

Well, CEO or not, the year to come will definitely challenge the CIO thought process and force innovation and smarter decisions. As Edward de Bono would put it, “Traditional thinking is all about ‘what is.’ Future thinking will also need to be about ‘what can be’.” And the time for future thinking is now.