The changing role of the CIO

CIOs increasingly help their public and private sector organisations cope with complexity by simplifying operations, business processes, products and services. Both cloud computing and outsourcing are seen by CIOs a critical tools to reallocate internal resources from routine system maintenance toward tasks that are most valuable to their organisations. Master data management, customer analytics, data warehousing and visual information dashboards are CIOs' top priorities for turning data into insights that lead to better and faster business decisions.

To increase competitiveness, 83% of CIOs have visionary plans that include business intelligence (BI) and analytics. CIOs are also looking to mobility solutions (74%), virtualisation (68%), cloud computing (60%) and business process management (60%) to gain advantages. The study also showed that CIOs break into groups with four distinct mandates, based mainly on how their particular organisations view the role of IT in business transformation.

Utilise - these CIOs view IT as a provider of fundamental technology services, using IT to streamline business operations to increase overall organisational effectiveness.

Expand - this broad mandate includes CIOs within organisations that expect to manage a balanced set of responsibilities that range from fundamental to visionary. Their CIOs lead IT operations that help expand organisational capabilities by refining business processes and enhancing enterprise-wide collaboration between staff and business project groups.

Pioneer - this group of CIOs exhibit entrepreneurial spirit and view IT predominantly as a critical enabler of their organisational vision and mission, using IT to help pioneer or radically re-engineer products, services, markets and business models, including pragmatic adoption of cloud technologies.

Transform - CIOs that see IT primarily as industry specific solutions to change the business helping to transform industry value chains by enhancing relationships with customers, citizens, partners and internal clients.

Clearly, whichever group the CIOs fit into, the most successful will be those who understand and deliver on their mandates. To be effective, CIOs must reach explicit agreement with Board-level colleagues and other executives on the organisation's goals and how IT can best support and facilitate them. Just as important, these agreements must be widely and clearly communicated so that all parts of the business understand and accept IT's primary focus.

Whether an organisation requires an emphasis on delivery of essential IT services or challenges the CIO to pioneer new opportunities, CIOs also 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.

This is where external help and expert consulting comes in, pointing you in the direction of pragmatic solutions and new technology opportunities such as Microsoft SQL Server for data analysis, SharePoint for business dashboards, BizTalk for messaging and process management and .NET for custom development.

To find out more about Ballard Chalmers solutions and services for CIOs and how we can help your organisation please email us or call Andrew Chalmers on 01342 410223.

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