Chief Information Officers (CIOs) have evolved over the past few years from the person that keeps technology systems running smoothly into a role that places them at the very heart of corporate strategy.
The recently published IBM CIO Study casts a light on the key roles that CIOs are playing and the specific mandate that they fulfil in the modern organisation. Shane Radford, Business analytics and Optimisation Lead at IBM SA, explains that the survey identified four key mandates that CIOs are focussed on in terms of ensuring that the information needs of their organisations are met.
“There are four areas that all CIO’s fall into and this is directly related to the needs of their organisation, the maturity of their technology and the level and nature of competitiveness in their specific industries,” he points out.
The first mandate is leveraging the investments that have already been made in IT operations. “Industries where this mandate is common are those where the level of competitiveness is either lower or where information technology is less of a differentiator,” he says.
Under this mandate the role of the CIO is focussed on streamlining operations and increasing organisational efficiency. This is something that more mature organisations have largely moved beyond, but in industries where there is little competitive advantage in embracing the latest advancements in information technology, it is the ideal fit for the needs of the organisation.
He comments that while some may see this as a sign of a lack of progress in these industries, the example of the petrochemical industry, where the competitive advantage is established in their ability to produce products that are more technologically advanced and to ensure that large industrial plants are running at optimal efficiency the emphasis from an IT perspective is to ensure that the core business is supported.
The second mandate is to expand the role of IT within the organisation. “According to the study this is where the most of companies are, in terms of their IT evolution,” he explains. “Under this mandate CIOs are looking to refine the existing business processes and enhance collaboration.”
Under this mandate the IT function in the business is stepping out of simply providing a support role and engaging more actively with the business itself. By examining the various business processes and actively refining them it is possible for the CIO to become the driver of change inside an organisation rather than a simple bystander.
According to the survey 98% of CIOs in this section said that they would lead or support efforts to simplify key internal processes and 95% said they would lead or support efforts todrive better real-time decisions and take advantage of data analytics. By starting the move from the reactive use of information to a more real-time view of the company’s information technology has become a vital step in increasing the integration of business and technology.
The third mandate for the CIO is to transform the organisation. For organisations where this is a key mandate the role of the CIO has evolved from simply acting as a custodian of the technology used in an organisation into a provider of services that reach, not only all the parts of the business, but also encompass all the various partners and service providers that the company interacts with.
This could include suppliers, customers and consumers and the scope of the company’s systems would reach far beyond the realm of the organisation itself and gather data from all of these role players and then consolidate it into a single place in real time. This allows management to gain deep insight into the state of the market allowing them to pre-empt market changes and position the company appropriately.
The most advanced mandate that CIOs have to deliver on is pioneering new strategies for the organisation. Radford explains that the industries where this is most prevalent are media, telecommunications and financial services.
These industries are pioneering new business models, to a large extent, because the broader industry and consumer expectations. In these industries the pace of change is not being dictated by internal industry forces, but rather by disruptive external forces.
He explains that a good example of this is the introduction of mobile wallet services by the mobile telecoms providers. This is a technology driven expansion of the role of the business out of the traditional business space.
This advance motivated by the desire of the companies to meet a specific need of their clients. For this kind of advance to work it is essential that the CIO work hand in hand with the various other business units and the role of the CIO in coordinating this kind of advance is critical.
He adds that the one area that cannot be ignored is that for the mandate of the CIO to progress beyond leveraging IT infrastructure and into the expand, transform or pioneer mandate the basics of IT management have to be rock solid in order to support all the other parts. If the core IT infrastructure management is not being properly managed then the ability of any company to deliver higher-level IT services is going to be significantly compromised.
This article originally appeared in the Mail & Guardian newspaper as a sponsored feature