The CIO's Widening World

Computerworld - When the CEO, chief financial officer and other members of Accenture Ltd.'s partner income board meet to decide how the $1.4 billion consulting firm's profits should be divvied up each year, CIO Frank Modruson has both a seat at the table and a vote on the final disbursement.

In February, before executives at Juniper Networks Inc. signed a $4 billion deal to buy out NetScreen Technologies Inc., they sought the counsel of Juniper CIO Kim Perdikou. The reason: Perdikou had led much of the company's preacquisition due-diligence efforts.

And when $13 billion Humana Inc. makes a sales pitch to corporate customers—potentially worth millions in revenue to the health care and benefits giant—Humana CIO Bruce Goodman is a lead presenter.

Sure, corporate IT budgets may be flat overall and technology expenditures more heavily scrutinized than ever, but the CIO's role and influence are expanding well beyond the traditional boundaries of IT. Recent interviews with more than two-dozen top IT executives suggest that the job of CIO is significantly increasing in difficulty and complexity, so much so that one veteran CIO believes it may be too much for a single person to handle.

"The reality is that to be successful, a CIO must be able to do six things at once, and that's just not realistic," says Darwin John, who has held the CIO post at the FBI, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and the former Scott Paper Co. In all three cases, John set up an office of the CIO that included a team of executives who focused on technology implementation and integration, prioritizing business and technology initiatives and providing top-notch project management.

"I have a belief that to be successful as a CIO, you need to allocate your time in thirds: one-third to minding the store, a third to working with major customers within the enterprise and the other third focused externally," says John, who continues to advise the FBI as well as Chicago-based Blackwell Consulting Services Inc.

John Moon, CIO at Baxter International Inc. Image Credit: Andy Goodwin

Here's a closer look at three CIOs who are ahead of the curve, having already assumed several roles and responsibilities far from the hum of the data center.

CIO as Product Innovator

Baxter International Inc. in Deerfield, Ill., designs, develops, manufactures and sells medical devices. As the company's CIO, John Moon was once fully engaged in what he calls "the ERP extravaganza," but not anymore. Moon's primary responsibilities these days are directly tied to the bottom line. Among them is helping product engineers figure out how to best incorporate Internet-based intelligence and communications capabilities into Baxter's line of medication pumps, dialysis equipment and other medical devices, which represent 66% of the $8 billion company's business.