The 21st Century CIO and the New IT Leadership Agenda

Computerworld - The IT leadership role has changed dramatically since the title "chief information officer" was initially coined in the late 1980s. The CIO's portfolio of responsibilities must keep pace with the rising intrinsic economic value of information. As executive recruiters and human capital strategy consultants, we at Korn/Ferry International have enjoyed a privileged vantage of the resulting evolutionary pressures affecting CIOs in leading organizations across a broad spectrum of industries.
One overarching truth clearly emerges from our observations: The CIO's position in the corporate structure is rising steadily and inexorably from the tactical/operational level to the strategic/management level. Tomorrow's CIO will no longer be just a technology guru, but rather a key member of the leadership team guiding the organization toward its business objectives.
To be effective, the 21st century CIO needs to master the skills necessary to successfully plan and manage a complex portfolio of IT investments. He also needs the ability to track the business impact of technology investments with a far greater degree of precision. Once simply a support for specific functions, technology now forms the bedrock of all corporate processes. The CIO's responsibilities therefore have begun to extend far beyond the traditional boundaries of IT. Today's CIO must be capable of leadership across the enterprise.
Our discussions with CIOs have revealed a common thread of insights, concerns and expectations. Here they are, distilled into a 10-point IT leadership agenda:

• IT strategy. For the foreseeable future, the fundamental task of every IT department will be to align its goals and objectives with those of the enterprise. The CIO must achieve this alignment by developing an IT strategy that focuses on building solid business cases based on projected returns on investment.


• IT governance. Faced with limited resources and increased pressure to measure results objectively, CIOs need to monitor and evaluate the performance of existing and newly innovated systems. Proper IT portfolio management is essential to the success of the enterprise. Review processes for project funding, standardized performance metrics and project management will soon become the norm. Management will consider IT spending from an investment perspective, accelerating the transformation of IT from a cost center to a profit center.


• IT organization and staffing. Assessments of the organization and staffing of the IT function are shifting toward an enterprise perspective instead of a departmental perspective. Decisions regarding centralized or decentralized organizational models must take into account enterprise need rather than departmental need. The same logic holds for decisions regarding shared services, reporting relationships, full-time employees versus staff augmentation, outsourcing, capabilities and maturity, training and other human capital management issues.


• Technology and architecture. Here again, decisions about adopting a bleeding-edge, leading-edge or trailing-edge approach to new technologies are shifting toward an enterprise perspective. Technology investment issues (e.g., build or buy, suite or best of breed, insourced or outsourced) will be considered on the basis of likely outcomes at the enterprise level.


• Technology awareness. The 21st century CIO will own the responsibility of developing, articulating and selling an enterprisewide vision of technology at every level of the organization. At many organizations, the CIO will become responsible for communicating a clear technology vision that will extend the supply chain to include outside contractors, vendors, distributors, value-added resellers, retailers and end users.


• Corporate governance. Sarbanes Oxley, the USA Patriot Act, HIPAA and other regulatory initiatives have radically altered the business landscape and forever changed the roles of information managers. Corporate governance, financial accountability and greater transparency are no longer ideals -- they are now law. Ready or not, the CIO has been saddled with a host of new burdens, including regulatory compliance, reporting, business continuity, security, privacy and intellectual property protection.


• Business Intelligence. The traditional IT department furnishes decision-makers with historical data. The 21st century CIO will be expected to serve up actionable business intelligence. Unified data warehouses will replace loosely connected databases. Powerful analytic tools will sift through mountains of data to spot emerging trends and patterns and report these through graphical dashboards and the like. Over the next few years, the CIO will evolve rapidly from a supplier of information to a provider of insight driving business value.


• ERP/business transformation. Led by the CIO, IT departments in the years ahead will be expected to deliver competitive advantage, speed, productivity and agility to the enterprise. The CIO will be increasingly called upon to assume a leadership role in guiding business integration and transformation initiatives, process improvement strategies, activity-based costing, value chain management, Six Sigma and other quality programs.


• Customer care. Customer service responsibilities often pose the greatest challenges for IT. This reality is unlikely to change. Nonetheless, the CIO will be expected to deliver customer relationship management programs, contact center operations, customer portals and other externally oriented initiatives that will provide the enterprise with distinct competitive advantage through excellence in customer-facing systems.


• Internet and e-business. With the collapse of the so-called Internet economy, most Web-based initiatives have been folded back into the corporate mainstream. The Internet is now another channel with its own set of business issues. CIOs will be responsible for creating, implementing and managing e-business strategies, and for developing and implementing practical Web-enabled portals and telecommunications alternatives such as Internet-based voice communications.