Kazira

I've been an active member of the LinkedIn forum for some time and would highly recommend everybody to join it. It helps you manage and expand your professional network, and is specially handy when looking to develop business leads, identify candidates for strategic partnerships, and search/network for your next career opportunity.

From time to time, I respond to select questions that are posted on LinkedIn by it's members. Going forward, I will start sharing with you some of the pertinent questions and my responses to those questions, so that you may benefit from or comment on my line of thinking.

Question Details:

Does CIO means; (your IT) 'Career Is Over'?

Almost a decade ago a CIOs was accountable only for using technology to enable business processes. Now a days they are expected to be business leaders foremost; build trust between business and technology associates, build compensation plans and career developments to drive alignment, etc...

Due to these major transition, do you think the CIO role will split, be absorbed or disappear?

On 3/5/08 9:16 AM, Uday Kumar wrote:

A timely and thought-provoking question. My short answer, the CIO's role is here to stay, in it's entirety.

Now for the details. "Major Transitions" are a constant when it comes to business, does not matter which vertical we look at. Leaders, at every level, but more so at the Exec/C level, and the leadership roles have to evolve with all such transitions. The CIO role is no exception. Once upon a time, this role was looked upon as more of a "back office" or "tactical" role; it's current definition and requirements have significantly moved it up the value chain and made it very "strategic" to the success of every business. Amongst the factors that have been behind this movement are the leaps in technology and innovation, the renewed importance on corporate governance and accurate financial reporting, and increased Globalization of businesses and their supply-chains.

As one of the earlier responders correctly pointed out, the CIO function can report up to a COO, CFO, or CEO, depending upon the context and circumstances. In the current business landscape, a company's operations are broadly broken down into 2 components - 1. Business, 2. Technology. The CIO is focussed on the Technology Operations. And you are correct, the CIO's ability to deliver to the customer (internal & external) and his/her success, depends up on how well he/she understands what drives the business side of the house and how well he/she can organize the technolgy team to deliver value-added services to the business team. It is implied that they have a deep and wide understanding of all aspects of technology (delivery, support, governance, etc.).