What should be the role of the CIO in the age of disruption?
The “lead plumber” becomes the “Chief Innovation Officer”
20 years ago
Since I can remember, we’ve always discussed what should be the mission of the CIO. About 20 years ago one would say that the CIO should be responsible for the famous alignment of business and IT, which includes processes. Although, a vast majority of “CIOs” was in fact responsible to keep the lights blinking in the datacenter and ensuring the health and safety of all the devices connected to the network.
The CIO was, in fact, a CTO. Moreover, we would call CTO or CIO, but he/she didn’t have a seat in the board room, in most cases. This happened in particular because the CIO/CTO was speaking a technical language that the business wasn’t understanding. It was a fight with business complaining that IT wasn’t delivering, and IT complaining that business would request the impossible all the time.
This was the era of “IT Doesn’t Matter”. The IT guy (a.k.a. CTO) was perceived as a plumber.
10 Years ago
Probably 10 years ago, we’ve started to discuss that the role of the CIO should include a bit of Digital Marketing. He/she should also be worried about conversion. The pressure to deliver more and better was the mandate to start adopting agile practices as the preferred method to build information systems. Of course, adopting “agile” to the “waterfall mindset” created a couple of Frankensteins that are still terrorizing many organisations.
We started to question if IT should be supporting the business, or IT was the business. The era of software eating the world really started. The CIO/CTO was perceived as a strategic partner to the business.
Today
Security and improving the customer experience are the top challenges facing CIOs.
The era of disruption: Nokia, Blockbuster, Atari, Compaq, and many others are gone. Others are following.
What’s changing in the CIO’s office?
According to IT World Canada’s 2019 Canadian CIO Census report, over the recent, CIOs have established themselves as members of the strategic leadership team. No longer a plumber, the new breed of CIO is actively engaged in executive decisions. The CIO is worried about helping the business to grow and thrive.
According to the report, which was sponsored by Outsystems, these were the key findings regarding the challenges the CIO is facing today:
- CIOs are exerting more influence at the most senior levels of their
organizations. They’re more involved in executive decision-making and
reporting into more senior levels. - More CIOs see organizational culture as a major challenge to digital
transformation and are increasingly responsible for changing it. - Finding the right technical resources to meet growing demands is more
difficult than ever before. - The issues and priorities CIOs must address are becoming increasingly
complex and diverse. - IT budgets continue to grow, although a high percentage is spent on
running the business. - Security and improving the customer experience are the top challenges facing CIOs.
- Digital transformation is impacting businesses now and must be the
priority for all CIOs who want to survive and succeed in the future.
35% of CIOs report to the CEO
Important to notice that “finally” the CIO is reporting more often to the CEO/Owner. Twenty years ago it was common to find CIOs reporting to the CFO, which was natural because IT was perceived as a cost center. A necessary evil to run the business; not a strategic asset or the magic ingredient for digital transformation and business model innovation.
Culture is “the challenge”
CIOs are also becoming worried about driving cultural change. It’s becoming the number one priority.
It’s important to notice that if driving cultural change is becoming a priority, it means that the CIO is finally becoming worried about business innovation, which will only happen with dramatic and often changes in the core business.
Innovation and customer experience emerging as top priorities
Security continues to be the top issue for CIOs, both in day-to-day operations and over the next 12 months. Uptime and compliance also require constant attention, but business innovation is emerging as a big day-to-day concern. It shows that the idea of innovation has permeated the business culture.
The CIO/CTO is about to be perceived as an integral part of the business. A strategic partner or service provider isn’t enough.
The rise of the Chief Entrepreneurship Officer
Is this the right moment to say that the CIO is gradually becoming the Chief Innovation Officer or the Chief Entrepreneurship Officer?
What should be the role of the CIO in the age of disruption?
Should the CIO focus his energy in digital transformation allowing another C role to drive innovation?
There are many different perspectives on this topic. If one invests time to read the point of view of the likes of Gartner, IDC, Forrester, and top consulting firms, there’s a pattern: the CIO should help to drive business innovation. It should be open-minded to learn new things and unlearn others.
I’m happy to observe that gradually the role is becoming more respected by senior executives. A new generation of CIOs is responsible for that, as well as thousands of entrepreneurs leading cutting edge start-ups that challenge the status quo of many Titanics.
These are exciting times where learning a new philosophy of running a business becomes a painful but necessary priority for many. That’s precisely the opportunity that CIOs should leverage.
👉 Feel free to leave your comments. I want to learn your perspective!
5 years from now
I believe that five years from now many legacy organisations will be gone (literally or through M&A) or facing severe pain. These are the organisations that are currently in self-denial or trying to innovate applying the same old methods from running a legacy business. We know the definition of doing the same thing and expecting different results.
This turmoil is the opportunity for the “new CIO” to show his value. Probably the ones who succeed will gradually become CEOs: the ones that understand how to innovate continuously and how to fight cutting edge start-ups with cutting edge business models.
Hugo de Sousa
Hugo de Sousa is an experienced corporate entrepreneur with more than 15 years of experience in the private and public sector. He likes to help organisations to become more innovative, fighting the “Titanic Syndrome”, and embracing new mindsets and ways of working. Hugo is the founder of #InnovationDaily, a publication on Medium and a hashtag on LinkedIn. Portuguese, living in Ireland since 2017.
👉 Follow Hugo on Twitter, Medium, and LinkedIn.
Disclaimer: Opinions are my own.
