Looking back on the articles and advice from CIOs and IT leaders that we shared this week, a common thread has emerged, underscoring an important message for today's CIOs. Success in a rapidly changing technology environment requires that CIOs step into a leadership role in the business and remain open to new, collaborative approaches to accomplishing results. From moving IT to the center of business decisions to healing past scars between IT and other departments to adopting new approaches to management and leadership to nurturing the unique culture within IT, the roles and responsibilities of today's CIO are changing.
In this week's edition of news for IT pros, we bring you more articles from the week that highlight how CIOs are embracing their changing role, and the opportunities it brings.
Money makers, not money pits: Five ways the role of CIO is changing for the better [ZDNet]: Citing the 2016 CIO Survey from Harvey Nash and KPMG, Mark Samuels reports, “long-standing CIO priorities have seen the biggest drop in importance during the past four years. Increasing operational efficiencies, for example, has dropped 16 percent, and delivering stable IT performance has dropped 27 percent.” Instead, “the role is now more about collaboration than control. Four in ten CIOs now spend at least one day a week outside IT.”
The emergence of the Creative CIO [ComputerWeekly]: Also covering the Harvey Nash and KPMG study, Adam Woodhouse focuses on ways CIOs can be more creative in creating value for their business. For instance, he says, CIO, “often use their own IT teams and services to act as a test-bed to drive innovation, freeing up funding to push this innovation by delivering savings in other areas, for example, simplifying the IT estate through exploiting cloud and other technologies.” In the face of challenges from skills gaps to ever-present security threats, creative CIOs “are not relying on traditional approaches: they address disruption head-on with a clear strategy and agility in their thinking.”
CIOs sharpen focus on creating revenue [Wall Street Journal]: Picking up on yet another angle of the same study, Rachael King emphasizes the survey's finding that “63 percent of chief executive officers are focusing their CIOs on IT projects that make money” as opposed to projects that save money. King highlights two examples from Intel and GE CIOs, who each led initiatives that generated revenue for their companies.
How (and why) to be a Pragmatic Visionary [CIO]: While the articles above indicate that it's an exciting time to be a CIO, Joanna Schloss points out that a dose of pragmatism is important, as well. She says, “After all, a great vision is only useful if it’s one that can ultimately be realized. And until IT teams get a better handle on the everyday challenges that still bog them down, the visions of tomorrow will never become the realities of today.” Schloss provides a roadmap for blending CIO vision with pragmatic leadership.
More news for CIOs
81% of CIOs believe legacy systems are having negative impact on business [Business Cloud News]
