In this week’s news roundup for IT leaders, we bring you highlights from Interop ITX and advice on digital business barriers that CIOs face.
Insights from Interop ITX
This week, the Interop ITX Conference took place in Las Vegas, covering a number of emerging technologies and how they are impacting IT organizations. InformationWeek’s James M. Connolly covered some of the highlights for IT leaders. On Monday, as the conference kicked off with a workshop on modern data strategy, Connolly wrote, “The wide-spread adoption of data initiatives by enterprises highlights the need for new approaches to creating a data strategy.” Doing so, “requires an understanding of what the business wants – needs – to do with data, how the company culture and processes have to change, and how to build a partnership between business managers and tech teams.”
In another Interop ITX talk, Khalid Kark, director of the CIO program for Deloitte LLP, suggested that CIOs share seven key natural traits. But, he said, the skills they learn on the job are the ones that provide a competitive edge, “such as strength in strategic alignment, execution, vision and strategy, innovation, talent, and culture.”
Additionally, as Connolly writes, “We can't have a tech conversation without talking about change, particularly the pace of change.” He provides a good summary of a keynote by CA Technologies CTO Otto Berkes on this theme that’s worth reading. Also, see our Q&A with Berkes here.
What’s holding CIOs back?
Two articles on the barriers CIOs face caught our attention this week. In CIO, Clint Boulton writes, “Companies cultivating digital strategies are struggling to facilitate transformations because most CIOs are simply not equipped to be digital leaders. While enterprise CIOs can create functional technology systems, many lack the visionary skills required to be a change agent in the digital age.” Shawn Banerji, managing partner of Caldwell Partners, provides some advice on this topic.
Also, in TechTarget, Nick Martin writes, “Amid the clamor about digital business transformation, IT leaders are frustrated at cultural barriers and budget constraints that hamper organizational change.” Martin touches on how IT leaders grapple with this tension and the frustrations that come with new mandates such as moving to the cloud.
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