CIOs join elite strategists club

For most corporations, the CIO or IT Director has been the most recent addition to the senior management team. But while it may be the latest, the role of the CIO designate is fast gaining significance and is evolving too. Even as the business relevance of IT (both operationally and strategically) has grown, the role of the CIO has undergone a drastic transformation. No longer is a CIO perceived as a backroom technologist involved in managing the finer aspects of IT implementation. The CIO now shares the table of corporate governance with senior management, and shares the all-important task of evolving strategies that would drive the business. Indeed, the CIO has become a business strategist.

Facets of transformation

With the rapid pace of technology advancement, the CIO must continually refresh his knowledge and fine-tune skills in order to remain effective. Add to this the CIO's evolving role, and the need to focus on management soft-skills like leadership, communication and strategic planning at the executive level. Nobody said it would be easy. In fact they say: "Every transformation is painful and involves a lot of relearning."

Infrastructure Strategies 2004 (Infrastructure Strategies 2004 is a survey done by Network Magazine and IMRB) captures the facets of this transformation and how CIOs are upgrading their skills to stay tuned with the changing dynamics of management.

Technologist at the core

The CIO has always been a technologist at the core. Of the 250 CIOs surveyed, nearly 81 percent had worked in the IT department prior to taking on the mantel of the CIO. The other areas in which the CIOs had functional experience are in Administration (34 percent) and Consulting (24 percent).

While there is no ideal qualification or functional experience that can be specified for a CIO, a brief stint in other departments - besides IT - like Finance, Marketing and Strategic Planning will help him understand the processes associated with these departments.

Business process is key

Understanding of business processes plays a key role in the transformation process, and Indian CIOs are tuned-in on this. 75 percent of the total respondents stress the importance of understanding business processes and operations as an integral part of the CIO skill set.

This is closely followed by Effective communication (73 percent) and Strategic thinking and planning (69 percent). In his role as a business strategist, the CIO will have to develop new relationships with senior decision makers in the organization. He also needs to harness IT to maximize corporate competitiveness and growth.

While CIOs still stress the importance of technology expertise (thorough knowledge of technology options at 64 percent and technical proficiency at 63 percent), they have realized the significance of management, communication and strategy skills.

Reporting structure

While understanding of business processes plays a key role in the evolution of the CIO as a strategist, the reporting structure needs to accommodate the change. For being a successful strategist, a CIO needs to have direct access to the CEO or Managing Director (MD). This would help him understand the business focus and then tune his IT strategy to achieve these objectives.

Sometime back the CIO used to report to the CFO or the COO. But this reporting structure is undergoing a change. Now, more CIOs report directly to the CEO or MD. As per the survey, over 45 percent of the respondents report directly to the CEO or MD. Another 16 percent of CIOs report directly to the Corporate or Group CIO, who in turn reports to the CEO. Only 13 percent report to the CFO and 3 percent to the COO.

Career move

While the evolution of the CIO from a technologist to a business strategist is underway, the question is, Where does this transformation lead to? If one goes by the survey, CIOs while thinking about IT strategy and business objectives still have their feet firmly fixed on the ground. They realize that understanding business processes is not equivalent to managing the business itself - an area that requires totally different skill sets. Most of them (37 percent) plan to continue in their existing role as a CIO while about 38 percent plan to move on to become the Group CIO (if such a post exists).