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The CIO needs to reapply for his job - Again

My recent FT piece resonated across the pond with Bob Evans of Information Week in his latest posting. Click here. His take on my message was positive and he was able to express it in a less blunt manner.

I commented on Bob's blog stating that I had mixed feelings about taking such a blunt approach, but there is no point dressing it up. This downturn provides an opportunity for the CIO to become the hero of the hour and thereby raise the bar in terms of what the IT industry can potentially deliver by way of business value.

In my experience many CIOs are locked into an operational mindset when we need them to be strategic. I appreciate it's easy for me to say and very difficult for CIOs to do.

Bottom line, if CIOs don't raise their game they should get ready to hand the IT department door keys over to a technology provider that can deliver more for less. 

The question is how can CIOs build the trust needed to the point where as Bob puts it "their point of view on business issues and strategy is not only accepted but is in fact eagerly sought out. "

EuroCIO

I recently delivered the opening keynote of EuroCIO in Geneva. The target group is the CIOs of the top 500 European companies. So it was an excellent environment in which to get a barameter check on CIO thinking.

Some of the emerging themes:

• It's all about cost reduction and delivering a quick return on investment
• The role of the end user CIO is changing as the technology industry changes
• IT talent management is a real challenge both from a quality and quantity perspective
• Cloud computing cannot be ignored, but there are issues to be resolved such as defining appropriate service level agreements
• Green IT is good but IT for green is better
• IT governance is more important than ever.

All food for thought. My concern for the IT industry is that the current economic conditions will cause CIOs to focus purely on technology efficiency as part of the drive down costs boardroom edict. We need strong CIOs to explain that IT has the power to drive down business costs and thus should have its budget increased in economic downturns.

Any thoughts?

The CIO needs to reapply for his job

In my FT piece today I am pushing CEOs to suspend their distrust and let their CIO lead them through these difficult market conditions. But before they hand over the reins the CIO in effect needs to reapply for their job. Click here to read more.

What do you think?

Tech Sector Review - To 21st November 2008

Here's my round up on recent Tech Sector news:

It’s good to buy back

Enterprise software giant Oracle plans to buy back a further $8bn of its stock.  A 20% drop in its share price prompted this action. Clearly the market expects Oracle’s business to suffer in these challenging trading conditions. Microsoft recently announced a buy back of up to $40bn. Similarly HP announced it was scooping up $8bn of its own shares. Oracle’s buy back is in addition to an existing plan to buy back $9.3bn. There’s something not quite right about share buy back. It has echoes of both insider trading and short selling.  On the positive side it does have a ‘green (back)’ feel to it. Also (share) recycling always looks good in the Corporate Social Responsibility report.

More on the Gartner IT Xpo Symposium Cannes

Just in case you missed it today my column highlighted some of the takeaways I tookaway from the Gartner event. Click here for the article.

You might also be interested in the latest FT podcast in which I lay out my view of what makes a good CIO. Click here and select November 18, 2008 Show for podcast.

Gartner IT Xpo Symposium Cannes 2008

I recently had the honour of attending the Gartner IT Xpo Symposium in Cannes as a guest. Whilst there I chaired the Financial Times CIO Panel event and also delivered the closing keynote.

Despite the market downturn the event was very well attended. Some of the interesting themes that emerged included:

• The need to plan for the forthcoming upturn (date undisclosed)
• That we are careering towards a time when there will be more IT expertise outside of the IT function than within it.
• That CIOs need to take advantage of the current economic conditions to increase their influence at board level.

I agree that now is a good time to make a move for the board given the role that IT can play in delivering greater operational efficiencies. I would encourage CIOs to also take this opportunity to present the innovative use of IT as a mechanism to increase user effectiveness.

At the Gartner event the experts talked of mash-ups, collaboration, web oriented architectures and business intelligence. Each of these has the power to help the business to ‘sweat’ the user community.

However it will require strong IT leadership to to push these onto the C-suite radar in this current climate. But I am sure that such an effort will play a significant role in the future sustainability of the organisation.

Click here to watch the Gartner keynote.

Can CIOs make the evolutionary leap?

My recent piece in the FT (click here) focuses on the fact that the market turbulence will change the world of business forever and with it the role of the CIO.  Uncertainty in terms of business direction needs a scalable platform and sound IT leadership.

Sound IT leaders need much more than technology management skills. In the piece I lay out what in my experience are the key attributes of the next generation CIO. These include political acumen, integrity, a focus on innovation rather than operations and a forward looking mindset.

The question is how many CIOs are in this evolved state? And how many CIOs see this as a natural next step?

BTW - I have developed a model to help CIOs calibrate where they are in the evolutionary scale and what is needed to get there. Let me know if this is of interest to you.

Synergise IT

I was delighted to happen upon a review of my book from a business consultant at Bearing Point in Australia. Click here for the review. I recommend you take a look at this blog as it covers a range of subjects that have strategy and people at their core.

Simplicity

It’s back to school. In the next few days my column in the FT will address the subject of IT and simplicity. There is a trend in business and life to seek out simplicity. The 80:20 rule and Parkinson’s Law, coupled with thinking by Edward de Bono all suggest that we can simplify everything whilst not losing the essence of what it is we are trying to achieve.

So I ask the question, does IT lend itself to simplification? Most would answer yes arguing that IT is too complex and therefore unmanageable. Surely emerging themes such as virtualisation and cloud computing are examples of the industry recognising that simplicity is the way forward?

In my forthcoming column I propose that looking at how to simplify IT at this stage of its evolution as an industry is simplistic. And thus attempts to improve IT value by focusing on simplification will not cut it.

Here is the link, which by 17^th September should have the link to the piece I am referring to. I look forward to getting your thoughts on this.