Dr. Elliot King

Based on more than 3,000 interviews with CIOs around the world, in companies large and small, IBM’s 2011 research report The Essential CIO, is part of its C-Suite Studies series. This study is one of the more insightful and credible of its kind. The report provides an in-depth look at the changing role of the CIO within the enterprise and shifting demands on the IT organization.

From a 20,000 foot perspective, the report contends CIOs are faced with four different types of mandates—to leverage technology to make operations more efficient; to use IT to expand organizational capacity ; to transform the way business is conducted; and to pioneer new solutions that lead to new opportunities. Within each organization, the priority might be on a different mandate. In one company, the CIO may be primarily responsible for ensuring that the blocking-and-tackling required for great delivery of service is in place. In another, identifying new technology that can lead to new opportunities may be more front-and-center. 

That said, the report also notes that despite the different nuances in the overall mandates themselves, certain threads were common in all organizations. At the top of the list, CIOs are tasked with simplification. The CIO has to try to eliminate inefficiency and bureaucracy. Next, the CIO has to foster collaboration. From one perspective, information is the glue that holds companies together and IT is the guardian of that glue.

The third common area of interest IBM found among CIOs is the embrace of analytics. It is the CIO’s role to determine how to create meaning from unstructured data sources, predictive intelligence, social network analysis and sentiment mining. Pioneering the use of analytics is linked to the next challenge. The IT organization must deliver unparalleled expertise. It must be ready to guide its internal constituents in areas and applications before those constituents even know that they need the guidance (or the application). Like the character Radar in the old movie and television show MASH, the IT organization has to know what its internal customers want before they do.

And there is one last thing. IT must also make a contribution to improving enterprise revenue and profitability. IT is no longer an internally focused service organization. It must understand external customers as well. How has your mission as CIO adapted to these shifting demands?

Image contributed by Simon Howden