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The Changing Role of the CIO
1. Chapter 2
The Changing Role of
the CIO
In the last post the CIOs’ top ten
business priorities were identified and
it was argued that these do not fit into
the traditional remit of the CIO. Many
are seeing these new responsibilities
falling into a number of distinct roles,
with individual CIOs combining
different roles to create their own
unique portfolio of responsibilities. The
roles are:
Chief Digital Officer
The chief digital officer is responsible
for digital delivery of services,
communications, marketing, and
processes. One in five CIOs already
acts in this capacity, according to
Gartner, leading digital commerce
and channels and being responsible
for evolving the business to embrace
digital transformation , while 5-6% of
companies actually have someone
with this title. For example, Fox
News, Guardian News & Media, and
MGM Resorts are just a handful of
companies who have a separate chief
digital officer position, in addition to
the CIO.
Chief Outsourcing Officer
The chief outsourcing officer is
responsible for outsourcing as
many noncore services as possible
while ensuring value, reliability, and
security. The new wave of technology
has commoditised parts of IT that
were previously thought of as core
competencies. As such, a much larger
range of business applications can
now be outsourced to save money.
For the COO, a key role is deciding
what can be outsourced and what
must be kept in-house. There is a need
to focus on activities that add value or
differentiate, divesting themselves of
anything that does not.
The COO must also orchestrate
a mosaic of suppliers and ensure
consistent levels of reliability, security,
and performance. The portfolio of
suppliers may or may not include
in-house teams and IT assets such as
data centres.
Chief Cloud Broker
The chief cloud broker is responsible
for finding the right cloud providers,
applications, and technology partners
and integrating them. The chief
cloud broker needs to be adept at
evaluating, adopting, and orchestrating
a collection of cloud application,
services, and providers, whether they
are in a private, public, or hybrid cloud.
They also need to ensure that data in
the cloud is secure and well managed,
moving from multiple management
tools to a single, integrated system
that can manage their entire
environment.
Brokering cloud services provides
business IT problems with another
solution, a solution that changes the
focus from technology to service
relationships and being able to
manage this is a new essential area
of expertise.
