An article on the future of the CIO position.

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Reinventing the CIO 2 / 2 / 2009
E-Mail The chief information officer position at any company is one of
challenges. And many who hold the position often wind up with
severance packages, not retirement parties.
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“Historically, certainly over the last decade, CIO tenure has in fact been
pretty short,” says Gil Irwin, senior partner at Booz & Company, which
RANKINGS recently did some research on the future of the position. Booz &
» Best Firms to Work For 2009 Company is currently sharing its research, which is based on interviews
» The Best Places to Stay, 2009 with a spectrum of companies, with their clients and recently did a
» Seven Small Jewels 2009: The webinar on the topic. “I think the tenure of CIOs has continued to decline probably over the last decade. Not
Hidden Gems of the Profession dramatically, but I think [the position] continues to be a pretty precarious one. Frankly, because it’s a very
demanding job.”
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So why does the CIO always find himself in front of the firing squad?
INTERVIEWS
» One on One with Accenture's Part of the problem is the notoriously high failure rate of IT projects. “I think it’s linked to the delays and cost
David McCurley
overruns and some failures as well. Overall I think, in general, many IT projects are more complex than people
» Consulting One on One with envision, so it’s a matter of not meeting expectations, I think.”
Romil Bahl
» One on One with OMNI's Frank But in spite of the position’s track record, Irwin says that because of the role technology plays in business, the
Bernhard position is a necessary, strategic one. “I think in today’s world there is no such thing as a company that doesn’t
» Out of Office: Roz Savage have the CIO being a critical position.” Irwin has a few ideas to help CIOs become the trustworthy strategist
» View all necessary for a company’s success:
CONSULTING MAGAZINE Figure out how to weather the storm. “There’s a triage of spending that they need to go do,” Irwin says. “They
UPCOMING EVENTS honest to God need to take advantage of the economy as a way to cut out a whole bunch of stuff that’s just lower
value. [They need to] look at the portfolio of projects that are before them, and … be ruthless about what they cut
Financial Services Forum: out.” Cutting is important, but so is spending. “They need to invest in some projects that are going to save money,
Foresight Into Emerging either save money in IT or in the business. So part of where their investment dollars ought to be is cost-saving
Consulting Demand - New York - projects, hopefully in those that have a pretty quick payback—not years but months.”
March 25, 2010
Focus on the future. “This is a unique opportunity to go build some projects and spend some money to take
Consulting Firm Leadership
advantage of whatever their company’s going to look like in the future.” And that’s something heavily influenced
Roundtable 2010 - Chicago - May
4, 2010 by the current economy. “If a company’s going to be the winner in a restructuring [or there are] mergers going on,
getting ready for those things. That means streamlining operations like order systems to accommodate other
Consulting Summit - Adapting to technology.
Market Realities - May 5, 2010
» View all Chart a new course. Consider alternatives, Irwin says, and take strategic risks. “Maybe they can push
outsourcing at a slightly lower service level. Maybe they can push Web services. There are things like that that in
a normal world a CIO would never do and their user community would never allow them to do, and maybe today
there are some of those things that they ought to try because they can get away with them.”
These ideas are certainly applicable to anyone in the C-suite, a set of positions that Irwin says are all migrating to
more strategy-focused roles, which may create subordinate roles for the heavy lifting. “I don’t see the CIO ever
morphing back to anything other than strategy. I think that’s true for all the corporate C-suite positions.” —
Jacqueline Durett
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