You and Your CIO Career

I find I am being asked to manage more of the operations and support areas of our business. Being a good business person with all the core skills necessary to provide leadership and direction for technology can apply those skills to any operational organization. Today, my responsibilities include all of the following: IT, Corporate Call Center, Store Planning and Construction, Centralized Procurement, ADA Compliance, Store Repair and maintainence and Environmental. My plate is full but my overall responsibilities bring me much closer to the operational sude of the business and my job is much more interesting as a result.

I have always believed in the fact that IT can and should play a critical role in defining the business model both from an operations and innovation stand point. One thing I have done at Medtronic is to create an Innovation team reporting to the CIO. This team is lead by a R&D type person (not IT) has a small team and is charged with building prototypes of the future in clinical settings (we are healthcare) then showing these to new models to our business leaders a nd external customers. This includes social media, cloud, new technolgies that we have thought of. By doing this we have become much more embedded with R&D and Business strategy at our company. It is important we take a lead and not wait for the businesses to ask us, we should know our business, we should know our technologies so it is not difficult to do.

I read every day about the role of the CIO changing, but is it really? The CIO's responsibility is to create business value through technology. This means working across the enterprise to identify high value solutions, whether they are in the area of cost savings or in the creation of innovative new products. CIO relations with others within the senior management team need to be strong to succeed. I’d argue the role hasn’t changed. Looking in the rearview most highly successful businesses have embraced the role of the CIO. Consider UPS, Federal Express, the travel industry, Walmart, Apple, and many more. 
Change is uncomfortable. Senior teams that have chosen to ignore the value of information technology are finding themselves in a tight spot. Could the question be coming up so frequently today because the value of information technology has reached a tipping point – companies must embrace data or die? 
 

In some ways, the new world requires IT to find ways to "get out of the way." Especially in the new Domain of BYOD...Bring your own device. We used to set the rules and mandate the desktop computer models and operating systems that users used. Now with iPads and other mobile devices (or even a Mac for graphics intensive work), we get increased pressure to let users make use of the platform that makes them even more productive. Adding to that complexity, these users are far more self-sufficient in fixing and configuring these devices. The IT departments are being challenged to adapt or be left behind by our users.

In a CIO role with a seemingly constant focus and pressure for adding business value, quality services, and efficiency within the scope of IT, my role has expanded to lead the business process improvement and corporate quality organizations that focus on all business processes (whether IT enabled or not) and quality of the company's products and services worldwide. I now leverage BPI and quality methods such as Lean and Six Sigma throughout the business. Through this expanded role, I have a responsibility to deliver value beyond IT solutions (as a service provider) and now have become a leader for positive and tangible change that drives more strategic benefits within the operations of the business and for our customer base.

Business strategy and technology leadership are becoming joined at the hip, as service-based industries rely more and more heavily on technology to deliver what their customers demand. "Keeping the lights on" from a technology standpoint isn't enough anymore, even for a first-level manager. At the CIO level, coordination with the leaders of product strategy, service models, and even marketing initiatives is essential. I believe that the management of product strategy and technology will eventually fall under one role, in part due to the luxury of cloud services and in part due to demands of the marketplace. CIO may stand for Chief Innovation Officer very soon.

As CIO/CTO I constantly suggest to the CEO to see the company as a technology company in a specific line of business. Moreover, I suggest he consider re-framing the incentive for his executive team so that 50% of their bonus (or more) is based upon how much annually they individually for themselves and for their teams pursue the CIO/CTO to collaborate for ways to pursue change / process improvement / technology. The distinction is that traditionally firms incentivize the CIO/CTO by how effectively s/he pushes technology into the business. 
 
I find wherever I go that the road map is not that difficult to agree upon - that the experts with the ideas are "in the building". But that it is an imperative to run a flat organization with decision rights clearly understood. 
 
We are being purchased by a technology company in the business of investments and half of the deal is for the head of development and a large part of our in-house developed software stack. 
 
That is testament to the correct direction the CEO was headed in regards to Technology. 
 
All of this points to the change in the role of CIO/CTO to finding ways to get the business to see itself as a technology company and supporting and encouraging creativity, trial & error, et al at every desktop in the company.

The fact that I personally moved into a CIO role from Operations and Supply Chain, seems to me to indicate that companies are increasingly looking at CIO's as process innovators rather than just technologists. I would also say that beyond the basic services CIO's are increasingly required to glue diverse units into a global organization and develop a cohesive operating culture. I believe with much of infrastructure and software delivered as a service, almost the utility model, vendor management and review is increasingly looking close to what supply chain professionals are used to.  
In terms of business strategy, the CIO is of course a critical part of the success of an acquisition led strategy but also from the pure organic growth perspective, developing stronger integration with business partners and helping sales collaborate better is high on expectations.  
In short I would submit that the CIO is becoming an integral part of the leadership team focused and helping shape and drive the key strategies that ensure continued success for the organization. The bar is being set higher.

I'm not a CIO, but have watched the progression of the role for the past 45 years as a vendor, consultant and academic. My future vision for the role continues to be that of, "General Manager of Strategic Resources." Reporting to this position would be IT, HR and the Strategy process. Since strategy is defined as the employment of strategic resources in support of the goals of the enterprise, we end up with one person having responsibility for employing the valuable strategic resources of people and information.