The changing role of the CIO

Their focus is moving from maintaining available systems and reducing costs to increasing shareholder value from IT by aligning it with the business objectives. IT needs to grow from just being a support team to a more strategic function, and CIO plays a pivotal role in this. As CIOs get a regular seat at board meetings and a direct reporting channel to CEO, there is a clear indication that organisations are looking at IT as a strategic differentiator.

Per our recent Deloitte research, CIOs spend 11 percent less time as operators and 21 percent more as strategists compared to the previous year. Organisations today look at the CIO as an individual who can produce creative and pragmatic ideas to help improve customer experience and create new revenue streams. Mergers and Acquisitions (M&As) are the order of the day, with organisations trying to find synergies and acquire smaller but more technologically advanced firms which can accelerate digital adoption or provide an additional revenue stream. CIOs of acquiring firm plays a critical role in providing a stage for the acquired company to protect its differentiating assets while preserving the entrepreneurial culture and sharing innovative ideas which could be used by the acquirer.

Clearly strategic thinking capability of the CIO is going to help to create an edge for them than just being technically strong. Off late, multiple technology leadership roles have sprung up, such as chief technology officer, chief digital officer, chief digital information officer, and chief data officer. Per Deloitte’s “2023 Global tech leadership survey,” eight percent of organisations reported having four or more technology leadership roles. Having too many technology leadership roles can lead to a lack of clarity in roles and responsibilities, leading to conflict. In many cases, CIO manages these roles for the organisation.

As sustainability programmes across companies are highly dependent on
technology usage, technology leaders, such as a CIO, have an uphill task of tracking and analysing the environmental impact of information technology systems run by them, their third-party vendors, and other partners. Per Gartner, 50 percent of CIOs will have specific energy consumption-related KPIs by 2025. Increased regulatory scrutiny has helped in speeding up this process. Also, CIOs of the future will have to evaluate whether the technology choices they make serve bigger societal issues and aligns with organisational values. These IT leaders, over the years, tend to create a people-first culture in which the needs of people, including employees and customers, are looked at with empathy. It fuels innovation and product design, and technology gets aligned with this.

CIO needs to perform a balancing act between spending on outward customer-facing and value-adding business initiatives without forgetting inward employee-focussed IT requirements. Most of these leaders tend to use long-term partnerships with service providers who will help them with IT operations part, whereby these leaders get to spend a significant amount of their time on strategic revenue-generating initiatives. As technology brings in a competitive advantage for organisations over its competition, CIOs with a strong vision and powerful leadership skills must play more of a strategic role in pushing businesses to new frontiers.

 Refer to the CIO mind map document for various roles and skills for CIO.