A pretty controversial question but a recent report published by cloud-computing firm Getronics called “The Changing Role of the CFO” caught our eye and sparked this discussion.
Within the report, almost one in five of the 203 surveyed CIOs, all from large UK organisations, believed the CIO would become a redundant position in business.
This was mainly attributed to the advances in cloud computing services and the pay-per-use models now available.
We’ve summarised the key comments below.
The CIO is more than a purchaser of equipment – it’s a key business role
“Organisations will need a person who can look at the business strategy and the change it will bring, and recommend where the organisation should go with technology, or not. He/she may not be called the CIO and may not have control of IT (as it is today). He/she will be a Senior Executive and part of the Strategy Planning Committee, and will be around for a long time yet.” – David R
“The role of CIO is a business role….having a CFO run IT because more and more components are becoming a commodity is quite frankly a scary proposition.” – Rita H
The role is not going anywhere, but will change over time
“Technology leadership roles will be required for a long time to come. Whether the technology leader should be part of the business leadership (C-team or otherwise) team depends on the nature of the business” – Jeff D
“The best CIOs are those who see the I as Innovation as well as Information. This must be a business-centred role….The CIO as business leader will more and more be delivered by third party consultants who bring wider experience and can operate outside of the internal politics.” – Steve M
CIOs need to get more business-savvy to increase the value of their role
“CIOs are on defense relative to CFOs because they have difficulty communicating in finance terms, and relative to the rest of the business, in language LOB leadership understands.” – Greg K
“..it’s up to each budding CIO to go out there and get the knowledge and skills to enable them to function as a strategic business leader, rather than a simple ‘IT leader’ “ - Ibukun Adebayo F
“…the CIO should have a sound knowledge and understanding of financials, particularly so you can effectively negotiate with the CFO of the business…. Acquiring skills and knowledge in finance empowers a CIO to go to whoever’s holding the purse strings, not with a begging bowl or shopping list, but with a well-prepared business case…” – Ibukun Adebayo F
The Cloud and the CIO can live in harmony…
“Even in a cloud-predominant, multisourced org, IT should be able to add value by managing those multiple vendors, providing the business with the appropriate services at the right time to enable the enterprise, managing processes and assessing overall risk.” – Heather M
Some CIOs are helping to make the position redundant themselves
“…a lot of CIOs are increasingly vying to get PnL responsibilities and running their IT as a profit centres. Aren’t these CIOs themselves relinquishing the CIO position, by taking on a business role?” – Varsha C.
CFOs are usually not equipped to run the technological side of the business
“….unless the CFO understands technology this organisational structure will not assist the business to …stay ahead of their respective competitors. I don’t know too many CFOs that have a grasp on technology.” – Melissa D
There’s no simple YES or NO answer…it depends
Many factors will help determine the direction of the CIO role – including size of organisation, business type, whether technology is central to what they do etc.
“Many businesses will be able to leverage the Cloud and 3rd party services reducing the need for a dedicated CIO….. other businesses where technology represents a competitive advantage (or poor technology a competitive disadvantage) will still require a CIO for strategy, execution, cost control, and innovation. The best CFOs rely on their partners including the CIO to maximize true ROI where Investment covers both the short term and the long term.” – Bill S
As with all surveys – who conducted it, how and why?
“Of course, the survey was done by a cloud computing provider with a limited market and not statistically significant to project its results to the entire corporate world.” – Julian R
So whilst all in all there was a general rejection of the original question, there a definite consensus that the CIO role will need to change as we go forward.
You can see the original discussion here
