What is a Chief Information Officer? What Is the Role of a CIO?

cios or Chief Information officers are one of the careers that are in highest demand within organizations today what exactly is a CIO and what do they do that's what I want to talk about here today [Music] my name is Eric Kimberling I'm the CEO of third stage Consulting we're an independent consulting firm that helps clients throughout the world reach their third stage of digital transformation success and the key stakeholder and the key position within most clients that we most commonly work with is the CIO the Chief Information officer oftentimes the CIO role might be called the vice president of I.T might be called the director of I.T or an I.T manager but in general the CIO is sort of that top dog or that leading management role within the ite function and the CIO role is something that's in high demand nowadays with the emergence of new technologies and data and business intelligence and artificial intelligence and all this different technology that's emerging and really helping change the way organizations run cios are becoming increasingly important in higher value to organizations so what I want to do today is talk about what the CIO role is and I'm going to talk about it in the context of whether it's called CIO or chief digital officer or I.T director or VP of it whatever the title is that's the lead role in position within the it function that's what I want to talk about here today before I jump into what the role is let's also talk about what it's not I want to start there and the CIO role contrary to Historic belief is not just a techie role it's not something that's focused solely on technology which may sound unusual and counter-intuitive because the CIO is in charge of the I.T department but as we're going to talk about in this video cios today need to have a lot more than just technical skills they need to have a pretty deep understanding of business and operations and organizations and people and politics and all that kind of stuff and so that's what I'm going to talk about here today and if you are a CIO or an aspiring CIO and you want to learn more about digital transformation in general I encourage you to also download our digital transformation report which is an annual report we publish each year that contains a number of best practices and Lessons Learned and data points and benchmarks from digital Transformations throughout the world and it's a great way to learn and understand what cios are commonly up against when they're involved with digital Transformations which most cios are involved with digital Transformations at some point in their career so be sure to check that out I've included links to that report in the description field below [Applause] foreign a first functional responsibility that cios typically have is the whole I.T maintenance function and this function is really focusing on keeping the lights on for lack of a better word it's focused on keeping the existing systems running it's focused on maintaining those systems managing incoming user requests to change the technology potentially providing incremental improvements and ongoing updates and enhancements and upgrades to the technology that's in use it's also focused on fixing stuff that's broken so when there's bugs in a system or if there's some sort of problem or outage caused by an I.T failure that's a function that cios typically will manage now historically this was commonly a majority of the CIO role was really focused on really just maintaining the systems as they are today making incremental improvements to technology and really just keeping the lights on making sure that the business can continue to run with the technology it has today and while this is still an important function of cios it's becoming less and less important over time as the CIO role becomes more strategic more focused on new and emerging Technologies and less focused on just simply preserving what's already in place but having said that that still is an important role for cios and a certain function that's important for cios to manage within their I.T departments foreign strategic role that cios typically have and this role by the way is becoming increasingly important in recent years and that's focused on strategic systems strategic applications and strategic use of technology in an organization so in other words it's not focused just on keeping existing Legacy systems up and running it's focused on really taking a big leap or a bigger leap on how to leverage new technologies how to automate things that have never been automated within an organization before how to better leverage data and business intelligence within the organization how to go to market and really turn outward to the technology providers to bring new competencies in-house to the organization and really look at redefining the business model using technology as a way to enable new and better ways of doing business so this focus on strategic systems is really where we start to see the CIO role evolve from a sort of an I.T maintenance and an I.T support role into more of a business strategy sort of a role where yes we're focused on technology but now we're focusing on new and emerging technology to help enable Better Business processes better business models better customer experience and other drivers of strategic value within an organization so this is a very critical function and role the cios typically have [Music] now we've talked about I.T maintenance which focuses on supporting existing systems we've talked about strategic systems which is really focused on bringing in new technologies and new capabilities that can help enhance and improve the business but then there's another bucket which is really focused on Cutting Edge Technologies and this is really where we're pushing the boundaries and maybe thinking further outside the box of how we can use some of the newer Technologies to really rethink our entire business now strategic systems in general are something that it's really sort of the mainstream focus of cios today the last point I made where I talk about bringing in outside Technologies to automate the business provide new business models Etc but then there's a third layer or an even more advanced function which is that Cutting Edge technology piece of it where we're really focused on looking at bleeding edge technologies that we may not deploy across the board and we may not deploy all on day one but we're constantly looking outside and looking at technology Trends to really pick up on things that might might be high value for us or might give us a competitive differentiator in the marketplace and that's where the CIO can add a lot of value I'll give you a quick example when we think about strategic systems which was the last point I talked about in this video oftentimes we're thinking about Erp systems for example modern enterprise resource planning systems they can automate different parts of our business and tie together data and provide all these capabilities we haven't had in the past but when we think about The Cutting Edge Technologies that's where we go a step further and look at things like artificial intelligence or machine learning and things that can really completely disrupt our business and really help us rethink how we run our business in general so that's another role that ite leaders such as cios need to provide within organizations and the key here is it's not just a matter of understanding how this new Cutting Edge technology works but more importantly understanding how that new Cutting Edge technology might enable A Better Business and more business Improvement business value and differentiation for the organization itself so again this is where the technology meeting business is so critical and that's why cios need to have such a balanced skill set that's split between I.T and Technical understanding and business functions and business understanding [Music] foreign [Music] at the end of the day cios are Business Leaders they're part of the executive c-suite they typically report either to the CEO or to the CFO and they're very high up within the organization It's usually the top person within the IT department and as such it's important for cios to be strong Business Leaders that can drive technology in the context of how the business can be improved and also ensure that you can really be a leader in terms of rallying support and getting aligned on what the future direction of the business is going to be and again this is where technology is yes it's important but it's not the most important thing being a business leader and driving that business alignment to ensure that the entire business organization is headed in the same direction and is fully on board with how technology can improve the business requires a different skill set it's a non-technical intangible High EQ sort of a skill set so that's why being a CIO is so important to have that technology the operational and the organizational competencies and abilities to be able to tie those pieces together and so cios typically are people that can help drive and enable business change and enhancements to business models and Improvement to the bottom line within an organization now the final major role that cios typically tackle is to build internal competencies at the end of the day they're a leader of the I.T department and the I.T Department typically needs to support the business and it needs to have the competencies required to continuously improve to continuously innovate to continuously enhance how the business runs and how the business can be improved and that's something that goes beyond just one person it's not just the CIO that needs to do that the CIO needs to groom and build a team of people within the I.T Department that can think that way and back to the earlier point I made about how I.T departments and cios used to focus on the maintenance aspect of fixing stuff that's broken this is where it's a different skill set for it departments today to move from just a support role to more of a strategic business role that can help enable business improvements so back to the point about cios being Business Leaders they need to be Business Leaders they can drive alignment and focus and Direction within the organization as a whole but they also need to build the I.T Department in a way that's going to support that Innovation and that use of technology to drive business value in the future now I hope this has given you a sense of how important the CIO role has become what a CIO does and I think if I were to summarize I'd say that a CIO really has to wear a number of different hats in fact there's not many roles within an organization other than perhaps the CEO that requires such broad understanding of business technology the organization the operations all different aspects of a business it's really important that cios have that deep and Broad understanding in fact some of the best cios I've ever worked with are the ones that have a lot of business understanding and maybe just a little bit of Technology understanding and those types of cios in my opinion are typically more effective than the ones that have lots of Technology experience and just a little bit of business experience I'd rather have the CIO there really knows business really knows leadership and is a good leader can manage politics and organizational Dynamics if they can do all that stuff and really understand the business and what the needs are and the strategies of the organization and then apply technology to it that's a pretty powerful combination so if you're looking to be a CIO I'd really encourage you to think about ways that you can round out your skill set to cover all of these different areas we've talked about and if you're interested in learning more about a key function or a key work stream that cios are often focused on which is digital transformation I encourage you to download a digital transformation report which is an annual report we publish each year that covers a number of best practices and Lessons Learned as well as software reviews and rankings of different types of Technologies in the marketplace and it's a great way to really upskill and keep up to date with what's happening in the marketplace especially if you're a CIO or you're aspiring to become a CIO so you can check that out and download that report with the link in the description field below I've also included links to other resources I think will help you in your journey as well so I hope you found this information useful and hope you have a great day foreign

Channel: Digital Transformation with Eric Kimberling

Views: 9,948

Keywords: IT Maintenance, strategic systems, cutting edge technology, leadership, alignment, business process, business strategy, internal competencies

Id: XB65-hz-RkQ

Length: 13min 2sec (782 seconds)

Published: Thu Dec 29 2022