The Silent Rise of the New Captains!

The role of the CIO is changing to one of pioneering tomorrow’s successes starting today. Getting there through the disruptive trends of today – Social, Mobile, Information, Cloud and...

emmanuel_poseThe role of the CIO is changing to one of pioneering tomorrow’s successes starting today. Getting there through the disruptive trends of today – Social, Mobile, Information, Cloud and more, are nexus of forces in the business age today. These forces are creating new barriers and challenges, but more so opportunities that unravel new potentials for business to reach a global standard of operations with consumers and partners for richer value opportunities.

The trends have given rise to increasing CIO focus on industrializing IT, but this is only one part of the enablement required from IT. New business mandate to CIO’s will require enabling and managing to increase the capability to monetize IT beyond the “stories of yesterdays” realization. Reshaping how work gets done, is the key corporate agenda for many CIOs today, still playing on the support ideology of IT, but indeed, with new technologies and Enterprise revolution, the concept of working within the office has changed with little help from internal IT, new levels of collaboration, time management and reporting is already a handful for many CIOs in our current times, they are seeking ways to be bailed out. The realization of yesterday needs continue to persist whilst tomorrows requirements are already forming. The skills fundamental to business wisdom to drive, attain and sustain value will be rightly within the CIO’s grasp, but would CIO’s have evolved to meet the tomorrow mandate?

The area of monetizing everything business does is a new focus that requires Big IT to be tapped. Across all industries IT remains a significant capability, enabler and provider that can drive new heights in efficiencies and business value of existence (BVE). Amazon has proven the model that monetizing internal IT is possible, but it requires big bold moves and decisions at the board level that gives trust to CIO to dream big and act bigger. How many corporations are enabling CIO’s in this light? How many will, will determine how far CIO’s can go and to what level of business expectations they can drive.

I believe strongly that the Next Generation CIO’s will have to be about everything business. They will lead Business transformation and facilitate brand affinity and growth. It won’t be enough for tomorrow’s CIOs to only play on the 4 I’s through technology transformations only, but to lead business towards new uncharted territories while taking responsibility of both risks and benefits. These breed of CIOs will be business aggressive but speciality humble and be a part of the boardroom decision making table. They will be the champions of next steps and outcomes.

“Yesterday’s CIO’s” will need to themselves transform to cope with this changing trends, and the hourglass to deliver tomorrow’s CIO’s is already nearing full. Analysts view the next generation CIO as a role encompassing the 4 I’s – Innovation, Insight, Infrastructure and Integration. I think this will only fall on the left side of tomorrows CIO, but the need to enable the business beyond the borders of today’s’ operation will continue to be a mandate that CIO’s must follow starting with the 4 I’s.

Tomorrows CIO will be the Business Solutions enabler, chief sales strategist, the one driving digital services penetration, reviewing performance of the business as a whole and facilitating new business models, engagements, monetization opportunities, diversification capability on the fly and more.

CIO’s will have their work cut out for them, but more importantly they must have new attributes that show their agility, ability to respond well and on-time, capability to adapt to and with disruptive forces to make their business win. CIO’s of tomorrow will not see disruptive technologies as cannibalization of today’s assets, but enablers of new business-technology potential. Management boards must now, more than ever, begin to realize their CIO roles towards all-business view. The CIO role must be ahead of business, capable of sensing the danger and risks and intelligently driving the underpinning capability of IT to reduce and absorb the shocks of sustainability.

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