CIO Role - A juggling act

Posted on 06. Aug, 2010 by hkogekar in Business Value, CIO, ROI, Innovations, IT Management, Leadership

In 2009 IBM published a study based on interviews of 2,500 CIOs from across the globe. They found:

“The voice of the CIO is being heard in new ways – as CIOs are increasingly recognized as full-fledged members of the senior executive team. Successful CIOs are much more actively engaged in setting strategy, enabling flexibility and change, and solving business problems, not just IT problems”.Many of the CIOs most important objectives seemed to clash, e.g. how to be innovative whilst relentlessly cutting costs and how to introduce new services without causing disruption to the business.  These conflicting objectives make the CIO role a constant juggling act.

The juggling act

The IBM study found that successful CIOs are simultaneously juggling three pairs of activities at any one time. 

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Figure 1: The Juggling Act (IBM, 2009)
  1. An Insightful Visionary and an Able Pragmatist - The Insightful Visionary helps the business explore how technology can drive innovation, while the Able Pragmatist makes it possible to bring innovative plans to life.  
  2. A Savvy Value Creator and a Relentless Cost Cutter - The Savvy Value Creator devises better solutions by understanding customers’ needs, while the Relentless Cost Cutter stays vigilant about trimming expenses wherever possible.  
  3. A Collaborative Business Leader and an Inspiring IT Manager - The Collaborative Business Leader thoroughly understands the business and builds strong partnerships internally and externally. The Inspiring IT Manager demonstrates personal IT expertise and advocates deeper skills across the IT organization.

Let's look at these in detail.

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