CIOs increasingly serve as equal partners alongside their executive peers, but those who want to move into even more strategic roles will need to adopt a “business first” mindset, according to “The Strategic CIO: Risks, Opportunities and Outcomes,” an Economist Intelligence Unit report sponsored by EMC Corporation.
According to a global survey conducted by the EIU, the top three skills CIOs must have to be effective strategists are not technology related. Rather, IT leaders must have a clear understanding of business goals, a strong ability to deal with constant change and expert communication skills to promote new ideas effectively.
Other key findings include:
CIOs see themselves as responsible for innovation: The CIO’s role is expanding to encompass a number of new business responsibilities, including that of developing forward-looking strategies for all parts of the organization. Forty-nine percent of CIOs report that today they are “well positioned to promote game-changing innovations” within their companies while only 26% would have said the same three years ago.
The C-suite has become more tech-savvy: Eighty percent of CIOs rate other executives in their organizations as having a “high” or “moderate” knowledge of technology trends, and 90% would say that their colleagues have a similar level of technological literacy. This renders collaboration across business lines simpler than it was in the past, but also means that CIOs must share decision-making responsibility.
CEOs are key allies for CIOs. Technology decisions have become more collaborative, but CIOs still need allies within their leadership teams to help bring strategic plans to fruition. Seventy-eight percent of respondents said that CEOs were the executives most supportive of new initiatives to align technology with business goals – their broad responsibilities make them better able to cut across business silos and communicate the benefits of new technology to the rest of the company.
