Interpreting CIO roles What do they do every day? [ZT]

Interpret the CIO role what they do every day.
"World Business Review" icxo.com (date: 2005-06-06 14:10)

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At present, Informatization is the focus in social application, so who is promoting the application of information. There is an interesting position called CIO, what is the situation of CIO as the main character of the application of the push information? In fact, the CIO is the development of information technology to a certain stage of the product, it and business closely integrated "love crystallization." Even in the United States, it has been in the enterprise for more than 40 or 50 years, but the CIO has been around for 20 years, and the CIO is really "in the grip of power" for only 10 years. It has gone through three stages in enterprise applications: IT support business, it enablement business and it drive business, as it and business become more and more closely, the position of CIO is also increasing, the decision place from "basement" gradually into "conference room". Reporters through various levels of the CIO's audience to do a survey analysis.

What does the CIO do?

CIO is a new type of person to promote social informatization and popularize information application.

The CIO is a senior executive who is responsible for the enterprise's information resources and IT infrastructure. Information resources are comprised of data, information, and knowledge assets that cover the entire enterprise, while it infrastructures encompass the security of computers, communications, data and information storage, and the entire system. In addition, CIOs are responsible for the evolution of the information architecture of the Organization as a whole. In other words, CIOs are responsible for leveraging information management and information technology (IM/IT) resources to support the implementation of enterprise goals. Similarly, CIOs are often responsible for establishing a performance evaluation system for information and communications and related services.

What role the CIO plays.

A recent survey shows that only a few executives recognize the CIO's leadership role in IT issues: the most important thing is to use it to create value.

We advocate that CIOs should be involved in the development of strategies. Some CIOs can provide good advice for new business applications, and should drive business value creation. Whether corporate it is controlled by CIOs or by other executives depends on a variety of factors, including competency, reputation, company culture, and the company's positioning of it.

The most urgent need is to know the business leadership of technology, they must know how to use it to create value for the business, the CIO should assume this role. Many CIOs are able to successfully monitor IT operations, but few CIOs can really create business benefits with IT investments. Now we need a new generation of IT leaders-those who can take advantage of it to bring change to the company rather than just the IT operations.

For example, the CIO of a large European bank introduced management principles and focused on it architecture, reduced it costs, streamlined and upgraded the infrastructure, and emphasized the importance of it to the business. However, from an enterprise point of view, the CIO's performance is not very good. First, he focused the IT budget on maintaining bank operations rather than innovating to achieve business value; second, technology operations and investments were not combined with the bank's business strategy.

At present, in an increasing number of companies, it has become an integral part of the business, the next it goal is to improve the management of IT requirements. It needs to be filled by CIOs or other executives willing to deal with the challenge. In some companies, the executive level has been able to ensure that companies derive greater value from their IT investments. Success factors include: one. CIOs must understand the financial requirements for it costs and potential investments; second, to understand the IT financial needs of managers, more willing to take charge of IT investment value creation; third, the business leaders and IT leaders carefully study how new technology investment helps a company improve production efficiency and enhance competitiveness. They need innovative initiatives that can help them improve their business.

By taking a leadership role to improve one or all of the 3 areas, CIOs can enable the company to gain more it revenue, while gaining trust in itself, giving it the opportunity to lead more important work.

What does CIO mean for information applications?

One is to promote business responsibility change. CIOs can also drive accountability changes and can perform post-implementation audits independently, but some CIOs have led large-scale change initiatives, such as restructuring the global IT architecture, which has driven the business to take more responsibility for it decisions.

Second, to promote business innovation. It can take time to explore how to use it technology to find new solutions, such as how to apply technology in other sectors to predict future trends in the construction industry and to transition to the next generation of CIOs leading the business.

The third is to ensure the effectiveness of it and the effectiveness of the transition. The first step in the transition from supply-led to demand-driven is to ensure that it is financially and operationally healthy. The ability to shift attention from supply to demand, and the managerial capacity needed to shift from operational capabilities to strategic capabilities, from short-term planning to long-term planning, from it communication to business communication.

You should better describe the performance of your IT infrastructure from a business perspective, focus on addressing demand issues, and leverage it to create real business value.

How CIOs should target themselves.

As the IT project leader, in order to persuade the business department to work together, CIOs should strive to exercise themselves as a process consultant, the use of new technology lobbyists, change the trend of the spokesperson and so on. It realizes the business phase is like a full of flowers on a single-plank bridge, once the CIO walked gingerly, reached the other side of the ideal kingdom, but a inattention, may also fall into the IT investment "black hole."

What kinds of CIOs are there?

CIOs are called "all-rounder" by many people. They need to know the technology, but also understand the management. They have the main responsibility for the selection of major IT products, but also in the implementation of large-scale informatization projects, try to resolve the often encountered from different business departments of various resistance. They are very prone to "ceiling" problems in their career development.

However, there is a special group of CIOs, who rarely encounter resistance from the business sector in the implementation of information, they do not need to be responsible when choosing a certain kind of it product, they may not technically be the most bull, but they are likely to be expert advisors in the role of other CIO groups. In the career development, the CIO's "ceiling" means more to them "springboard". This type of CIO is the CIO of the IT enterprise.

The CIO of IT companies is undoubtedly a different kind, and they often play the role of consultant sales as users. The CIO's position in their eyes is mostly career turning point or even springboard, rather than "ceiling"; they seldom encounter obstacles from the business unit in the process of informatization implementation, they will encounter more of the people who have the weapon, they choose the company's products without reason, they have super bargaining power when they choose the products of other companies.

A, Consultant Sales Type

The CIO of a well-known IT company has been increasingly pushed to the fore in recent years as a consultant sales role. For example, IBM's global CI Orobert Greenberg last year in the "IBM Forum" held in Beijing, with users talking about data maintenance, business process change, the use of IBM Business Consulting Services, application of IBM middleware to IT outsourcing and other topics, are virtually permeated with " On demand "concept; Microsoft's current Cio--ro Nmarkezich, who attended Microsoft's global Big client meeting in Shanghai last year, told reporters a surprising amount of data: In Microsoft's information system, deployed Windows XP SP2, Windows Server 2003, All Microsoft products, such as Exchange 2003, Office2003, MOM 2005, and BizTalk Server 2004, have a total value equivalent to 3% of Microsoft IT's total investment. Or, for example, Intel's CIO Stacy J. Smith is also an excellent IT consultant.

B, cost-saving

For it Enterprise CIOs, there is a common feature in product selection-the products that our company manufactures and offers will be the perfect choice.

No it enterprise can provide all it products, so they use the company's products, but also to buy other IT products. But at this point the CIO of the It Big Enterprise, who plays a purely user role, usually has the ability to make suppliers love and fear: They are big users themselves, but they all have the first-class bargaining power and can do it right.

C, alternative, difficult role

This character is a bit difficult. The reason for doing well is that CIOs don't spend much time convincing top leaders or ordinary employees that it can bring more value to the company. But the hard part is that there are a lot of other employees in the company that can be said to be more competent than the incumbent CIO because they are technically more professional than some CIOs. ″

D, the CIO who wants to take it as a springboard for career

For the CIO of a traditional enterprise, the "Springboard for career" has been a long-term buzz. While the CIO of traditional enterprises has now become a popular service for consulting firms, it is not uncommon for the CIO to become a number one from the IT department of a large enterprise, but CIOs want to "endeavors and further" in the original traditional enterprise, it will be easy to encounter the "ceiling" problem. Because it is a traditional enterprise indispensable support tool, but after all, is not the core business of the enterprise.

But for it Enterprise CIOs, the "ceiling" in the career is more likely to become a "springboard". Such examples are many, Lenovo Group's new Ceo--stephen m. Ward,10 was the vice president of IBM's IT department years ago and was later transferred to become the CIO of IBM Corporation. The former CEO of Compaq has also experienced the CIO position.

Talk to the CIO

Rick Devenuti from CIO to vice president of Microsoft's Global Services business : "CIOs are a great turning point in my career, and in IT organizations, the ability to ask for CIOs is the same as the requirements for CEOs, and they need to influence others to make decisions, execute them, There is also a knowledge of the business. "The important thing about being a CIO is being able to influence your peers and even influence your superiors in order to make decisions that are the hardest part of being a CIO and that I have benefited a lot from growing up." The CIO is actually a person who has to influence others and has a role in which the CIO is the one who can influence the entire decision-making process. ”

Ms. Barbara, CIO of the American storage Enterprise CNT, said: "When you're a CIO in an IT company, you get a lot of people who have all kinds of advice on how I should do it." When I have problems with it at any time, they will try to help me out. I can arrange most of my time to communicate and manage a lot of information in the enterprise. When it comes to time-critical issues, I have to make sure that problems can be solved quickly. If I'm in a non-it enterprise, I don't have to work at the current pace. Because it companies are very competitive, you have to move faster than traditional businesses. ”

Zheng, general manager of Information Management Department of Shenzhou Digital Co., Ltd. "We are able to accurately grasp the cost of our IT architecture and solutions." ”

Intel CIO Stacy J. Smith "CIO's basic role is to enable the enterprise's IT infrastructure to operate in an economical and efficient manner and contribute to the growth of the company's business." Now the role and role of the CIO is changing, and their support from the past has been transformed into a key role for the company to develop new business, which can transform an enterprise business. ”