CIO role changes under cloud computing impact

Cloud computing and Cross-platform IT management leading supplier CA Technologies global Survey "2011 CIO Role Change" shows that 57% of Chinese CIOs say cloud computing has a significant impact. 93% of the CIOs who have adopted the cloud think they have more energy for innovation and strategy, while only 24% of the CIOs who do not adopt the cloud have the same view, further confirming the impact of the cloud.

Cloud computing brings a series of opportunities and challenges to CIOs, and its arrival also affects the CIO's role in the enterprise, subtly shifting them from the edge of the company to the core of the company's strategic operations.

The catalyst for this change is cloud computing, and its importance to the business cannot be underestimated. Today, a business can enter a new overseas market within a few hours, adding resources in a matter of minutes to a new product and cutting complex testing and development time within a few days. At the same time, the growing reliance on technology, the speed of technological change and the need to keep up the frontiers of development have created unprecedented opportunities for forward-looking enterprises to build business strategies around technology, not just through it. "For many companies, how to harness the potential of cloud technology will have a significant impact on their future success," said Mr Suen, general manager of CA Technologies China. A CIO who can stay in sync with new technology and anticipate potential problems will be an important asset for many companies. It is vital, however, that the CIO needs to adapt quickly to the new situation. "To meet commercialization and cloud computing today, IT industry is also affected by commercialization." For example, the key factor for Dell's initial success in the PC World is the commercialization of storage chips, hard drives, and CPUs. Today's commercialized components create a flexible PC supply chain, the efficient sourcing component, the need to build PCs, and the fast and relatively inexpensive customization of machines. Dell understands this opportunity. And that's why Dell is able to outperform rivals, who are saddled with stored components and the personal computers that are being phased out every day. In the field of cloud computing, similar events can now be seen in profound significance. For example, enterprises supply the IT resources that tend to commercialize and provide software as service (SaaS), infrastructure as Service (IaaS) and Platform as Service (PaaS). Software applications that are universally available in public, private, and mixed cloud environments, such as CRM, Human resources, and line-of-business applications, are also becoming commercialized. In the past, management software was once viewed as a commodity and often attached to technology-driven business services. However, in this ironic change, the commercialization trend of software applications has created opportunities for managing software to help provide tools to support the supply chain of business services. This, in turn, provides CIOs with opportunities. CIOs now manage business services through public, private, and mixed cloud management, rather than simply managing systems internally. Instead of barely using existing IT investments, CIOs can continuously and freely replace infrastructure components to provide the best business services. CIOs have shifted from a relatively static environment regulator to a coordinator of extremely dynamic and flexible environments. As a result, CIOs need to learn more new skills outside of the technology field, such as a deeper understanding of regulatory and compliance issues, privacy and data protection laws, and the need to understand risks to better address changing job requirements. CA Technologies Asia Pacific President Lionel Lim pointed out: "The CIO's role is now facing the pickWarfare and are redefined, they need to optimize their technical planning according to their business objectives. The CIO's responsibilities need to shift from managing and maintaining it to business service delivery to ensure that the enterprise remains agile and delivers fast, efficient, productive, and cost-effective services. Once the CIO is able to meet these requirements, it will vigorously drive business service innovation and provide it with the opportunity to find new sources of revenue to further the growth of the enterprise. "Today, CIOs are leveraging a new generation of management software to enable companies to create and leverage a business service supply chain that truly has cloud computing capabilities." By flexibly acquiring and implementing automation of software applications and the ability to manage performance and IT resources, CIOs can creatively create and deliver the required business services and use the components that meet the requirements best. CIOs ' use of SaaS (ignoring the cost of maintaining local software applications) is just as Dell ignores the need to hold large inventories. As in the case of Dell, opportunities exist to combine commercialized components in the most efficient manner while maintaining the flexibility of fast-changing components. Such capabilities will provide the highest value and make market-differentiated business services possible. As reliance on cloud computing grows, companies that cherish the opportunity to take advantage of these business services will face important opportunities. Because these business services can save money, respond quickly to market conditions, and make the most of the latest technological advances. But, as always, the change is accompanied by growing pains. CA Technologies The 2011 CIO role Change survey found that 60% of the CIOs who used cloud computing said purchasing skills were critical. With the commercialization of cloud applications and the ease with which these applications are purchased through the cloud, the responsibilities between CIOs and CFOs become blurred. Because cloud-based applications can be bought by anyone paying by credit cards, perhaps the CFO needs to control these expenses more than the CIO. Cloud computing has a significant impact on the IT sector. CA Technologies released another global Research Report "2011 CIO Role Change", and the main change drivers cited by CIOs surveyed in the Asia Pacific region can be solved by using cloud computing. According to the report, 91% per cent of respondents saw growing data volumes, growing numbers of mobile or decentralized staff and business innovation requirements as the main drivers of change. The report adds that 87% of respondents said they use it to grow their business to their due size, which means that the "cloud CIO" is taking full advantage of and optimizing it. Therefore, in order to best meet the needs of the company, CIOs must take advantage of the cloud's potential rather than violate it, and prove that they are very important partners for those internal stakeholders who expect the cloud to deliver solutions. CIOs must be the company's cloud technology experts, diligent in studying cloud resources and costs, so their expert opinion will be welcomed. and savvy CIOs see these trends as a boost to theirThe opportunity to create value for the enterprise, rather than the simple usability of commercialization and cloud applications as an encroachment on their sites. More importantly, they need to enhance their role, from a role in maintaining a static infrastructure to a mature solution that can be built dynamically at all times with the best components. As a result, CIOs must turn from gatekeepers to trustworthy advisers. Expand the vision of the CIO CA Technologies China general manager Mr Suen added: "Cloud computing can also give CIOs other opportunities, especially when the CIO's role becomes increasingly strategic in an enterprise and is increasingly disconnected from just focusing on IT infrastructure." The result of this shift is a more realistic opportunity for a CIO to be promoted to become chief Operating Officer (COO) or CEO (CEO). Today, companies need more and more skilled CEOs, so if a CIO can have a broader range of skills, he can be a very attractive candidate. "To do so, the CIO needs to gain more management experience in the business, in addition to it, expand the business background and business knowledge, and ultimately get the emotional quotient needed to run a business." This actually means learning how to deal with people and understanding what makes a different personality type. This method is not straight forward, but it is practicable. The wider role of the IT department will also change, and the downside is that, with the current job-providing tasks being replaced by the cloud, some jobs will become redundant. The challenge for employees is to rebuild their skills, and for CIOs to rethink the IT service delivery of an enterprise. Ultimately, the CIO must accept the shift from a system provider that assists business success to a successful driver who helps develop an enterprise strategy.