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With a competitive and well connected workforce, every position at an enterprise level becomes challenging one way or the other. We would want to point out a few challenges
faced particularly by the CIO of a midsize enterprise and how one could possibly break the deadlocks. In reference to the book, The CIO Paradox by Martha Heller we would
like to point out a few challenges that we think are the top 5 paradoxes faced by CIOs, and how to break them (the paradox!!).
- Cultivate and develop multi-skilled executives
“Business acumen is a constant presence on the candidate attributes matrix regardless of what CIO or IT executive role we are recruiting for,” said Heller. Years ago,
Business acumen would simply translate into very fundamental business terms like ROI or Total Costs etc. But in today's world, it means deep understanding of the
business processes as good as those business people actually doing them. CIOs are expected to not only keep up with the technology, but also understand the business
and the business processes that goes along with it.
- Perfect the Recruiting Process
How would you recruit an employee who would eventually grow to be a successful CIO? A person who would not only keep the enterprise caught up with the technology, but
serve as a good bridge between IT and business by having a complete understanding on the business and the business process. The answer is get the CIO involved in the
recruiting process early on. “The war on talent is real and if you don’t turn recruiting into a competitive advantage, you will not succeed,” said Heller.
- Transparency
“IT is a black hole. Nobody wants to hear about technology,” said Heller. It is not very uncommon that IT systems get blamed for business process failures. It is important
to keep the interior of IT as transparent as possible while bringing out the benefits of IT department to the business.
- Beyond IT
In most enterprises IT works as a silo, estranged from the business most of the times. “I can tell you as a recruiter talking to CEOs and CFOs, they say that the IT
organization is estranged and has its own culture. We need to narrow that gap,” said Heller. The IT business paradox gets broken when the enterprise adopts the manner
in which the IT division gets run.
- Adapt and Evolve
CIOs were expected to be good technologists, but with the transformation in IT industry, they are now expected to be strategists, vendor managers and so on. “Today, it’s
not business process innovation; it’s business model innovation,” said Heller. CIOs have to adapt and evolve with the changing business and technology terrain.
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