In 
Every so often, the debate rages on what it takes to become a CIO. Is it strong technology skills or great business skills or something else? Look around and you will find CIOs from different backgrounds and hues of life who have tasted success.
Before looking at the qualifications, lets first assess what is the role of a CIO. Sustenance of technology that runs the business and is often referred to as business as usual (BAU) or keeping the lights on (KTLO), can take away up to 70% of the IT budget.
Then there is continuous incremental improvement of current systems and processes driven by technology, such as customisations, new development, changes to existing packages and reports that keep developers (internal or outsourced) busy.
New projects form a small but critical part of the portfolio, each requiring a business case, budgetary support, change management and finally sustenance upon institutionalisation. Lastly its about the strategic thought leadership, alignment and contribution, which is a much coveted part of the role.
The CIO oversees all of the above across the enterprise impacting the front office, sales, marketing and customers, while also ensuring support for functions such as finance, accounting, human resources, legal and admin. Depending on the organisations business, a process-related understanding of manufacturing, distribution and logistics, supply chain or loyalty is required too. The jack-of-all-trades CIO is expected to have a meaningful discussion with each business head and CXO on their respective functions, to understand how technology enables those. This helps the CIO to identify what new capabilities IT can create with the ever evolving and new innovations that keep pouring into the marketplace.
Operationally, the CIO is expected to manage the IT team, coach and mentor them to keep attrition low, manage operational and capital budgets, review outsourced vendor performance, negotiate deals for hopefully the lowest cost of services or products and churn out periodic reports for management reviews. He is also expected to be on top of the situation in case of exigencies created by a failure of a server, the network or sometimes even a PC at a critical moment.
The CIO also propagates the value created by IT internally, and externally to the world through various IT or industry forums.
Think now, what kind of qualifications would be required to be a successful CIO. Do you need to be a major in technology or have a business degree? Will cross-functional experience offer a better value proposition? What about soft skills like effective communications, presentations-making, negotiation skills, along with a dash of people management? Look around once again, and you will find successful IT leaders from all walks of life juggling all of this.
Technology skills are essential, but not necessarily to the level of how to configure a router or write code in a computer language; the CIO needs to be on top of the technology evolution curve to understand how it can be applied within the enterprise. The deep dive can be addressed by the next layer and even with the help of vendors.
On the other hand, business and soft skills cannot be substituted; those need to be developed and honed to the level that a communication with any CXO is meaningful and effective. If you are challenged in this faculty, then business IT alignment will be an oft debated subject in your company and you may find yourself at the receiving end.
The author is a Group CIO for Shopper's Stop
Add new comment