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Why CIOs are First Class Citizens -- Part Two

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In part one of “Why CIOs are First Class Citizens,” I introduced the notion of the CIO’s role as a “first-class” executive-level leader. In this post, I will outline the three stepping stones that CIOs should consider to be recognized as first-class executive leaders, including the best practices that CIOs can apply in their journey towards enterprise wide value creation.

Operational Excellence Is Paramount

The foundation for any first-class leader is to demonstrate excellence within one’s core discipline. To a CIO, that means operational excellence in providing day-to-day business support, including data center operations, help desk, and internal technical support for the business operations. Operational excellence represents the basic blocking and tackling of any IT function. CIOs must establish an operational function that is reliable and predictable — networks must be always available, applications must run without fail, and product releases must happen on schedule. CIOs should establish business metrics to measure the success of the operational component of IT. For example, rather than simply measuring uptime, try gathering metrics on the number of customer transactions supported by the infrastructure. Doing so relates technology support directly to revenue producing transactions, or customer-service excellence rather than technology-based uptime measurements.  A CIO must also have a capable operations manager to run the day-to-day procedures, enabling the CIO to take on the next two stepping stones towards being recognized as a “first-class” executive leader.

Integrate IT as Core Business Function

Outstanding operational support is a prerequisite for being recognized as a first class executive leader, but it’s clearly not enough. Integrating IT into an organization’s business fabric is the second stepping stone on the way to C-suite credibility. There’s much discussion today about the alignment of IT and business as if they are two separate entities. Does anyone ever talk about aligning marketing or finance with the business? Rather than spending valuable energy on “alignment,” a CIO is empowered to make IT an integral business function by keeping the following in mind:

  • Lead from a business perspective. Just as the firm’s CFO leverages financial expertise to drive enterprise strategy, the CIO can leverage technical expertise. A CIO that leads from a business perspective gains credibility from C-suite peers and from the CEO. One that leads from a technology perspective is relegated to the secondary role of the “IT guy.”
  • Understand the business as well as anyone else in the organization. That means the CIO must be highly knowledgeable about the company’s products and services, profit drivers, competition, and organizational dynamics.
  • Develop strategic plans that drive the business objectives. It’s critical for the CIO to act as a trusted partner of operating unit leadership.  Furthermore, the technology vision must be based on the company’s business vision.

Demonstrate Influence to Shape Business Strategy

The third stepping stone that cements a CIO’s role as a first class executive is simply the ability to influence the enterprise in a material way.  IT grew up in a model of control — centralized application development, mainframe infrastructure — and the function has struggled to transform itself to be influential without direct control. Influence starts with a sound business-focused IT strategy. Educating C-suite peers on how technology can advance the achievement of business objectives is one way to influence enterprise strategy. For example, there are many emerging technologies that can be leveraged to drive innovation in the enterprise, such as creating new product or changing the business model.

As CIOs begin to identify, understand, and articulate their value to the enterprise, true executive-level recognition becomes possible. What factors do you think are most critical in elevating visibility of the CIO among the C-suite? Which of the three best practices I have outlined is the most difficult to follow and what are the roadblocks?