Headline Du Jour

I have a Google News Alert set up every day for the term ‘CIO.’  Besides the inclusion of AFL-CIO news (a topic on which I am now unintentionally well informed), there is a rotating series of articles around the role of the CIO that make the rounds.  From the last week, here are some of the articles relating to the job role of the CIO:

CIOs ceding power to CFOs, survey finds
Global CIO: Even Oracle & SAP Agree: The Tactical CIO Is Dead
CFOs driving the IT spending bus, study says
The New CIO Leader: Setting the Agenda and Delivering Results ...
Political Transitions Could Boost CIO Influence
Why Is the CFO Still Boss of IT? - CIO.com - Business Technology ...

If I were to pick another week, I’d likely pull up some references to the ‘CIO means Career is Over’, ‘The CTO is the new CIO’, and ‘CIOs Cutting Costs/Increasing Spending.’  I used to work in survey research, and understand the methodology well enough to know that I’m 1) biased in my selective analysis and 2) pulling from a sample that’s likely to be loaded with such titles.

But, humor me for a bit.  To me, it seems like the press in particular, likes to use the inflammatory titles and research to call into question what CIOs do with their day.  To believe the pundits, there is an ongoing war between Finance and IT, a never ending battle royale to obtain the power bequeathed by the CEO.  Further, the CIO should be hell bent on driving growth and innovation, improving ROI and decreasing TCO, and either partnering with the business or serving as a vessel for merely obtaining requirements and implementing the systems.

Here’s what I do.  I focus on increasing employee productivity, which I think serves all of the points and more.  That productivity gain could include staff cuts through technology, staff additions to use new technology, system cuts, system additions, and many more levers that can be pulled.  They all lead back to making the organization perform better.

What works for me is the close partnership I have with the CFO, who is a peer of mine.  We both report to the CEO, with equal power but different responsibilities that cater to our strong suits.  I work with my fellow executives in their lines of business, sometimes implementing systems they directly request, and sometimes putting in a system that I know will work better than what they have.  I listen to all of our staff on their pain points.  I (and my incredibly talented team) work to make our processes and hardware bullet proof, and celebrate the high uptimes and corresponding peace that they bring.

I’ll keep getting my Google Alerts, and I’ll probably keep clicking on the same themes from time to time.  It keeps the writers in business, and there is plenty of research that comes out that does help me immensely.  To use a tired cliché, at the end of the day, I want to know that I focused on making us better by using all of the amazing tools that are here today and finding the ones that will be here tomorrow.