There was a time when the CIO, the technology head of a company, was just that — the man in-charge of technology. Today, however, this function has become strategic, in the sense that companies are powering their businesses with strong technology strategies. The link between IT and business has become deep and the CIO is now increasingly being viewed as a ‘business-person’. The fact is that CIOs, provided they blend good technology sense with business sense, have the capability to take on the mantle of leadership within companies. CIO-CEOs may be a possibility in the years ahead and the future boardroom is sure to feature technology captains who can make an active contribution to the business and its profitability.

Q1 How can the CIO emerge as a business leader — someone not just concerned with the bits and bytes but the company’s bottomline?
Q2 What are the skills that CIOs will need to be accepted as business captains and find a place in the boardroom?

1. What’s critical is to align priorities to pre-identified business needs. The focus should be on finding solutions to ‘wicked business problems.’ It’s also important to run IT as a business, operating it in a way that everyone across the company can connect to it.
2. As leaders, CIOs need vision, passion and discipline. They need vision to see where they are going, passion to engage others and the discipline to execute their strategies with excellence. Today, CIOs also need to be masters at managing networked organisations with the ability to govern at a distance.

Filippo Passerini, CIO, Procter & Gamble

1. I think it requires a change in mindset – of both CIO and his/her business peers. A CIO should think like a business leader. The way IT is evolving and getting embedded in every business process, it will soon become difficult to separate it out from other business functions. Obviously, CIOs must understand business strategy, the business drivers and business processes. Processes will improve if business heads involve CIOs in the strategy-building phase. Many organisations now have CIOs with a business background, which is possibly the best way to put CIOs on the path of business leadership.
2. The skills required are the same as for any business leader. Vision, communication, people management and an analytical mind are certainly essential. Understanding of the global business environment and the capability to understand market trends, emerging technologies and their relevance and implications for business are important aspects of a CIO’s role as business leader.

Arvind Tawde, Senior Vice President and CIO, Mahindra and Mahindra

1. In the past, the CIO/CTO of a company was positioned both internally and externally as the “techie”, the person responsible for the IT infrastructure within the organisation, the expert who made sure the computers worked, the software was regularly updated and the network was never down. The IT department was itself considered a cost centre. Over the years, however, the CIO /CTO has outgrown this traditional role, and taken on a more strategic avatar. In order to be a successful business leader today, a CIO/CTO must be able to contibute on a range of issues and have a wider business perspective.

   Of course, the person must still be able to align the IT needs of the company with its business goals and objectives. Increasingly, the CTO/CIO must focus on leveraging IT to bring about business transformation. In this role, the CIO/CTO requires a deep understanding of the company’s business, the strategic route ahead and the challenges being faced by its users. The person should be able to craft solutions that best serve these business interests, reflecting the latest technologies available. At the end of the day, the CIO/CTO should be able to leverage IT to improve the processes of the company, the efficiency and productivity of employees and lead the organisation towards operational excellence.

2. The CIO/CTO must have a finger on the pulse of the company’s business and should know its areas of strength and weakness. At the same time, the CIO/CTO should be abreast with market trends and be able to make quick decisions based on the changing external environment and the needs of customers. CIO/CTOs, especially in BPO organisations, which are people-intensive, should know how to engage employees, encourage and promote career development/learning opportunities and be seen as champions for building strong teams that are quick to adapt to the changing demands of the business. To be successful, they also need excellent people skills, look for ways to improve the quality of hires, launch strategies to retain talent and keep attrition in check. Strong communication skills, an eye on the future and a clear strategy for business improvement and maximising opportunities are some of the key skills needed by the CIT/CTO.

Gary Strain, CTO, RBS Technology Services India

1. First of all, CIO’s need to talk the language of the business; secondly, they need to understand the business, Its opportunities, its threats, and importantly what does success look like through the eyes of the Board and CEO; finally, they have to deliver, saying no, or being too slow, will show on your career.
2. Team player; delivery orientated regardless of the obstacles; logically uses data as evidence to support the case – the business case, not the ICT case; an expert communicator; robust; resilient.

John Suffolk, CIO, UK

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