Future of CIO Role: Drive the Business or Face Career Stall

IT leaders are at a crossroads. To thrive in today's -- and tomorrow's -- rapidly changing digital world, they must move beyond the elusive idea of business and IT alignment, where business leaders are in the driver seat and IT leaders play a supporting and lagging role. Rather than plodding along in alignment, it's time to jump in the copilot seat. It's time to lock arms with their business peers to better serve customers, bring new products to market, and ultimately grow the top line. Our charter for Forrester's IT Forum 2011 is to help you do just that -- build bridges to new business partners, scale innovative solutions, co-create business and technology strategy, and ultimately help your organization accelerate at the intersection of business and technology.

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Every chief information officer (CIO) knows that the job has become more complex. Before, technology was a back-office, data-processing activity. Now, it can be the foundation for the entire business. Today, the best CIOs not only keep the electronic plumbing in good repair, but also help define and execute forward-looking business strategies.

The changes of the past 20 years will seem mild compared with those of the next five. CIOs—and the senior executives they work with—will face unprecedented pressures, making success as a CIO even more difficult to achieve than it has been in the past.

Our research for this white paper revealed that many executives expect CIOs to point the way for agile business in today's volatile economy. Some of the most innovative organizations, in fact, view IT as a primary engine of change for their companies.

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The CIO's role in business is stuttering towards irrelevance, according to the IT boss of one large regional enterprise.

At a roundtable held jointly by Arabian Computer News and Network Middle East today, Arun Tewary, CIO and VP of information systems at Emirates Flight Catering, claimed that the CIO was the only function "where every morning when we get up, we have to define our role".

"CIOs as a species have fallen into a category which is moving towards extinction, so we need to be protected, like wildlife," he told delegates at ITP's 'Future of the CIO' event, held over breakfast at Dubai's Jumeirah Beach Hotel.

Tewary blamed part of this shift on trends such as the consumerisation of the IT department. "The whole industry is moving towards consumerisation, and the moment that picks up, we will not be required," he lamented.

At one point, Tewary contrasted the responsibilities of the CIO - which attendees identified as a mix of process, management and technology - with those of other c-level executives in the enterprise. "The CFO does not need to keep justifying and defining his role every day - it's very defined and there's no argument and no dispute. CMO? The same, absolutely no problem," observed Tewary.

Tewary also disputed the assertion that a CIO's career objective should be to secure a seat on the board, arguing that even when they did, they may not necessarily have much of a say in the running the business. "There might be organisations where CIOs have got into the boardroom, but I would be interested to know what is the percentage of such organisations," he continued. "They might have a physical chair [in the boardroom], but does the CIO have a voice in the boardroom? I'm not very sure."

Other attendees at the round table included CIOs and IT directors from well-known regional organisations in sectors including finance, logistics, education and industry. Topics discussed included how the role of the CIO has changed in the wake of global recession and the impact of cloud computing.