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CIOs to drive top-line initiatives

Regina Pazvakavambwa
By Regina Pazvakavambwa, ITWeb portals journalist.
Johannesburg, 17 Nov 2015
CIOs need to understand the expectations from the broader consumer base, as well as from within their organisations, says Engen's Peter du Plooy.
CIOs need to understand the expectations from the broader consumer base, as well as from within their organisations, says Engen's Peter du Plooy.

CIOs have moved from leading a supporting function to managing a business function.

This is according to the Deloitte's 2015 Global CIO Survey, which notes business leaders expect CIOs to not only contribute to the bottom-line business priorities, but also to enable and even drive top-line initiatives.

The survey engaged more than 1 200 CIOs and senior IT executives around the globe through surveys and interviews to explore how CIOs operate within the leadership ecosystems of the organisations they serve.

At a time when new business ecosystems are emerging and the C-suite is becoming more interconnected, CIOs are striving to strike a balance between innovation and operational effectiveness while improving their C-suite relationships and leadership skills, says Deloitte in a statement.

Kevin Walsh, partner and global technology consulting leader, Deloitte Consulting, says as global business ecosystems evolve, CIOs are expected to embrace and anticipate the pace of change and its impact on enterprise-wide technology needs.

The C-suite is now, more than ever, looking at the CIO as a leader who is prepared to drive global business priorities through both scalable technology solutions and smart investments, he adds.

Peter du Plooy, CIO at Engen Petroleum, says balancing demand with supply will remain a challenge due to the requirement for CIOs to head customer-based service delivery with constrained resources.

This demands that CIOs find new business models that are both cost-effective and also deliver improved service in an environment where cycle times are reducing and customer expectations are increasing, says Du Plooy.

CIOs need to understand the expectations from the broader consumer base and also from within their organisations, he adds.

"In many cases 'two-speed' IT is required to deliver to customer needs. Implementing bi-modal IT is easier said than done but it is an imperative for CIOs."

CIOs need to predict and act on how digitalisation will impact on their organisations and start initiatives that will move the organisation into this new business dynamic, says Du Plooy.

Predicting recovery cycles in SA are challenging, however once industries and companies enter a new competitive environment, CIOs need to have infrastructure and service delivery models in place to meet these new demands, he explains.

Inventive cost management, balancing demand with constrained supply, well communicated governance, sound security, and well-defined architectures should be the backbone of every company, says Du Plooy.

"With these foundations in place, CIOs can focus on business priorities and improvements the supply chain, resource management, process automation or digitalisation."

At the same time, focus should remain on re-modelling the IT operations and optimising these to simplify the landscape, says Du Plooy.

This would include adopting new technology models, service delivery improvements, investigating operating expense versus capital expenditure models or adopting an agile application development and management methodology, he adds.

CIOs need to have sensitivity to both technology and business opportunities and match these based on the demands of the organisation, says Du Plooy.

"We all have the same building blocks, but it is the way we piece them together that differentiates organisations and creates competitive advantage."

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