Derek Wilcocks, services director of Dimension Data, Middle East and Africa, says CIOs are working towards misguided goals, and blames CEOs for the problem.
According to Wilcocks, CIOs are currently working according to a survival principle, which he believes is the wrong approach to take. “CIOs should be working towards accelerating information flow within the organisation”, he says, for the IT function to benefit the company overall and add real and lasting business value.
Wilcocks adds that it's the role of the CEO to guide the CIO in his function, by supplying the CIO with the correct job description and a clear understanding of what the business aims to achieve.
“The problem is that companies and CEOs still see IT as a technology discipline and, now more than ever, as a cost centre. This means the CEO gives the function of managing the CIO over to the CFO, who only looks at short-term cost wins as a measurement,” he says.
Wilcocks believes CEOs and CFOs do not realise the importance of giving IT an understanding of the business needs of an organisation. While they often think the CIO should simply be responsible for making sure technology is up and running, the CIO should really be responsible for seeing the technology enhances the business strategic objectives, processes and decision-making, he says.
“It is wrong that the CIO's success is being measured by short-term cost reductions without stressing the long-term strategic planning and alignment of the IT function with business needs,” he adds.
According to Wilcocks, CIOs should be focussing 75% to 80% of their efforts on the monitoring, reporting, management and overall optimisation of the entire IT function, rather than on the design, installation and maintenance of IT systems, which makes up only 15% to 30% of the total IT spend.
“If the CIO is to step up, the CEO needs to enable the CIO to focus on process innovation and improvements, rather than the maintenance of IT systems, by giving them the support they deserve,” Wilcocks concludes.
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