Dynamic Era of CIOs

CIO’s are no longer analyzed on the basis of how good a cost cutter he is. As a massive paradigm shift has occurred in the roles and responsibilities of a CIO, new roles and responsibilities are being entrusted upon a CIO according to the needs of a company, reports Scot Peterson of CIO Symmetry.

CIO’s of today are not harnessed anymore to the traditional duties of an IT manager of supporting an organization in its endeavors with the optimized use of available resources. With the evolution of the IT sector and the emergence of neoteric technologies, CIO’s are being tested on a whole new different scale based on their foresightedness, adaptability skills and innovative mindset.

As such, a new age CIO is being used according to the ‘whims and fancies’ of an organization without any adequate support from the management. According to SearchCIO.com, a CIO might be asked to don different hats at different times as per the demand of a situation, or might be asked to juggle all the same simultaneously.

As such, the virtues demanded by a CIO might be broadly categorized as:

•    A CIO must be creative and artistic enough to bring about changes keeping in pace with the emerging trends within an organization.
•    A CIO must be confident enough to pursue projects that might generate revenue for the enterprise.
•    With social networking coming into play in the dynamics of a corporation, unforeseen risks have arisen to which the CIO’s must ensure there are no security breaches whatsoever.
•    A CIO should play a more formidable role in designing next-generation executive information systems that can help a company's top managers extract value from the data that surrounds them.
•    The CIO must be able to act as a negotiator not between the IT and the management to obtain the adequate revenue, quality and schedule for hardware, software and services that leads to a long-term win-win solution for all.
•    Most importantly at a time when there is a scarce in resources in IT in the form of personals, a new age CIO must be an efficient scout of talent and mould the credible candidates within the crucible of the IT organization.

These are some of the skill set a CIO is expected to acquire in order to ensure the survival of the IT and hence of the parent organization.