State of the CIO: Pay is up; tenure is down; transformation is in

CIO magazine is out with its 2008 state of the CIO survey and pay is up, business strategists are valuable and the average tenure is down.

CIO surveyed 542 CIOs to cook up the state of the position and what the future will hold.

A few takeaways from the report:

• Of the CIOs surveyed, 51 percent say their primary focus is being a "transformational leader" with 37 percent listing "function head." Only 12 percent of respondents considered themselves to be "business strategists." A function head manages IT projects, develops talent and improves operations. A transformational leader redesigns business processes, melds IT with business needs and tinkers with new architectures. A business strategist, which is the highest paid of the three types of CIO, is focused on customer insight and business innovation.
• 41 percent of CIOs report to the CEO and 23 percent report to the CFO.
• The average tenure of a CIO is four years, five months. That's down from five years, one month a year ago.
• The bigger the company the more pay. The average salary for a CIO at a company with less than $100 million in revenue is $148,300, up from $134,200 a year ago. For companies with revenue of $100 million to $1 billion, CIO pay averages $213,500, up from $184,000 a year ago. Companies with more than $1 billion in revenue pay CIOs an average salary of $344,400, up from $281,900 a year ago.
• How CIOs spend their time is interesting. CIOs generally spend 40 percent of their time with their team and 22 percent with company executives. Of the remainder, 18 percent of time was spent with non-IT employees, 11 percent with vendors and service providers and 9 percent with customers and partners.
• According to the study: "The top five technology priorities for the coming year include integrating/enhancing existing systems and processes; business intelligence; ensuring data security and integrity; new business services/products; and collaboration/knowledge management. Mobile/wireless drops to the No. 12 ranking this year, down from fifth-ranked last year."