Strategy skills needed as CIO role evolves

Professor Burdon -- a visiting professor of management at Sydney's University of Technology and advisor to Westpac's IT department -- said the role of CIO was "evolving" in line with the increased pervasiveness and importance of technology.

"IT plus telecommunications now are creating the digital age," Professor Burdon -- whose previous roles include group managing director of Telstra and Asia Pacific head of BT -- said. "And not only is that changing the function of IT, it's now moved it from a functional discipline to a strategic discipline which I believe affects total businesses.

"That's a big change.

"And the CIO role has been changing through that time, from operational, 'how do you keep the best bang for your buck, how do you get projects done on time, and technical issues of software and hardware', to a business strategic role."

Technology today was so influential that it affected "all businesses", said Professor Burdon, and organisations that didn't meld IT with corporate strategy were "missing a big issue".

One new skill demanded of modern day CIOs was technology forecasting, according to Professor Burdon. This entailed coming to grips with new technologies that impacted the business as a whole, rather than just understanding whether or not they helped the IT department do its job.

"I think historically what [CIOs] did was worry about technological forecasting in terms of what hardware I buy and what software I buy. In other words, just worrying about the technology and how it impacts the IT cost and department," said Professor Burdon.

"Where it's evolving is, they've got to understand how it affects the business model. And that's much more difficult. Because before you can make a comment about how m-commerce might change retail banking, you've got to know a lot about m-commerce. And you've got to know a lot about your business model.

"That's an application of IT and telecommunications technology that you probably didn't do before. And that's where the role is evolving."

As technology increasingly transformed business models, rather than conformed to them, CIOs also needed to be on top of areas such as business and IT planning alignment, the use of technology in the marketing of the business, investment in new technology, and leveraging of third-party partnerships to help innovation.

Professor Burdon cited the business-over-IT experience of Jane Treadwell, CIO of the Victorian government, and Ralph Norris, a former CIO-turned CEO of the Commonwealth Bank, as examples of the management skills need to succeed in the role.

"If you want to be a CIO, you've got to learn those managerial skills and know enough about the business and strategic management to at least talk as an equal partner," he said.

"So there's a hell of a learning curve. 'Cause all this is new. Even if you did an IT degree five years ago, you wouldn't have learned this stuff. And the education required to do this isn't easily available in a packaged form.

"As this evolves I think there's a gap there. And there isn't a professional body of IT people like there is for engineers so it's not being filled quite as well."

Organisational structures were gradually evolving to accommodate the the growing influence of IT, Professor Burdon said. This meant the status of the CIO within a hierachy was fluid.

"For companies where it's really strategic, they report to the MD. But that's really [in a minority of organisations]," he said.

"Historically, IT managers reported to a CFO, where it was a cost only issue. Now, without wanting to disparage my friends, CFOs, they are not normally trained to be creative. They historically look at trends and project forward. That isn't the skill that's needed.

"So I would argue if you think it's strategic, it's probably not the best place for a CIO or CTO to report to."

There were signs recognition of technology were changing in business, however.

"Rupert Murdoch has just called all his worldwide managers in, because he thinks the Internet is about to change advertising. So he thinks it's strategic," said Professor Burdon.

CIOs were better-placed to recognise this than CEOs though, according to Professor Burdon, due to their grounding in technology.

"In my opinion, many Australian CEOs, they haven't a clue about IT.

"Why? Well it didn't become important till 1995, when most of them were earning their spurs in middle management and therefore as they got promoted, they don't have the fundamental knowledge to deal with IT strategically."