It Is a Great Time to be an IT Leader

A challenge for IT leadership has been aligning technology with senior management the CEO, CFO, COO. Historically the IT leader has not always had a position on the senior executive team and reported often to the CFO, sometimes the CEO or COO. This has changed with most companies now having a CIO and at the same time the other executives have become more IT savvy. This creates a great environment for the inspired, entrepreneurial spirited IT leader.

The IT leader now has direct access to the senior management team and the senior management understands more about technology. This can be a double edged sword as the CIO has to listen to other executives who “know how to do the CIO’s job.” Taking this into consideration it is still better having a senior team that understands technology and the value it brings to the organization. It may require more interaction to agree on what can be done but at least the conversation is seen as important and something senior management is interested in discussing.

It is time for the IT leaders to run with the ball and create creative ways to take advantage of technology. IT leaders need to build the vision of what can be accomplished with technology from operations to marketing such as social media and web 3.0. The technology vision needs to be drafted into a brief well written and understandable technology plan. This vision needs to involve the entire leadership team and be a plan that they all agree upon and are committed to implementing. This plan can be further reaching and more powerful today because the senior teams understanding of technology will assist in seeing the value.

An article in CIO magazine “What CEOs expect form CIOs” by Richard Pastore, that inspired this post:
http://www.cio.com/article/596384/What_CEOs_Expect_from_CIOs?page=1&taxonomyId=3156