From Chief Information Officer to Chief Innovation Officer - changing role of CIO

Traditionally CIOs have been entrusted with limited agenda, primarily trying to design and implement IT infrastructure for the company- voice, data, email ERP applications etc. and more recently one more element has been added – implementing collaboration suite to bring in operational efficiencies.

So in its traditional role, the CIO organization focuses on delivery timelines, technology implementation and integration and most importantly COST.  IT organization is most enterprises is considered as a support function and treated as a cost center with pressure on budgets.  

In the recent times, consumerisation of IT has been the single most important driver which is forcing CIOs of today to re-think their roles and identify areas where they can contribute.

With faster adoption of IT in consumer space, enterprises have been forced to use IT for front end operation and not just limit it to internal facing business operations.  Delivery mechanisms Consumer analytics, mobility, social media point-of-sale experience, are some of the areas where enterprises are now adopting at much faster pace than ever before. IT is no longer enabler; IT is now core to everything an organization does.

Some industries have realized it faster than others. While FMCG, Banking, Retail or Healthcare may adopt it faster, other like IT ITeS, manufacturing, too are slowly waking up to this new model.

This presents an opportunity for CIOs to reinvent their approach from being back-end focus to becoming more customer oriented. This is easier said than done and involves a whole new paradigm. A paradigm where technology is not viewed as a cost but as a revenue generator.

This requires aligning to consumer’s IT system, and build a new ecosystems all this while keeping a view on how to use technology to generate additional revenue, enhances customer experience, cross-sell/up-sell products, bring about a distinct competitive advantage.

This needs a fundamental shift in CIO organization, where it needs to be an innovator, a partner to his business and marketing organization to deliver cutting edge services and solutions, keeping his organization ahead.