Sir, I am alive. I am there to work. I am not a showpiece or item of decoration. I need to do what I am hired for. I am CIO - the Chief Information Officer. Don't make me the Chief "Idle" Officer.
A diligent CIO yelps loudly but still goes largely unheard. Life goes on...after all, it has to.
I met a CIO friend yesterday afternoon. In thirty minutes sipping peach iced tea, he gave me immense fodder to write this short blog. To your disappointment, as always, I won't disclose the identity of my friend here. This will not only hamper his future but will also be a breach of trust.
This guy is cool. He is diligent. He knows his stuff. Unfortunately, he has landed in a job (precisely a wrong organization) where the latter would have survived without a CIO but for the sake of keeping with the trend or under duress, recruited him.
Upon a bit more quizzing, he spilled the beans. His narration was shocking. Despite being a multi-locational company employing over 500 people, it lacks basic systems and automation tools. What is called hygiene factor today is missing from this company. All the eight branch offices work as independent units. No data is processed centrally - be it payroll, client invoicing or any other. They are all dealt at local level. The data travels manually once in a month from branch offices to head office.
"Whom do you report to?" I asked.
"To the CEO," replied my friend.
"Have you not told him (and the management) what is required? Have you not given them a plan?" I further asked.
"What do you think? I have been forcing myself for over a year. Every time I present a plan, there's excitement. They say we must do it but when it comes to allocating the budget required for the plan, the excitement dies," he said.
"How does such a large organization run?" I asked once again.
"I don't know but things are somehow going on," he replied. "There is a lot of resistance to change. The old guard doesn't want to change. They question every move towards agility and dynamic infrastructure. They are somehow habitual to status quo - life's good in an excel sheet."
Make no mistake. This is a real life case. This is also a CIO!
Whose fault is this? The CIO's - because he didn't think before taking up the job. Or the CEO's (Management) who, despite having a brilliant asset in the CIO, didn't make the right and good use of him.
My friend (the CIO) has done his job well (despite not having much to do). The CEO is encouraging. He never says No, at least openly. He always encourages the CIO to make plans.
Who to blame?
In my limited experience, the fault lies somewhere else. My friend may be an excellent guy in handling technology but he didn't realize that complex relationships among different parts of an organization are not a technology issue. Unfortunately, they form the backdrop against which all business is conducted.
However, this creates a problem for CIOs who are comfortable with just the technical aspects of enterprise deployment but do not fully understand the dynamics of how stakeholders work together.
To achieve success, the CIO has to improve business communication and alignment skills. There is a need to identify everyone who has a direct hand in influencing the IT, people from lines of business, functional experts, and change managers. The CIO should pull in people with the right knowledge, skills and experience needed. I would advise you to spread the information stakeholders need. You must issue guidelines for what you expect, and keep enough room to let people ask questions.
This formula will work. And if it doesn't, there is no other way but to dump the job and look out.
Am I right? Do you not think so?
In the given scenrio , It would be more appropriate to present the IT plan before IT Steering Committee and subsequent follow-up on monthly basis - clearly define roles and responsibilities both businesses and IT .
Very true Rahul. This is true in many indian organizations.
Ideally one should start by delivering on quick wins to build a trust between business and IT about the ability of IT to make a difference.
Once the trust is built then the budget for big projects will come.
Agree. I have seen this in many traditional / one-man managements. It is a very tough task to repeat the best show we acted elsewhere to a totally uninterested audience. But it is part of our role to inspire the management and user community continuously and try to overcome the resistance. Enhance their IT use by making them use superior gadgets, in particular, by the heads of all departments, convince the management for one or two days outdoor educational tour or something like this.
If they hesitate, budget for even this, then there is something else cooking. I have also seen vested interests in the management team in few places, where my ideas were put in use after I left the organisations. Hence, I thought the principle is doing good, live, otherwise let live.
Very true. The scene painted by you is not unique and occurs often in several organizations. At times it is to do with the CIO’s lack of business acumen and sometimes it is the archaic organization culture that doesn’t let any new thing happen. CIO might feel that it is pointless to spend a good part of his professional life trying to reform and therefore may seek greener pastures. But giving up a fight is the easiest thing to do; why not fight it out and win.
Another factor. At times, when we get stuck and are unable to convince the management, it may be wise to get a third party to unshackle the jinx. In one case, I was invited a few years ago by a CIO of a small company for a informal meeting with their CEO. The meeting worked well, and as I understood, all the CEO wanted was a reassurance from someone senior in the industry that the steps being taken were in the right direction.
CIOs can therefore seek help from their peers and seniors in the profession - after all you lose nothing but you would rather strengthen the community.
I have seen the same in many SMB units, the Senior Management pays lip service to having efficient and dynamic IT systems. This could be to appease the stakeholders or for future investors. However when it comes to giving the necessary approvals or releasing the funds they dig in their heels and delay the process. In such cases the management seems to be more comfortable with the manual systems and using excel.
Dear Rahul
The article is relevant. There are certainly some aspects of truth to this .. Every company has some portion of special / pet projects ..which go around the normal level of control & review. Having said that, a different perspective : What would be interesting is to find out if this is any different than Marketing, or HR .. (eg. What percentage of Marketing Spend goes through Corporate Marketing, or What percentage of HR (Recruitment) goes through Corporate Recruitment ..). We might find that the percentages are broadly consistent across HR, Marketing and IT within an organization. It would reflect the overall level of maturity - centralization and control within a company ..
I beleive that the overall roadmap to Centralization, Governance without excessive beaurocracy may be a journey which reflects the company maturity.
Warm Regards
V. Balaji CIO, Tata Technologies
I think that CIOs today should more be the true information officers than technology officers. so while grasp of automation and technology is required, their true value is shown only when they are able to provide the right information in-time, from a trusted source. So in effect they are like the captain of a ship who should have
A spyglass: Information visibility takes long-term vision A compass: Guiding through regulations A good map: Navigates through islands of trusted sources
This in effect should lead to an effective Information Architecture aligned to the business architecture. So, the thought should shift from an IT architecture delivering into business to information architecture delivering into business. Any thoughts?