CIOs Dismissed As Techies Without Business Savvy By CEOs

Qedward writes in with a link about the gap between the tech side of business and the bean counters. "CIOs are being dismissed by CEOs as too techie and not aligned with business activities. According to recent Gartner survey of 220 CEOs across the world, business leaders expect spending on IT to rise, but without a corresponding rise in the importance of the role of the CIO within the organization. CIOs appear to be failing in the eyes of CEOs in terms of alignment with the rest of the business. The research showed the stereotype of the head of IT being too preoccupied with technical issues to be effective business leaders persists. He said they were perceived as unable to bring a breadth of business perspective to the table."

Comments

That's the point

[chicago_scott]

"CIOs are being dismissed by CEOs as too techie and not aligned with business activities."

One of the main purposes of CIOs and CTOs to represent the technology side of the business at the executive level. I work for a client that has no CIO or CTO and middle management is supposed to step up for the technology-side, but their not at the same level as the CEO and they're afraid to tell the executives the truth. CTOs and CIOs report to the board so that they have an equal standing with other executives.

Re:IT = Janitorial Services

[Anonymous Coward]

I've often gotten the impression that IT is perceived by management as Janitorial services, or Corporate Archives, or the company cafeteria by companies that are not directly selling IT services themselves, as well as government agencies in general. They are a cost center, but not a revenue center. They are not customer facing, so they are just another physical plant cost. Like keeping the lights on, the water flowing, and the elevators running.

Company cafeteria... customer facing... you don't know how right you are. It's just another symptom of out-of-touch CEOs not understanding the role of IT in their business.

I've been working for the last 6 years at a fairly well-known US-based company that designs & manufactures equipment and apparel for a certain fitness industry. We've got all kinds of engineers and designers whose work will live and die by their computers. IT supports them and the entire infrastructure that's constantly moving data from one place to another to help them get their jobs done. But I don't think the CEO notices at all.

We've been hearing the messages to "cut costs" and "do more with less" especially strong in the last two years. IT budget is slashed, and we're saving money through attrition: one person quits/leaves/fired, and their work is divided amongst the remaining members of that team. My last annual raise was less than the cost-of-living adjustment. There was no money in the budget for me to attend a software seminar earlier in this calendar year -- I was told the travel budget didn't have any room in it -- yet it was in town (no hotel or airfare, I could drive from that hotel to home in 30min) and cost under $1000, and I'd be surrendering my own personal time (a Saturday) to go (I'm salary, not paid for that time). The only exception to the IT budget crunch is one department which writes and supports software that is used by our dealers.

Last quarter the CEO had his company pow-wow and gave out his president's award: "These folks have been working hard, making improvements, and despite the fact that most of use benefit from their efforts, I don't think they're properly recognized. My president's award goes to...{IT? IT I'm thinking}... the Cafeteria!" wut. the. fuck.

CEO and HR find new and stupid ways to spend money all the time, like replacing the NOT BROKEN formica-topped tables in the cafeteria with butcher block, replacing the steel-tube plastic-seat chairs with these things at $135 a pop retail. Fancy new stonework patio with wrought-iron furniture and gas grill outside... the list goes on.

Holiday parties have been scheduled, and then indefinitely postponed. Holiday turkey gift certificates disappeared. Summer family picnic, gone. Despite record profits, the $100USD "attaboy" envelopes didn't show this year.

The CEOs spend their money on stuff they can see and touch. Stuff that will make them look good to outsiders. Even at this privately-held company. I wish he'd turn the checkbook over to an actual businessman.

Re:CEOs have important priorities

[ObsessiveMathsFreak]

The real problem in business is in fact CEOs, other executive managers, and the methods that are being used to select them. CEOs have devolved into grossly overpaid playboys with no responsibilities towards shareholders, customers, or indeed the company itself.

We are witnessing not just companies, but entire industries collapse before our eyes. Multinational firms, once immensely profitable, are being driven into stagnation, decline, and ultimately bankruptcy with each passing year. Excuses such as "globalisation", foreign competitors, and "government" are always trotted out, but no-one every really asks serious questions about the management of these companies, or why they spent increasingly large amounts on executive remuneration even as became less profitable.

Studies suggest that one of the defining characteristics being used by boards to select CEOs in in fact height--Yes, how "tall" someone is. I imagine other factors such as hairstyle, teeth, and charm are being applied as well because I see no other reason for the modern day plague of vapid and incompetent CEOs, and the associated layers of equally useless senior managers.

The problem is not restricted to management either. Boards too seem to have become saturated with unqualified socialites, often from unrelated industries or even unrelated fields like academia, selected for personal or political connections rather than for any actually relevant competencies.

But ultimately, I place the blame on shareholders and investors. They are the ones who ultimately approve the appointment of the unqualified, unsuitable, unethical, and incompetent CEOs currently wrecking companies left and right. If their definition of "business savvy" means knowing which designer suits to wear and looking good at press conferences, then they deserve to lose their money and the company deserves to fail.

Any competent CIOs and other such employees should not waste their lives in unprofitable asylums, instead should busy themselves setting up their own company which they can then run like an actual business instead of a office pantomime.