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

CEOs have important priorities

[alphatel]

Alert: CEOs also don't like CFOs who tell them they are losing money.
Notice: CEOs don't like COOs who inform them that cancelling the pension fund is illegal.
Warning: CEOs don't like CIOs who spend money on "infrastructure" instead of "apps".

Re:CEOs have important priorities

[girlintraining]

Debug: CEO attempted to exclusively lock all system resources.
Informational: You have set TZ to 'US/Eastern'. Be advised CEOs in this locale are considered deities by the locals and worshipped.
Debug: CEO attempted to delete immutable directory /home/finances/incriminating_evidence

Re:CEOs have important priorities

[Anonymous Coward]

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

"CIOs are being dismissed by CEOs for constantly pointing out technical hurdles and reasons why the idea they read in a magazine on the plane won't work. They are party poopers. Plus, they don't play golf."

There, fixed it.

Re:CEOs have important priorities

[Moryath]

How world works:

CIO: In order to support [business_plan], we need the following infrastructure: [list of modern hardware]

CEO: But think of the bottom line! Make it work with what we've got now.

CIO: It won't work with what we have now. What we have now is insufficiently powerful, further it's out of warranty and we run increased risk of catastrophic hardware failures the longer we fail to replace it with up to date infrastructure that can handle the current bandwidth, storage and processing requirements.

CEO: But maintenance costs money. Just make it work with what we have. My management for dummies courses at MBA Mill University said all we have to do is tell people what to do and make sure they know their job is on the line and they'll find a way, so tell your people their jobs are on the line unless they make it work with what we already have. Do more with less. Leverage that diversity and synergize to create a new paradigm by thinking outside the box so we can make a sea change to increase company wellness. At the end of the day the new alignment will have the rank and file thanking you for all the empowerment and mean more organic growth for the company.

CIO: Fine. Go back to playing with your etch-a-sketch.

Re:CEOs have important priorities

[idontgno]

Plus, they don't play golf.

Actually, most of the "leadership-level" technical weenies I know (i.e., CIO-level types) play excellent golf. Maybe the problem is that they keep beating the CEO. Knowing CEO ego, that would be a serious issue.

Re:CEOs have important priorities

[MitchDev]

I thought Dilbert was a joke until I left the private sector and moved to the corporate world. Exec positions should require minimum 15 years actually working actual jobs....

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.

Re:CEOs have important priorities

[hoggoth]

> I left the private sector
> moved to the corporate world

I do not think that word means what you think it means.

Re:CEOs have important priorities

[Moryath]

Maybe not. Many "private sector" jobs are of the non-corporate (e.g. not desk-and-cubicle/office) variety, especially if you run a small business or work in fields like electrical or construction work.

Re:CEOs have important priorities

[Luckyo]

Public sector: Ran with public funds (i.e. government).
Private sector: Ran with private funds (essentially everything outside government and often includes government owned by privately managed companies).

Re:CEOs have important priorities

[Moryath]

You are technically correct, according to the technical definition you provided, but not necessarily correct for colloquioal definitions. The economy is not simply divided into two sectors. There are the "Private Sector", "Corporate Sector" (sometimes known as Banking Sector), Public Sector, Home Sector, Retail Sector... you may also choose to divide your sectors by field in an even more granular fashion.

Re:CEOs have important priorities

[jimbolauski]

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.

Um NO the studies don't suggest that a CEO is selected because of his height correlation != causation. It could be that tall people are biased into a leadership role by society giving them more confidence to be leaders and thus succeed, but the study in no way implies boards choose the tall guy over the short guy. Political connections are worth a lot to companies securing loans, tax incentives, government contracts, ... all are much easier with political contacts, It's no coincidence that Michael Obama went from a 100k salary to 300k salary right after her husband became a Senator, and her position went unfilled after she left.

Re:CEOs have important priorities

[gabereiser]

I just got schooled....

Re:CEOs have important priorities

[Eponymous Hero]

this should get 5 for Funny, and 5 for Insightful.

Re:CEOs have important priorities

[Luckyo]

While true, it's irrelevant in the scope the question presented, as the main two sectors include ALL existing smaller sectors are the two I mentioned and are probably the most used split into "sectors" of the business world.

Re:CEOs have important priorities

[Scutter]

How world works:

CIO: In order to support [business_plan], we need the following infrastructure: [list of modern hardware]

CEO: But think of the bottom line! Make it work with what we've got now.

CIO: It won't work with what we have now. What we have now is insufficiently powerful, further it's out of warranty and we run increased risk of catastrophic hardware failures the longer we fail to replace it with up to date infrastructure that can handle the current bandwidth, storage and processing requirements.

CEO: But maintenance costs money. Just make it work with what we have.

In my experience, the response of the CEO to anything even remotely technical is "All I heard was 'Blah blah blah I'm a big egghead nerd.' I don't understand a word you said and I really don't care. Listen, Poindexter, you just make it work with what we've got and stop spending all our money on Ward of Whirlcraft, or whatever it is you guys do all day."

Re:CEOs have important priorities

[AshtangiMan]

It's no coincidence that Michael Obama went from a 100k salary to 300k salary right after her husband became a Senator, and her position went unfilled after she left.

Also, it helped pay for the sex change operation ;). Side note I really like your sig, had a philosophy professor (logic) once give that as an extra credit problem (given that knowledge = power and time = money, prove that increased knowledge results in less money). We were all engineering students, but not everyone came up with the correct equation to make the leap.

Re:CEOs have important priorities

[gtall]

Fall guy. Axing the CIO cuts meat, axing the CEO cuts fat.

Re:CEOs have important priorities

[roeguard]

You know, if you have a CIO with business sense and tech sense, why do you need the CEO?

That's like saying that you have a sales person who knows some Perl, so why do you need software engineers?

It worries me that this was flagged as insightful.

Re:CEOs have important priorities

[Luckyo]

Err, corporate sector is private sector. He doesn't move out of private sector at any point.

Re:CEOs have important priorities

[Khyber]

"The fact that you are too unimaginative to understand the description does not invalidate it."

How about the fact that you're being a pedantic fool that obviously doesn't own anything in the private or public sectors (Hint, I do, and your wanted granularity is BULLSHIT.)

Re:CEOs have important priorities

[dgharmon]

"You know, if you have a CIO with business sense and tech sense, why do you need the CEO?"

Because the CEO and the CFO are old college buddies who make sure to hire on the CIO from outside the company and keep recycling the IT staff so as no-one will catch on that they are both clueless. Meanwhile the company is going down the tubes.

Re:CEOs have important priorities

[Tubal-Cain]

Someone who works in a "private sector" job (such as night security)

Private Sector != Private Security

Re:CEOs have important priorities

[dkf]

Err, corporate sector is private sector. He doesn't move out of private sector at any point.

Strictly, the corporate sector is a sub-sector of the private sector.

Re:CEOs have important priorities

[hairyfish]

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.

Not sure how many CEOs you've met, I only met a handful in my time. A couple were monkeys, but the majority were really quite clever, and most importantly politically saavy which is the key skill at that level. Also, most CEOs are actually successful, just go check the Forbes 1000. For every CEO with a huge bonus and negative profit sheet, there's 10 that are actually making good profits. Don't be fooled by the stories in the paper.

Re:CEOs have important priorities

[Luckyo]

I must have phrased it badly. That's exactly what I meant.

Re:CEOs have important priorities

[nine-times]

But ultimately, I place the blame on shareholders and investors.

But you understand that a huge portion of the shareholders and investors are also grossly overpaid playboys? Even when the money itself comes from normal hardworking people, they don't have time to worry about what's happening to their money, so they dump it into some mutual fund and trust things will work out. You can't trust shareholders to be looking out for their interests, and that's part of the reason this whole system doesn't make a lot of sense.

Re:CEOs have important priorities

[DaveV1.0]

Actually, the economy is divided into Public and Private sectors, and the Private sector is further divided into sectors.

Colloquial definitions are, to put it bluntly, worthless when talking about technical information. The use of colloquial definitions is the reason idiots like to say "Evolution is only a theory". They are using a colloquial definition rather than the technical definition.

Re:CEOs have important priorities

[yuhong]

Well, they are accountable to shareholders, but only to short-term stock price in most cases. I have always said no incentives is better than wrong incentives for a while now.

Re:CEOs have important priorities

[happyfeet2000]

Management positions are not given, they are taken. You're making the mistake of thinking that in order to become a manager all you have to do is silently do your work everyday, and then some day, somebody will notice and reward you with a managerial position. That's not how it works. Managerial positions and their salaries and privileges are highly coveted, and the competition for them is fierce. And once you're a manager you need to fight to have your ideas approved and funded over their competitor's. Caesar's to Caesar, you want to play in the big leagues, you have to pay the price, and in a competitive and explotative system the price is your soul.

Fair Warning

[karnal]

If a CIO is too buried into fighting fires, the CIO should figure out a way to have others fight those fires for him. Obviously, this may require a restructuring and/or more headcount in various areas in the organization, but it should be pretty easy to figure out I would think. And this is coming from a tech in the field, so to speak.

Re:Fair Warning

[v1]

If a CIO is too buried into fighting fires, the CIO should figure out a way to have others fight those fires for him.

This didn't sound like fire-fighting? Though I'll agree, someone that's always busy fighting fires needs to focus more on fire prevention.

Re:Fair Warning

[willaien]

Obviously, this may require a restructuring and/or more headcount in various areas in the organization

Or, a head hunt against problematic users (which may include an overbearing CEO)

Re:Fair Warning

[sirlark]

About that empathy statement - Business is more concerned with screwing people than technology. Which would seem to indicate even less empathy from business types. Anecdotal evidence in the form of personal empirical exeperience supports this insight as far as I'm concerned.

Re:Fair Warning

[surgen]

Business is usually more concerned with people than technology.

Correct. High level businesspeople don't not care about social relations, statistically they're actually more likely than the general population to be psychopaths, and even when they're not diagnostically so, they make use of the same social toolbox as a psychopath.

Re:Fair Warning

[lightknight]

You assume others aren't actively lighting those fires. Nothing like the head of marketing or human resources creating problems to make your life hell.

Works both ways, I think.

[PessimysticRaven]

That's okay. Most CEO's should generally be dismissed as people with no leadership abilities, intelligence, morals, scruples or logic.

Hence, "businessmen" as opposed to "Human."

Re:Works both ways, I think.

[MrKettlePot]

While funny, I think you hit upon an important point here. CEO's want their CIO's to be people human or human focused and not technology focused. That can be a problem because many times IT and empathy don't go hand in hand http://www.convergentxs.com/the-tech-epidemic/

Re:Works both ways, I think.

[Eponymous Hero]

exhibit A: slashdot user comments

Re:Works both ways, I think.

[VoidCrow]

That link - is it just me or was it almost content-free and full of ads?

Then why is my program in the business school?

[sandytaru]

If I wanted to do business only, I'd be getting an MBA. I wanted to work in the tech department, so I'm getting a different degree through the MIS department. You need someone who is more focused on the information and the technology than the business ramifications, otherwise you end up cutting corners dangerously and ending up with a dead infrastructure at a critical moment.

Re:Then why is my program in the business school?

[NoNonAlphaCharsHere]

CEOs don't care about "cutting corners dangerously", causing potential problems in some nebulous "future", they only care about this quarters stock price. By the time problems develop from their shortsightedness, it will be Someone Else's Problem.

Re:Then why is my program in the business school?

[icebike]

If I wanted to do business only, I'd be getting an MBA. I wanted to work in the tech department, so I'm getting a different degree through the MIS department. You need someone who is more focused on the information and the technology than the business ramifications, otherwise you end up cutting corners dangerously and ending up with a dead infrastructure at a critical moment.

Probably not true.

Are Shipping Operations Managers hired from the driver pool or the mechanic pool?
Are CFOs hired from tellers or account clerks?
Are hospital administrators selected from the best nursing staff or even the interns?

The problem is that IT people always think that nobody but an IT person can possibly manage an IT department, and MBAs can't possibly understand the needs.

You've exhibited this mentality in your very post! You ARE part of the problem.

Yet in reality, MBAs are trained to be very risk adverse. They are also trained to manage costs, plan for the future, and plan for emergencies. They might even know a bit about growing the business, adding locations, expanding the customer base.

You should be reporting to a CIO that has a business background. You should be able to explain why you need that new router or that data center upgrade. If you can't make that case succinctly and factually, and with due regard for cost/benefits involved, then you NEED another layer between you and the board room.

But you should clearly not be making high level business decisions with ONLY a technical level background.

I started out in the technical end of IT as well. I lead that department after a few years. But I still reported to VPs who were business management oriented. And unless I chose to go back and get an MBA, that would have been as high as I was ever going to get.

Re:Then why is my program in the business school?

[Alex Belits]

Clearly, your idea is that corporate executive positions must be inheritable.

Re:Then why is my program in the business school?

[Skadet]

This is an oft-repeated mantra, but I'm curious: what are some real-life examples of this being the case?

Re:Then why is my program in the business school?

[Moryath]

CEOs don't care about "cutting corners dangerously", causing potential problems in some nebulous "future", they only care about this quarters stock price. By the time problems develop from their shortsightedness, it will be Someone Else's Problem... because they will have long ago jumped out the window on a golden parachute and now be running for president while claiming they "created jobs" as a Bain Capital Corporate Raider.

Re:Then why is my program in the business school?

[NoNonAlphaCharsHere]

Why don't you call HP's (or Dell, or AT&T) support hotline and ask them?

Re:Then why is my program in the business school?

[amiga3D]

Walgreens pharmacy. Their CEO is concentrated on building revenue by letting all the help go in order to pay his bonuses. I went by there yesterday and the place was backed up, the wait for a prescription was over 2 hours and they had one guy, the Pharmacist, manning the phone, the drive-thru window and the counter plus he was trying to fill prescriptions. This was never the case until just recently but now it's an everyday thing there. I hate to move to another pharmacy because that one is only 3.5 miles from the house but if this keeps up I'm outa there.

Re:Then why is my program in the business school?

[xclr8r]

Two that come to mind.

Toyota Brake Issue.
HP thinking about dropping Hardware sales.

Re:Then why is my program in the business school?

[Grishnakh]

Bob Nardelli of Home Depot. Nearly ran the company into the ground with his corner-cutting. Walked away with a $200M golden parachute. It's amazing the company is still around.

Re:Then why is my program in the business school?

[supremebob]

Enron, MCI-Worldcom, AIG, etc...

Re:Then why is my program in the business school?

[pla]

The problem is that IT people always think that nobody but an IT person can possibly manage an IT department, and MBAs can't possibly understand the needs.

No, actually, the problem comes from MBAs thinking they don't need all the skills you mentioned. And then, won't someone think of the poor, poor executives when they start playing over par as they struggle to understand why the minimum wage delivery drivers don't like the new "smile or we fire you" morale-boosting initiative; why the AR clerks raise an eyebrow when you explain to them how even though we lose money consistently from the same set of deadbeat customers, we need to keep those same deadbeats happy so just let it slide again this month; why the nurses keep talking about stupid shit like "patients dying" when forced to work 18-hour shifts.

Yes, the truck driver (or the highly skilled engineer, for that matter) doesn't necessarily understand the world of business. But the business side most definitely does need to understand the operational details of what their company does.

Re:Then why is my program in the business school?

[EdIII]

The problem is that IT people always think that nobody but an IT person can possibly manage an IT department, and MBAs can't possibly understand the needs.

Uhhhhh.....

That's true.

It is not arrogance either. According to your logic i dont require an understanding of accounting, finances, etc to manage the accounting department. I can just jump in and fake it till i make it.

That's disrespectful of IT and trivializes their field. If you are not in IT you most likely dont have the breadth of knowledge required to manage the department well.

I could relate anecdotes for hours about shortsighted managers and executives where "not aligned with businesses interests" translates to "i am butthurt because you pointed out technical flaws or the unrealistic cost and time projections of my ideas".

A CIO and CEO can act like mature adults and bring both their skillsets together to find a solution that is both technically feasible and aligned with business interests.

Or we can continue with the stereotypes and attacks and accomplish less. I wonder why there are so many problems.........

Re:Then why is my program in the business school?

[kryliss]

CEO's think Larry at Jiffy Lube is just a qualified to work on cars as Scott the trained mechanic. Scott is just too focused on getting the car run right and stay running. Larry knows how to sell $10 air filters for $25!!

Re:Then why is my program in the business school?

[AlamedaStone]

CEOs don't care about "cutting corners dangerously", causing potential problems in some nebulous "future", they only care about this quarters stock price. By the time problems develop from their shortsightedness, it will be Someone Else's Problem... because they will have long ago jumped out the window on a golden parachute and now be running for president while claiming they "created jobs" as a Bain Capital Corporate Raider.

Corporate raiders are people too, my friend.

Re:Then why is my program in the business school?

[silentcoder]

>Are Shipping Operations Managers hired from the driver pool or the mechanic pool?
Are CFOs hired from tellers or account clerks?
Are hospital administrators selected from the best nursing staff or even the interns?

Once upon a time they were. Back in those days you could actually WORK your way to the top of a firm. Loyalty and effort were rewarded.

Nowadays, if you didn't choose to study MBA kiss any hope of ever earning an executive salary goodbye... and that is a big part of why business is in the fuckup it's in.
Why be loyal in an age of "headcount reduction" ? Why work hard for a company if your continued employment from one month to the next is mostly a lottery thing.
In fact... you're better off NOT working too hard. If you work the least, you'll be out of there - but if you're the best you also get fired because you're the most expensive.

Once a company goes public - quality of work loses all value to those who really run it (people who own shares - and their goal is to sell them for a profit THIS quarter). So what happens ? Nobody cares if the business is bankrupt in a year. What matters is maxing out the profits right now - and you do that by firing all the talent (and selling all the useful assets).

About the same time companies started calling people "resources" they started treating them with the same respect they give other resources... like staplers, so of course the people responded by treating the companies with that same (lack of) respect... voila - economic collapse.

Re:Then why is my program in the business school?

[Moryath]

Only for very forgiving definitions of "people." I rank them up there with Pol Pot, Saddam Hussein and Bernie Madoff in the "waste of perfectly good oxygen" category.

Re:Then why is my program in the business school?

[swb]

This is just a rehashing of the classic arrogance of the executive class -- that "managing" is the skill they specialize in, and there's no need to have any specialized knowledge of the area you manage.

The justification for this perspective often boils down to some combination of:

* I'm a decision-maker/course-setter. I hire area experts to explain complex details to me in simplified terms and then I make decisions and set future directions based upon this information. Structuring the management decisions is what's really important.

* I'm well educated and intelligent. I can figure most of this stuff out on my own. So-called "experts" in this field aren't as smart as they think they are (and I actually am) and dramatically overstate the complexity of their fields and the amount of information needed to make decisions.

While these two positions are somewhat contradictory, I've seen plenty of executives who hold both positions simultaneously. The former is actually somewhat reasonable and is more or less how most large organizations have to function.

The problem is that arrogance creeps in, and executives tend to cherry-pick -- when their area experts don't tell them what they want to hear, they fall back to their belief that they are the smartest guy in the room and make poorly informed decisions based on their own "understanding" of the topics at hand.

Re:Then why is my program in the business school?

[Martin Blank]

"Chainsaw Al" Dunlap is another, nearly destroying Sunbeam. Once known for quality products, Dunlap's constant mass firings of the most experienced employees resulted in Sunbeam becoming yet another bottom-shelf manufacturer.

Re:Then why is my program in the business school?

[dkleinsc]

We have a winner!

Here's some reasons that an executive needs at least a passable understanding of the skills of his subordinates:
1. Without that understanding, he's going to hire and promote the people with the skill to hoodwink the executive rather than the skill to lead the team they're in charge of. That not only means you end up with badly run departments, but also you end up with lousy morale from those who do actually know what they're doing.
2. The executive will have some clue what he's telling his subordinates to do, and what's feasible and what's not. That is vital to establishing his credibility with his subordinates, because without that credibility his subordinates won't follow him.

So I might not need to know all the intracacies of finance to manage the accounting department, but I absolutely have to know what the difference between EBIT and gross revenue is. I don't have to know all the techniques of sales to manage a sales team, but I should know enough about how salespeople work to be able to usefully direct them towards their goal. And with IT, I don't have to know how to correctly set up a firewall, but I should know what a firewall is and what it can and can't do for me. And if I'm a CEO, then I should have some of that knowledge about every department, so I can make sure that the team directly around me is one I can trust.

I should point out that the best CEOs did in fact make the effort to both understand the core of their business, and to know enough about the other departments to manage them effectively. For instance, Bill Gates really understands computer software, but he also has some knowledge of marketing techniques and reading balance sheets.

Re:Then why is my program in the business school?

[jimbolauski]

The percentage of companies that went bankrupt under Bain Capital is much smaller then the US governments percentage.

Re:Then why is my program in the business school?

[NoNonAlphaCharsHere]

GP is riffing on Romney's famous "corporations are people, too" quote.

Re:Then why is my program in the business school?

[Moryath]

Companies bankrupt under Bain: 30%.
Companies that bankrupted within 2 years of being "spun off" from Bain: 80%.

The Bain Capital methodology was simple.

Step 1: Buy out a company.
Step 2: Sell off all the assets you can, and raid the pension fund.
Step 3: Hide stolen assets in tax shelters and overseas accounts.
Step 4: Put the company into bankruptcy to shift the burden of pension fund and other debts to taxpayers. If necessary for state law, "spin off" company into unowned status first.

Mitt Romney: corporate thief and fraudster. Bain Capital's corporate raider scheme wasn't just fraud, it was fraud that put the burden of its behavior on the taxpayers.

Re:Then why is my program in the business school?

[jedidiah]

> This is an oft-repeated mantra, but I'm curious: what are some real-life examples of this being the case?

Remember that oil rig that exploded in the Gulf of Mexico?

Re:Then why is my program in the business school?

[Thing 1]

I used Walgreens until recently; the insurance that my company provides no longer allows prescriptions to be filled there. I wonder if the issues that you are experiencing are a result of this policy change? (I.e., perhaps other insurance carriers dropped them for similar reasons, and they can no longer adequately staff their pharmacies? Of course it's also possible that their lack of staff led to these cancellations -- I'm not privy to the root cause, just part of the data.)

Re:Then why is my program in the business school?

[Vancorps]

As someone that made my way up through the ranks from tech to business I find myself asking why is there such a debate? In what organization can you buy a router without justification? I always needed to state risks to the business along with how and when I would expect a return on investment if a calculation was possible. Backup hardware is the hardest to justify from the business side as you can only estimate the costs of a catastrophic failure. The only difference between what I did then and what I do now is the level of detail at which I communicate the technical specifications. There is much less detail and more of a focus on how it can help the company make more money or make it more efficient meaning that it can do more with current personnel.

The other side is that I am given a clearer picture of cash flow for the company so they make me prioritize projects to mitigate the biggest risks first. Maybe the company I work for makes more sense than others, I kind of doubt that. I also have to gauge the manpower at my disposal and determine what projects I can take on and which risks are better with a cheap band aid until proper funding is given. As long as everything is well documented with illustrations and word explanations I find for the most part they say yes. Most of the company relies on IT so I guess in that regard we are fairly unique.

I definitely think a CIO needs a technical background though. I've found that you cannot effectively judge the risks you are taking without understanding the underlying technology. You are also correct in that you can't only have a technical background. In my experience though few people are all technical.

Re:Then why is my program in the business school?

[turgid]

Xerox.

Google will tell you everything.

Re:Then why is my program in the business school?

[gtall]

Being a psychopath doesn't qualify for being a CEO no matter how (dated) Brother Bill's tech background. Chief Software Architect my ass, software passed him by after he wrote his first 10 programs. And MS's current malaise is directly attributable to cesspool Gates left before he could get blamed for it.

Re:Then why is my program in the business school?

[kiwimate]

You need people who are focused on the information and technology, over the business ramifications. Those are your administrators, architecture managers, systems engineers.

Then you need people who are focused on both the technology and the business ramifications. Those are the business analysts and the managers.

If you don't have both, you're lost. Technology doesn't exist for its own ends; it exists to further the business. Someone needs to understand that.

Re:Then why is my program in the business school?

[DamnStupidElf]

Are Shipping Operations Managers hired from the driver pool or the mechanic pool?

That depends; are all the trucks mechanically sound with a low amount of downtime when repairs are necessary, or are deliveries completed accurately and on time without accidents? Hire competent people; they will generally be competent at their new job as well. If they require training, pay for it, it will be worth it.

Are CFOs hired from tellers or account clerks?
Again, do the tellers keep perfect tills or do books reflect inerrant accuracy? Hire from the best pool of people.

Are hospital administrators selected from the best nursing staff or even the interns?

I work in a hospital and the very best nursing administrators are nurses. The best IT managers came from the ranks of IT.

The problem is that IT people always think that nobody but an IT person can possibly manage an IT department, and MBAs can't possibly understand the needs.

A generic MBA has to spend a lot of time learning the workflow and often they simply don't learn properly. They read trade rags which is the equivalent of an MBA in an investment bank reading the Wall Street Journal or Forbes to learn how to do their job. They think they can trust vendors and even worse trust "industry analysts" from big name vendors. In short; most have a complete misunderstanding of what IT is, how it works, what it costs, how it is actually managed at a technical level, and who should be hired to do that technical management.

You should be reporting to a CIO that has a business background. You should be able to explain why you need that new router or that data center upgrade. If you can't make that case succinctly and factually, and with due regard for cost/benefits involved, then you NEED another layer between you and the board room.

And from which area of expertise do you hire that layer between you and the boardroom? And why wouldn't said area of expertise make an even better CIO?

Re:Then why is my program in the business school?

[galluk]

IMHO If I can go into your company and turn off all you IT infrastructure and your business can keep operating, CEO does not need to understand IT.
If your company cannot operate without IT, why then did you employ a CEO without these core skills

Re:Then why is my program in the business school?

[lightknight]

Wonderous. So there is a positive correlation between gutting the IT department, and the company going bankrupt a few years later.

Re:Then why is my program in the business school?

[Martin Blank]

Actually, K-Mart bought Sears, not the other way around.

Re:Then why is my program in the business school?

[vlad30]

Once a company goes public - quality of work loses all value to those who really run it (people who own shares - and their goal is to sell them for a profit THIS quarter). So what happens ? Nobody cares if the business is bankrupt in a year. What matters is maxing out the profits right now - and you do that by firing all the talent (and selling all the useful assets).

Which is why I've always thought the stock market needs one change

Once bought shares cannot be sold for 2 years

this will

1) make people scrutinise their investments more

2) create a longer term view

3) Stop companies being overvalued due to the above

Re:Then why is my program in the business school?

[mbkennel]

"Are Shipping Operations Managers hired from the driver pool or the mechanic pool?"

They ought to be hired from somebody who has worked in shipping and knows shipping AND operations.

"Are CFOs hired from tellers or account clerks?"

No, they are hired from people who know and train managers and account clerks and have probably earned a CPA or masters in finance.

The head of global R&D is not hired from the electronics techs or the machinists. The head of global R&D is (or should be) hired from the most experienced and successful research scientists, and understands what everybody in the organization should be doing and has sufficient technical knowledge to "BS Check" everything that everybody is doing.

"Are hospital administrators selected from the best nursing staff or even the interns?"

They ought to be selected from the best nurse managers who have learned some substantial amount of business and negotiating experience and also knows how the operations get run. In practice they're hired from immense clutches of soulless demon liches.

Re:Then why is my program in the business school?

[Captain Hook]

Yes, but bear in mind it is only correlation, the execs might be reducing IT staff on the basis that the company is already in trouble and they need to reduce costs to make the short term profit margin look good.

Re:Then why is my program in the business school?

[swb]

This just underscores how the managerial and executive class actually operates like a social hierarchy, much like an actual aristocracy, where spaces are essentially reserved for people in the managerial class and upward mobility is inhibited.

Re:Then why is my program in the business school?

[lightknight]

Still, for those interested in shorting a company stock, doing a quick Google search to see if a company is cutting back on IT should be relatively easy.

Re:Then why is my program in the business school?

[sgtrock]

Nobody, but NOBODY, can afford to turn off IT any more. I don't care if you're Fortune 500 or a poor farmer scratching out a living in the middle of Kenya. If you can't reach the market, you're at a HUGE disadvantage compared to your competition. Guess how those poor farmers are doing it these days?

Conversely

[gatkinso]

CIO's are dismissed as suits without tech savvy by engineering.

Go figure.

Re:Conversely

[TheRaven64]

And most of them are dismissed as suits without business savvy by Wall Street.

The reason CEOs are paid so much is that good ones are rare and they can make a massive difference to a company's performance. Unfortunately, no one seems to have yet worked out how to recognise the good ones (a good CEO for one company won't necessarily be able to run even a fairly similar one nearly as well).

Re:Conversely

[spiffmastercow]

CIOs shouldn't be tech savy. They should be business process and information savy. Likewise, CTOs shouldn't be tech savy. They should be business process foresight savy. CIOs and CTOs have underlings to be tech savy.

I dunno, I think there's inherent value in knowing enough to know when your underlings are bullshitting you.

Re:Conversely

[Anonymous Coward]

How do you know that they're rare? I don't think they're rare. Maybe they're just rare among the people who we choose to take those jobs. The way we generally pick CEOs is to promote people who are the most political, self-promoting, and backstabbing. I would expect leadership and decision making ability to be rare among that group, or at least not higher than the general population. But that isn't meaningful since it's a small sample.

Re:Conversely

[An Onerous Coward]

But if we have no way to distinguish between the good ones and the bad ones, how do you know that good CEOs are rare?

I'd also point out that, while the supply of good CEOs may be small, so is the demand. I mean, c'mon, how many Fortune 500 companies are there?

My suspicion is that, once you eliminate the most obvious ways to run a company badly, it's all a big crap shoot. I mean this in the same way that you don't see heavily managed investment funds outperforming index funds over the long haul. So it's not clear what value is being added.

Re:Conversely

[Anonymous Coward]

I mean, c'mon, how many Fortune 500 companies are there?

500.

Re:Conversely

[amiga3D]

too bad you posted anon, that was worth a few +1 Funnys

Re:Conversely

[shentino]

How about a lot of them just get dismissed (fired) period just because the guy above them in the totem pole is an egomaniac that won't tolerate dissent and is more concerned with milking the company of enough gold to make a parachute out of than the company's long term health.

When you have the power, being a greedy cutthroat in a position to loot the company blind and get away with it is quite profitable.

Re:Conversely

[Shadow99_1]

My career goal is actually to be a CIO and degree wise I have a BIS (Business Information Systems) bachelor's degree and am working on a MBA to go with it. My experience is heavily 'tech savvy', but my training is business heavy... Which I like to think means that while I don't expect to be the one setting up a system or writing code, I should be able to spot things that will be issues and avoid them. I also figure I'll be better at making a business case for things on technical grounds...

My experience with most CIO's at the moment however is that they seem to have poor business or technical backgrounds, for a job that needs both.

Re:Conversely

[interkin3tic]

I believe that would be the joke restated without subtlety.

Re:Conversely

[Anonymous Coward]

I dunno, I think there's inherent value in knowing enough to know when your underlings are bullshitting you.

Yea, just try giving that as an answer to an interview question when asked whether it's important to understand the technology that you'll be managing. The problem is that many non-technical management people, beyond just CEOs, think that you don't really need to understand technology to manage it. They also believe that if you really do understand technology you must not be able to be an effective non-technical manager.

Re:Conversely

[Bigby]

Tech savvy != Understanding technology

They should be business process first, technology second. Not the other way around.

Re:Conversely

[spiffmastercow]

Tech savvy != Understanding technology

They should be business process first, technology second. Not the other way around.

No, a CIO or CTO is inherently a cross-class occupation. You need to know your business *and* your tech. One or the other will not do.

Re:Conversely

[sirlark]

Considering how complex social organisation, including businesses are, single people probably make very little difference. A good CEO that makes a massive difference to company's performance is good because they fit in, make decisions that improve morale (even if they start by firing half the staff). Yes the CEO can make sweeping decisions like axing entire manufacturing lines, but their effectiveness is severely limited when it comes to making the manufacturing line grunts work faster/stronger/better/more agressively. That's why they SUCK at the next job, because it's not the same organisition. The thing is the CEO can only really make the good decisions if they listen to the rest of the organisation.

Re:Conversely

[Solandri]

My suspicion is that, once you eliminate the most obvious ways to run a company badly, it's all a big crap shoot.

It's not a suspicion. The flaw in the free market isn't that it doesn't work, as most anti-market types think. It's that it works too well. As the market becomes more efficient, the relative gains from good decisions become smaller. Meanwhile, the gains (or losses) from random luck stay the same. Eventually you arrive at a state where which company does best is mostly determined by blind luck and slick advertising, not necessarily a better product.

That's why if you plot the behavior of the stock markets, it looks like random noise. They've become so efficient that the random noise far overshadows the market movements due to good/bad decisions. Occasionally there are some blips and outliers which a quick and observant investor can act on, but in general the time spent trying to find those blips isn't worth the return compared to other productive tasks. Which is why index funds are recommended. OTOH you can't just blindly invest in index funds. Otherwise bad investments like mortgage-backed securities can soak up investment dollars without being called out for being bad investments.

Re:Conversely

[Pope]

CEOs are only paid too much because of the short-sighted mentality that started in the 70s, focusing on the value of the share and receiving compensation in share options, as opposed to trying to build a profitable company, The Boomers simply took that to the next logical step in the 80s, where CEOs wanted to be treated like rockstars and become rich & famous.

Re:Conversely

[wickedskaman]

THIS. Also, it helps in setting reasonable expectations compared to management who simply can't understand why a simple technology request can't just be done in a day.

Re:Conversely

[Archangel Michael]

Well, if you think about it .. the number of companies in the country, and divide it by the number of the companies making enough money and you then subtract out all the ones left that aren't doing very well ...

(for reference see http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qhm7-LEBznk&safety_mode=true&persist_safety_mode=1&safe=active )

Re:Conversely

[gtall]

No, there is a way, it is called the Board of Directors. However, if the Board is made up a patsies for management, well, then there's no adult watching over the management. It's disgusting how modern Corporate has distorted their environment make it guaranteed to produce massive screwups.

Re:Conversely

[The_Other_Kelly]

Sadly, I was that CIO ... twice. Small companies, but still true.

CIO is just First Technical Idiot in the eyes of the "Wise Guy" CEO. ...

I have no answers ...

Re:Conversely

[firex726]

Yea, it seems like start up CEO, and the like do pretty well, but then you bring in a stereotypical one and it all crumbles.

Re:Conversely

[lightknight]

Efficiency only works if everyone is playing by the agreed upon rules; this is where things break down -> someone is always changing the rules.

Who wants to play a game of chess where your opponent gets to change the rules randomly, and to his / her benefit? And there's the rub: there are no rules. You all agree on outlawing theft, and your opponent plays the eminent domain card. You all agree on outlawing murder, and your opponent plays the accidental death card. The only thing you all agree on is that you can do whatever you like, but your opponent must play by the rules you have decided upon.

I liken it all to a giant casino, where you are compelled to place bets, but can never leave. Of course, the door is always there, but it's hidden behind a bunch of false walls, and hasn't been used much in its lifetime.

Re:Conversely

[ppanon]

Nothing wrong with that, but those are bottom line (cost) preoccupations. They don't do much for the top line (revenues).

That's because a) we're in a contracting/static economy and b) IT is primarily a cost centre. If there's no opportunity to grow the business because your customers aren't buying, then containing costs are going to be your primary concern because forcing customers to buy more by armed threats is frowned upon. Now certainly, if marketing can figure out some need of the customers that can be filled with IT's help and will help drive sales, then IT should be all over it like ugly on an ape. However most of IT's job is going to be about cost containment - right now virtualization and data centre consolidation is an easy win providing bigger ROI than anything else on the plate.

Re:Conversely

[rnturn]

``but then you bring in a stereotypical one and it all crumbles.''

Instead of ``you bring in'' I think you meant to say ``the venture capitalists bring in''. The horror stories I've read all seem to involve a well-run company that the VCs want to grow larger. Of course, the VCs have a guy in mind to manage the company to the ``next level''. Unfortunately, once this guy takes charge things go downhill.

Re:Conversely

[Jedi Alec]

In that case either the CIO is a really poor judge of character or every single one of his underlings is a bullshit artist.

At some point an executive has to figure who the folks are that he can trust to give him(m/f) the right answer, instead of the one he wants to hear. If you can't trust the folks working for you not to bullshit you, you're in deep shit.

Re:Conversely

[porksauce]

I tried multi-classing but I was levelling up too slowly so I re-rolled.

They are INFORMATION officers!

[masteva]

If you want business information, get your business analysts on the phone and ask them what is up. The CIO is there to keep your tech going strong with the company interests at heart, NOT to run the business with some tech input on the side. Gotta love the CEO perspective on things!

Re:They are INFORMATION officers!

[geekoid]

Common misconception.

The CIO there is to assure share holders that the infrastructure is solid. He is there to assure Customers that the infrastructure is sound and wont' be a problem. Optimally they will convince the customer that the infrastructure is better the competitors.
He creates a plan to see the the infrastructure meets current needs, m and knows when to expand to meet trending needs.

The CIO employees people who keep the tech going strong. The CIO also needs to spin technology failures in a disarming manner.
The CIO needs to know when tis optimal to buy equipment based on Tax, budget, depreciation, and more importantly, buy thetech at the sweet spot in the curve.

If you do RnD you need to know how to sell purchases for projects that may not pay off.

CIO is a social job, not a nerd job.

Re:They are INFORMATION officers!

[Gilmoure]

Yup, and this is where ITSM is heading; IT needs to view their plans and activities in light of business needs and objectives. And they need to know how to talk the talk of the business strategists. With the right analysis of things, IT can show how it's generating/saving income for the company but too often, this isn't done. Business people want numbers so give 'me numbers.

Re:They are INFORMATION officers!

[idiotnot]

Pretty much. In most organizations is a parasitic function; the organization's main role isn't propagation of IT systems. Nor is the organization's role good free coffee, clean restrooms, etc. They're things that increase productivity towards core business functions. IT people lose sight of that.

Infosec people are worse about it; infosec is a parasitic function to a parasitic function.

Re:They are INFORMATION officers!

[jedidiah]

By your definition an engineer at a factory is a parasitic function.

No business skills

[Phocks]

Because, as we all know, infrastructure and technological development/deployment requires no management, creativity, or strategic planning whatsoever.

IT = Janitorial Services

[icebike]

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.

In some companies this is in fact the proper place for IT services. If all a company's use of computer technology is merely to process letters and reports, fill out time sheets, and read email you really don't need to attributed a great deal of status or power to the IT staff.

But who uses computers that way any more? Only really small business. Restaurants, plumbers, small stores, small law firms, etc.

IT departments have a problem of perception, because the better they do their job (without being total dickheads about it) the less they get noticed, and the more they become perceived as mere Archivists or telephone repairmen. Its almost like management needs an emergency or outage every 4 years to remind them just how much of their business relies on their IT.

That being said, unless your IT is customer facing (internet services or sales, etc) the perception that CIOs do not bring new business is reasonably valid. They may help you keep the business you have, but just about nothing IT can do will sell one more unit of product, or add one new customer. IT that is not customer facing is in fact still a support service. Support services tend not to make business decisions or grow the company.

So maybe pushing CIOs into the front office and the boardroom was not always warranted. And maybe in a lot of companies they still don't belong there. And maybe CIOs should not be hired from technical backgrounds.

Re:IT = Janitorial Services

[wierd_w]

In light of the increasing hacktivism, blackhat activities for purely financial reasons, and the negative press many corporations have been getting recently, it sounds like the CIO needs to get in touch with the director of marketing, and hatch a joint PR venture to scoop up customers burned by the competition's lax IT policies.

Eg, "did corporation X's shoddy security put your credit card through some crook's ATM? Here at corporation Y, we have proactively taken (enumerated technical steps) precautions and enacted aggressive protections to ensure that our customers are never put at risk, if we can at all prevent it. Our firm (big pr saber rattling shpeel)... ...(marketing shpeel about growth)... ...(blatant investor cuddling)...

Corporation Y, (company slogan)!"

That gives the CIO a hard datapoint about how his department is focused on the "business agenda" that the cocaine and sex addled CEO can understand.

Re:IT = Janitorial Services

[TheRaven64]

But who uses computers that way any more? Only really small business. Restaurants, plumbers, small stores, small law firms, etc.

Not even then. I just ordered a pizza from a local shop. The have a tracking system for each stage of pizza delivery (order processing, preparation, cooking, delivery) and shows you online where your order is in that sequence, and sends an automated SMS when the pizza goes out for delivery. They almost certainly use a GPS route finding system for their delivery people to take the pizzas, and may use a slightly more complex version to decide whether to send out multiple pizzas on a single run.

Small companies are often among the first to adopt new technology into their work flow, because hiring an extra employee is a massive expense for them, while tweaking an automated system is a lot cheaper.

Re:IT = Janitorial Services

[icebike]

IT needs to stay in IT. The last thing we need is for them to join marketing.
Wouldn't you really rather have them hardening your own installation rather then having them trying to publicly grandstand on a failure of the competition? Doesn't that simply make YOUR company more of a target?

Does Stratfor ring any bells?

Re:IT = Janitorial Services

[icebike]

Sure, but those guys are just using an off the shelf package for this. Any mom-and-pop company can use those, without a CIO, or even a single IT guy.

The big chains, yeah, they have and need an IT department, but unless its customer facing (web based pizza ordering, with smart phone apps, etc) that guy is not bringing in new customers.

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:IT = Janitorial Services

[NeutronCowboy]

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.

IT that is not customer facing is in fact still a support service.

I think you've fallen into the same perception trap that you correctly outlined in your first sentenced.
I might be biased, having spent most of my professional life in the IT guts of various companies, but here's how I see it:
* IT does indeed have a perception problem, and it centers two items: people only see IT's impact when things go wrong, and they don't realize what IT can do for them
* IT's perception problems can only be resolved at the strategic level, and that's where a CIO/CTO earns his keep.

The way I look at IT and at how it is used/implemented in various places, it is the single biggest driver for efficiency across all departments. No other department is as singularly responsible for allowing people to do the work they're hired to do. Think about what would happen if email disappers (and isn't replaced by some similar technology): sales would grind to a halt very quickly. And that's just a tiny aspect. Want data about how sales is doing? IT needs to be involved to get at the data, store the data, and maintain the tools used to display the data. Want data about absenteeism? IT to the rescue. And so on. IT holds the keys to everything in a company - if it is done correctly.

As a result, if IT is looked at strictly as a cost center, that's a failing of both the head of IT to properly position what his/her department is doing, and a failing of the other executives to understand what data they need to do their job and to ask IT for it. In my opinion, IT drives efficiency. That requires data, tools, and savvy head of IT who can sell the capabilities of IT. It is possible to relegate IT to the role of a high-tech janitor, but you're missing out.

Re:IT = Janitorial Services

[roeguard]

This.

I think a lot of CIOs, and IT managers of all stripes, don't understand that there is a difference between just "keeping things working" and actually adding value to the organization as it pursues its market strategy. Typically, I try to spend at least half my time looking for ways for IT to actually add value to other silos. This involves a lot of "fuzzy people" time, learning what those roles do, and how the people in those roles "feel" about their work. When you spend the time to get to know your company, you discover not only ways to make things substantially better for everyone, but you also discover those pesky metrics that demonstrate the value you bring to the bottom line.

In summary, a lot of IT should be very non-technical, very visible, and have results that can be easily quantified into added value and productivity for the company -- exactly what a CEO wants to see out of any department. Its the difference between being good, and being great.

Re:IT = Janitorial Services

[Grishnakh]

Please tell me you're looking for a new job.

Re:IT = Janitorial Services

[gl4ss]

what they're bitching about is that they expect their cio's to hand over them the next facebook on a golden platter. _that's_ the "business decision" they want.

Re:IT = Janitorial Services

[Billly Gates]

I started a flamewar a few times with that argument here that sales make money you cost money. Therefore you should not get paid that much etc.

But in a very large enterprise you get efficiency by leaving 2 million line excel spreadsheets all over the network to a centralized database program. ERP saves time and money instead of hiring a bunch of college kids to call people and ask questions when a remote internet/intranet app integrated can solve this saving money. What about about increased security and reliability by switching from IE 6 to IE 10/Windows Server 2012?

What about demand forecasting and inventory management?

The CEOs who made it by cutting costs and only using Excel as accountants before their promotions do not see this. It is pennywide but dollar dumb to not view technology as it is so used so much in large environments. No one ever got ahead by cutting costs, not investing, and trying to win by staying behind. The problem lies both with GAAP being viewed as set stone and a holy grail. And CEOs where were former Finance and Accounting gurus who in the past were not made CEOs and who use GAAP rather than common sense for every business decision.

Its like a cookie cutter these days if you watch TV shows like UnderCover Boss. Everytime they go undercover they say "I will look for ways to find cost over runs and find inefficiences" only to find angry underpaid and overworked employees and costs going up due to too little investment by the cheapstakes in the corporate headquarters.

One of these days another code red will come that will take down corporations causing billions in damages that will be all using IE 6/XP after 2014. The damage will not be hit to those who are already modern and then the real costs of being outdated will show. You do not see companies who have vechicles with 200k miles or machines that are well past their live still in production? Yet their computer systems are. That is just plain stupid.

Re:IT = Janitorial Services

[JaredOfEuropa]

The question is not if IT is customer facing or bringing in new business; the question is if technology needs to be discussed at board level. Those aren't discussions about buying iPhones vs. Androids for staff, nor is it about buying IT stuff at the right price or making the right purchasing deals; it is about technological developments or decisions that can have an impact on the company strategy or internal workings of the company. If you use IT for bookkeeping and handling orders, then your IT just needs to work, and there's probably no need for a CIO at the board level. But if you're a knowledge-intensive, innovative company, then your edge may depend on adopting new tech to do and manage your business differently. You may need a CIO for that, and a good one isn't a business person nor a techy, but a bit of both. If you're going to discuss the impact of technology on your business strategy, you need to know about business, your business, as well as have very strong knowledge of what is happening out there in tech land. I've seen strong performers in such roles from both technical and business backgrounds, but all the good ones have a very keen interest in technology, and the wherewithal to understand it at least at a high level.

Re:IT = Janitorial Services

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, I'm keeping my options open, though I'm not aggressively looking right now due to some personal & financial reasons. But as soon as I get some of those things tied up... you bet. I'm low-UID slashdotter here (under 10k) posting anon for obvious reasons.

The above story is only the beginning of the story, really. I've joked that maybe there should be a large wall somewhere in the building that can be alternatively either torn down or rebuilt again every six months or so... again I've only been at this job for 6yrs or so, and I've watched a part of a warehouse (attached to office) get transformed from storage for [primary product], then a new mail office (three walls, roof, windows and doors inside the warehouse), that new office torn down, build a new mock showroom, then that was torn down, and most recently the company's fitness center was moved there (its third location since I started). Yeah, now people walking from the locker rooms (connected to the fitness center in the first incarnation) must now potentially cross forklift traffic. It's asinine.

Re:IT = Janitorial Services

[gizmonic]

They may help you keep the business you have, but just about nothing IT can do will sell one more unit of product, or add one new customer.

Umm, what?!?! Even if IT isn't customer facing, they can still make internal tools and resources to help the salesforce. Sure, IT itself may never make a sale directly, but when the sales person in the field is able to pull up data and information compiled by IT, or use a tool IT created, to help land a customer, then IT most certainly did in fact do something to help sell more product.

Personally, I think the bigger issue is the historical disconnect between IT and Sales. The CEO feels that and it lessens the perceived value of IT. But, when IT and Sales can work together, you can create some extremely powerful sales tools that will absolutely impact revenue. And when you do, the CEO will take notice. But that requires a CIO and IT staff that can work with Sales to help get that done.

At my company, if Sales has an ask, we talk and see how to best do what they're looking for. And if I think of something that might be useful, I'll approach Sales and ask if my idea would be of any use to them. If so, we'll hammer out details and add it to the project list. And because of that willingness to work together, we've created stuff that absolutely drives business. And that flexibility has kept my whole team employed through 4 different buyouts over the past 10 years.

Yes, IT has to keep the servers up and the desktops running and virus free, and that's not glamorous, and doesn't make for spectacular headlines. But IT can go far beyond that, and needs to if it wants a serious place in the business beyond just "janitors." And maybe if the CIO doesn't understand that, then the CEO's derision is justified.

Re:IT = Janitorial Services

[icebike]

Typically, I try to spend at least half my time looking for ways for IT to actually add value to other silos. This involves a lot of "fuzzy people" time, learning what those roles do, and how the people in those roles "feel" about their work. When you spend the time to get to know your company, you discover not only ways to make things substantially better for everyone

Most people would be surprised just how many alligators are lurking in un-drained swamps in companies that thought they had a smoothly functioning IT department. Walking around and talking to people, and watching them do their job, you find all sorts of these things.

Like the clerk taking numbers off of a screen and filling in a report or a spread sheet that someone needs in order to submit a government form or process an order for parts or something similar. Or the entire off-computer book keeping operation done in some office to obscure office re-entering orders or bills that were already entered by someone else. Or one department painstakingly putting together a spreadsheet and sending it to another department for manual data extraction simply because one department couldn't access the data they were obligated to use.

Its like the overflowing closet, the door people don't want to open. Nobody wants to fill in the work order to have it automated, they just suffer through it.
But if the right guy from IT wanders by and understands the problem it can usually be automated in under an hour.

Re:IT = Janitorial Services

[dkleinsc]

Here's where a CIO at a non-tech company can add value: By saving money in other departments. For instance, the CIO can come to the CEO and say "For $100,000, I can replace this process that's been handled by a team of 10 people with a computer and 1 person, resulting in an annual savings of $700,000." That should make the CEO very happy.

The problem, of course, is that that kind of work isn't as glamourous as pulling in new revenue, but reducing costs should be a good way to demonstrate value to the bottom line.

Re:IT = Janitorial Services

[MechanicJay]

Actually, many trucking firms put 1,000,000 + on their vehicles before retiring them. UPS, in particular are fanatical about maintenance, and the brown trucks are good for 20-25 years of delivery service...

But your point is otherwise valid.

Re:IT = Janitorial Services

[Anonymous Coward]

if Sales has an ask

Why must people talk this way?

Re:IT = Janitorial Services

[Billly Gates]

Wouldnt the cost increase to offset the savings? A new van would not have to be in a shop for 6 months!

A 400k van would need daily checks and weekly maintanence

Re:IT = Janitorial Services

[captain_nifty]

Are you crazy! Did you even think of how the extra costs would effect the quarterly stock price?
Clearly you lack the business sense/experience necessary to be a C level executive.

Re:IT = Janitorial Services

[DaveGod]

Refreshing post. While most of the comments on this topic have simply lashed out with the usual bleat about "MBAs" (even samzenpus couldn't resist putting something snide into the submission), PHB CEO's and various other acronym, someone finally picked up that the article is talking about strategy.

If this thread were any indication, it would validate the claims made in the article. Few comments indicate an understanding of what strategy is.

For most businesses, IT is support. There's very little opportunity to contribute to strategy. The expertise is technical and objectives are internal. Strategy is about vision and is primarily concerned with external forces. When the market or supply chain changes, what's IT's read on that? How are we going to respond to take advantage of the new opportunities, and minimise the downside risk? There's unlikely to be much to respond with since the department does not regularly interact with customers or suppliers.

The question is why the presumption that IT should be strategic? Why the anger when someone says it's not? It doesn't equate to saying IT isn't important. IT often is utterly critical, but that doesn't mean it's strategic.

Re:IT = Janitorial Services

[Anonymous Coward]

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

I don't care what Corporate tells you. Porn isn't considered part of the fitness industry.

Re:IT = Janitorial Services

[ridley4]

Not if the 400k van has a 50k engine and a recently overhauled transmission. Repair isn't always a bandaid so that it just barely works again. It's called proper maintenance.

Re:IT = Janitorial Services

[lightknight]

Indeed. Not everyone waits until the wheel squeaks to give it the oil.

Re:IT = Janitorial Services

[Cederic]

For most businesses, IT is support. There's very little opportunity to contribute to strategy. The expertise is technical and objectives are internal. Strategy is about vision and is primarily concerned with external forces

Welcome to the Internet, a technical concept that's utterly changed the dynamics of multiple industries. Get on board or go out of business.

See also: Borders, Best Buy, various media companies.

Right now banks are facing a troubling future. Part of that is drastically increased regulation but part of it is the threat from new low-cost transactional mechanisms being explored by non-bank institutions. If you're a bank that doesn't know where the mobile payments market is headed then you could be out of business in five years.

IT is strategic because IT is a competitive differentiator in innovative areas and a mandatory competitive enabler in most other areas.

Neglect IT investment and you're fucked.

Re:IT = Janitorial Services

[wierd_w]

The implication was that you do both.

IT does its end, marketing does its end. The result is a position and political stunt that attracts customers, and builds brand reputation.

The CIO =! IT infrastructure. He represents the guy at the board meeting who condenses hundreds of incident reports, purchase requisition forms, etc, into a 10 second soundbyte for the CEO and the other board members.

The cio is NOT fixing the damned laser printer for mabel in accounting. That's what bob is for.

The cio is who tells bob to make sure that chinese malware isn't running on mabel's cheap asian built multifunction fax/scanner/printer/copier. Bob is the one who actually does it.

Bob is IT. The CIO isn't.

Re:IT = Janitorial Services

[Elky Elk]

Well the US is good at two things, software and pizza delivery.

This is a Bad Thing ?

[redelm]

So many CEOs don't like CIOs? And resort to namecalling? They reveal themselves ...

Such CEOs are very arrogant and resentful of any nay-sayers. Even when the objections are based on physics or established computing capabilities.

The problem is such CEOs have gotten to where they are by pushing people around, and believe physics can be similarly pushed. Sorry, but it won't even notice.

Re:This is a Bad Thing ?

[archen]

Such CEOs are very arrogant and resentful of any nay-sayers. Even when the objections are based on physics or established computing capabilities.

Seems like that's what it really comes down to. A CIO has the unfortunate reality of dealing with the complexity of computers, mashed in with the political stupidity foisted on what they do, plus upper management thinking computer technology is magic fucking pixy dust that "just happens". It doesn't seem like a CIO is special when a CEO doesn't like being told "that's not possible", but is stuck in that position more often than others by the nature of their job.

Re:This is a Bad Thing ?

[redelm]

Precisely. And this is very d@mning of CEOs, who ought to value diverse opinions and strong characters. A good CEO will want people who keep her from scr3wing up, not people who will help him down a known dead-end.

Re:This is a Bad Thing ?

[Anon-Admin]

It doesn't seem like a CIO is special when a CEO doesn't like being told "that's not possible", but is stuck in that position more often than others by the nature of their job.

That is easily fixed. Absolutely everything can be done. In 20 years of IT I have never said "that's not possible"

It all boils down to

How much do you want to spend?

When they ask for something that is not possible with the existing equipment or man power, I simple work up what it will take. New equipment, number of people, how long to build/deploy/develop, etc. And send them the price and a high level overview of the project.

They want everything but , there is always a budget and it boils down to what they can get for the amount they want to pay.

Your options are always
1) Good
2) Fast
3) Cheep

You only get to pick 2 of the three.

Re:This is a Bad Thing ?

[urusan]

The problem is when they demand good, fast, and cheap. Then your only choice is to tell them "that's not possible".

Also, there are some things that simply aren't possible regardless of the resources thrown at it. Within our field, the task of solving undecidable or large NP-complete problems is a no go. They could also ask for something ridiculous (just after WWII a military man asked Richard Feynmann to develop a tank that ran on dirt, so they could scoop up fuel as they moved along) or something way outside of the realm of current possibility (like interstellar travel). Someone ignorant of technology could always potentially ask for something like this, and if that happens it is your responsibility to stop them from shooting themselves in the foot.

That said, your advice is pretty pragmatic for the most part. Telling your boss that it's not possible will put them on the defensive, especially if it really is possible and you just think it's a bad idea. It's better to phrase it in terms they understand ($$$) and let them realize just how silly it is. It should be an accurate estimate in case they decide to forge ahead, but remember to add in some extra cost if there is any uncertainty or research that needs to be completed.

Re:This is a Bad Thing ?

[benjamindees]

Absolutely everything can be done. In 20 years of IT I have never said "that's not possible"

You've never had a manager ask you to prevent competitors from copying pictures off your website?

Re:This is a Bad Thing ?

[Cederic]

..but that is possible. Of course, your manager may not like the option of "Then don't post pictures on the website".

In IT, everything is possible. Most of it just isn't affordable.

Re:This is a Bad Thing ?

[jezwel]

Submit a high level brief explaining the underlying technology, then add a possible solution where your company arranges to have legislation implemented in every country to ensure performing this act is a criminal offense, plus presuade every web browser developer/manufacturer to disable this functionality in their tools - maybe via large ca$h injections.

Highly infeasible, but not 100% impossible.

I guess after your manager reads the underlying sarcasm you may need to be looking for another job though...

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:That's the point

[geekoid]

Too many CIO get bogged down into detail they shouldn't care about. To busy explaining why X is a good technology instead of explaining how X is good for the business direction.

Re:That's the point

[Tassach]

Too many CIO get bogged down into detail they shouldn't care about.

That's true of any (bad) leader. Micromanagement is almost always bad leadership. A good leader needs to know how (and what) to delegate; having a solid understanding of the fundamentals of what you are delegating is essential in being able to delegate effectively.

They're right

[msobkow]

Clearly anyone who tells the CEO something can't or shouldn't be done can't be doing so because of technical limitations, but simply because they don't share the CEO's brilliant business savvy.
</SARCASM>

"breadth of business perspectives"

[PeanutButterBreath]

Sounds like these CEOs define "breadth of business perspectives" as "various confirmations of my perspective".

Who selects the CIO?

[timeOday]

Are the CEOs allowing HR to dictate who is their CIO, or does the board choose the CIO, or what? It seems like if anybody would be in the best position to put the right person in as CIO, it would be the CEO.

Re:Who selects the CIO?

[alexander_686]

Normally the CEO picks the C Level employees and the board rubber stamps the selection. The board has a little more sway over Finance and Compliance (If they have one) because these should have more independence from the CEO .

However, there are no set, formal rules. In reality the CEO helps pick the board that’s going to supervise him, so there that.

For example, the board can fire anybody they want. If the CEO backs CIO A, and the board fires A and hires B, what does that mean for the working relationship between the board, CEO and CIO? Boards should be setting goals and standards for the CEO. They should not be engaged in trench warfare. If that happens, the CEO normally goes.

Re:Who selects the CIO?

[Local ID10T]

C-level positions are usually appointed by the board.

While the CEO is the leader among the C-levels, each C-level generally has their own mandate and goals as laid out by the board.

Re:Who selects the CIO?

[Billly Gates]

The CEO does have the power to fire or just eliminate the position entirely too. The CIO is not on the board technically and is an independent position.

Infact, there is a huge push to get rid of this position as sales is much more important than that lowly cost center known as IT getting in the way of the CEO bonuses.

IT is heavily undervalued and is the exact opposite of 10 years ago when companies were in a competition to boast productivity to get ahead. Now productivity is measured by the least amount of workers doing the most amount of work while infrastructure freezes and falls apart while the focus is on sales and cost cutting only.

It's just a stupid title

[doston]

Imdustry shouldn't have followed the government's lead when they instituted titles like that. Is industry going to start using the term Tsar soon, too? Or maybe they want their CIOs to multitask and also work as bean counters now. Kind of like industry wants me to design systems, administer them AND be able to program like a pro. Everybody needs to do more to ensure we keep that unemployment rate high, employment insecurity high, fear levels high and wages real LOW, right? "According to the Computer History Museum, the C-level position for IT is believed to have started in military and government, then becoming adopted by industry. William Synnott and William Gruber get credit for coining the term in 1981."

They would say that, wouldn't they.

[Anonymous Coward]

CIOs are in charge of a giant cost center. That a section of the business where money goes to die. The CEO's POV is that anyone who can't make a profit for the company is lacking in business sense. This, of course, misses the point entirely. However, when you take into account who the inevitable audience is (the board and the shareholders) for every single thought, word and deed of every single CEO, the comments make perfect sense. No CEO worth his $10 million salary would ever say that anyone who loses company money has business sense.

In the end a good CEO knows you don't hire a CIO based on their business sense or even their technical know-how. You Hire them based on their ability to successfully deliver on technology promises. That's more a project-leader thing and not something CEOs are known to do very well. Its the same with CFOs. You hire them based on their ability to know exactly where the money went, is going, and will go. Again, not a trait CEOs are famous for.

Re:They would say that, wouldn't they.

[Anon-Admin]

CIOs are in charge of a giant cost center. That a section of the business where money goes to die. The CEO's POV is that anyone who can't make a profit for the company is lacking in business sense.

Every time I hear how IT is a cost center and does not make money for the company I love to point out that accounting is also a cost center and does not make money for the company.

Guess it is time to save the company money and lay off accountants.

Re:They would say that, wouldn't they.

[Billly Gates]

Mod up!

The current age of CEOs are all former accountants and finance professionals who moved up by fudging the books to boast the shareprice and cutting costs.

Not innovating like the old days.

Whenever I hear aliagns with the goals of the company that is newspeak for This guy needs only to focus on cutting cost and stop telling me to upgrade from IE 6 and Windows 2000 that it is somehow a liability. After all IT is just word and excel. It is not like specialized apps exist right??

The CIO then gets shit canned by IT directors and support asking why can't they upgrade their 10 year old XP/IE 6 desktops with 512 megs of ram that takes 10 minutes to boot up and is loaded with malware when they net in $2 billion a year? The CEO doesn't see the lost productivity in that and just focuses on GAAP rules as the holy grail of what is an investment and what is a cost with no shades of gray. So the CIO gets shit canned from the top to the bottom. Sounds like a crappy job if you ask me.

Re:They would say that, wouldn't they.

[LordLucless]

Every time I hear how IT is a cost center and does not make money for the company I love to point out that accounting is also a cost center and does not make money for the company.

Unless you're a Hollywood studio.

College

[SJHillman]

In college, all of the IT degrees were part of the School of Business rather than the School of Technology - and all of the professors preached that while tech is cool, it's useless if it doesn't help the business. So far in my professional career, I've found that to always be the case.

Re:Let's "reverse the field" on them then

[dyingtolive]

I think I understand what you're trying to say, but can you express it in a hosts file analogy so I can be sure?

CIO aren't douchey enough

[Ralph Spoilsport]

He said "they were perceived as unable to bring a breadth of business perspective to the table."

In English, this means, CIO's aren't percieved as being at the same level of power mad greedy fuck headed douchebaggery as CEOs.

Not all CIO's are mere techies

[bbbaldie]

At my previous job at a family-owned billion dollar company, the CIO was far from a techie. As a matter of fact, he knew next to nothing about IT. Come to think of it, he didn't know much about business, either.

However, he WAS a friend of the family. Hmm...

Where does this conclusion come from?

[Grygus]

What questions were asked to reach this conclusion? Does Gartner administer essay question-style surveys? Because I don't see how the data we have fits that interpretation, necessarily.

CEOs say their companies will grow, and that the CIO won't get more important. Couldn't that be because the CIO's role, as King of IT, is already as important as it can be? I also don't see where CEOs were asked anything about their CIO's business savvy.

It seems completely made up. What am I missing?

"CIOs appear to be failing in the eyes of CEOs"

[Anonymous Coward]

That's okay CEOs appear to be failing in the eyes of everyone else.

I never did understand why executive management is considered so much more important than other roles or deserving of so much more pay. They specialize in communication, they communicate with other departments and other organizations, that's their job.

How is that skill any more demanding or important than a technical skill?

Last time I checked a decent IT degree requires just as much if not more work than an MBA, there is also a glut of MBAs out there looking for work. So what makes executive management any less replaceable?

Re:"CIOs appear to be failing in the eyes of CEOs"

[Dcnjoe60]

That's okay CEOs appear to be failing in the eyes of everyone else.

I never did understand why executive management is considered so much more important than other roles or deserving of so much more pay. They specialize in communication, they communicate with other departments and other organizations, that's their job.

How is that skill any more demanding or important than a technical skill?

Last time I checked a decent IT degree requires just as much if not more work than an MBA, there is also a glut of MBAs out there looking for work. So what makes executive management any less replaceable?

Probably because the business courses somebody took 20 years ago are still useful today, whereas the computer science courses are not. Also, it is harder to off-shore executive functions than it is technical ones.

That is the best case scenario

[Atrox666]

We have a completely technically inept (as in can't work his own computer) CIO.
It's like having your plumber doing brain surgery.

In other words

[Billly Gates]

To the typical CEO of today, the Sales VPs make money while IT costs money.

CEO: All the CIOs keep saying we should waste money upgrading from IE 6 and our crappy Windows 2000 servers. All IT does is cost money money and I can't raise the share price by staying ahead of the competition when I can just let my infrastructure fall apart and lead by saving money and not innovating. Waaa CIOS suck

CEO: What?! What do you mean my IPAD can't display that IE 6 app properly? I pay for the state of the art outsourced development team. bla bla

Typical BS from CEOs who got promoted up for being good cost accountants with only an eye for increasing efficiency and cutting cost while not saying the forest from the trees.

20 years ago CEOs were former engineers and product developers. They understood investments and did not focus on just costs. WHenever I hear failing to be alianged with the needs of the business. I just picture someone being cheap and thinking all IT is good for is help desk and word and excel. Not anything else like database, ERP, or anything else that adds value. Its just a cost and nothing else.

Re:In other words

[Dcnjoe60]

To the typical CEO of today, the Sales VPs make money while IT costs money.

CEO: All the CIOs keep saying we should waste money upgrading from IE 6 and our crappy Windows 2000 servers. All IT does is cost money money and I can't raise the share price by staying ahead of the competition when I can just let my infrastructure fall apart and lead by saving money and not innovating. Waaa CIOS suck

CEO: What?! What do you mean my IPAD can't display that IE 6 app properly? I pay for the state of the art outsourced development team. bla bla

Typical BS from CEOs who got promoted up for being good cost accountants with only an eye for increasing efficiency and cutting cost while not saying the forest from the trees.

20 years ago CEOs were former engineers and product developers. They understood investments and did not focus on just costs. WHenever I hear failing to be alianged with the needs of the business. I just picture someone being cheap and thinking all IT is good for is help desk and word and excel. Not anything else like database, ERP, or anything else that adds value. Its just a cost and nothing else.

If the CIO cannot make a business case to upgrade from IE 6 or Windows 2000 or that the CEO can understand the need, then maybe they shouldn't be the CIO. Likewise, a CEO who only focuses on costs shouldn't be a CEO. Such an organization with either of these types has a much bigger problem.

Re:In other words

[Billly Gates]

The problem is that is the attitude for 70% of the fortune 500 companies. Not just a few isolated companies. Its hard to write a business case where the risks are non tangible and cant have an exact number in Excel. Savings are tangible and can be shown.

Worse Wall street loves these CEOs as they cause variation which their HFT supercomputers can short. They make money either way and a large increase and fall of shareprice makes the investors happy. Not long term growth

Re:In other words

[Dcnjoe60]

The problem is that is the attitude for 70% of the fortune 500 companies. Not just a few isolated companies. Its hard to write a business case where the risks are non tangible and cant have an exact number in Excel. Savings are tangible and can be shown.

Worse Wall street loves these CEOs as they cause variation which their HFT supercomputers can short. They make money either way and a large increase and fall of shareprice makes the investors happy. Not long term growth

You answered your own problem. CEOs make money, CIOs don't. Businesses are in business to make money (unless they are non-profits). Wallstreet and shareholders recognize this. If the CIO can't make a business case for replacing old, obsolete software and hardware, then he/she isn't a very good CIO. The fleet manager, usually without all of the education and training a CIO has, is able to make a business case for replacing vehicles.

Every dollar a business spends should be viewed as an investment with a return (ROI). If a business has a greater ROI by spending dollars on replacing trucks than it does buying ipads, then the smart thing is to replace the trucks. Sometimes it's just dumb luck and the ipads (or whatever technology spending is required) are requested at the same time something with an obviously greater ROI is needed and dollars are scarce (kind of like the Oscars when most years there aren't any good movies and then in one year two or three really good ones are up for best picture). Often, though, it isn't timing and it is simply a lousy CIO who can't build a could use case for the technology, but knows that everybody else is doing it so they should be, too. He/she is right, they should be too, but if they don't really know how or why to deploy, they won't every have a good ROI and it will be another failed project with money down the toilet.

When money is plentiful, it is easy to be speculative on projects (just look at the dot com 90s). However, when the enevitable bubble bursts, your company better have a CIO that knows your business and can evaluate projects and their expected ROI. I mean, just because someone is successful, say at Pepsi, doesn't mean they will be successful, say at Apple. It takes both knowing business and the business at hand.

Re:In other words

[Red Flayer]

while not saying the forest from the trees.

The saying is "cannot see the forest for the trees".

I'll not address your point except to say that I believe your opinion is not always applicable, it depends on the company, and in the long run poorly run companies will fail and be replaced.

IT should be in a tech / trade school?

[Joe_Dragon]

also case in point is the CS people who don't have real work place tech skills but do have a lot theory.

Re:IT should be in a tech / trade school?

[lightknight]

Lol, no. While a fair number of people liken IT to a trade, reality dictates otherwise.

Re:Sure troll, here you go

[dyingtolive]

It was very petty of me, and for that I apologize, but thank you for indulging me. :)

CIO should not have to function as CTO

[wmelnick]

If a CIO is being looked at this way, perhaps the CIO is functioning more as a CTO, handling technical details, than a CIO. If a company has only one of these psotions, then the CIO will naturally have to take care of the CTO duties and will likely have little time to devote to a CIO's duties, which are far more business-oriented.

CEO's dismissing CIO's over being too Techie

[Evisscerator]

CEO's do not understand the ROLE that CIO's play. Sure, it would help if the CIO had some business experience, however, most CIO's are TECH's that have grown up into those positions. CIO's understand that the heart and nerve center of every business that uses and utilities IT infrastructures, CEO's don't ... they only care about the bottom line and the profit they generate. IT runs everything in this world. Water, Electric, Gas supplies, traffic lights, security cameras and so on. If we took a dive back 70-100 years, people wouldn't know how to work or how to act or how to conduct business because IT has made their lives so much easier (yet more complicated).

That's funny

[GameboyRMH]

CIOs are often dismissed as business types without tech savvy by techies.

Re:That's funny

[Skapare]

Those are the companies that are already failing. Now we're gonna have a new crop of companies doomed to fail.

It's OK to have a non-techie CIO ...

[Skapare]

... if he/she will fully respect the techies they hire to make the technical decisions. I'd rather it be that way. I hate playing guessing games with budgets.

The problem with CEOs..

[whitroth]

The real problem is the MBA degree, which i've been saying for 30 years is destroying the US. They're the ones with "long-term thinking" == "next quarter".

In terms specifically of IT, I recently realized that the major problem was the complete idiocy, started AFAIK in the 80's, of declaring each part of the company "profit" or "cost" centers. Everywhere I've worked, if they had that, they kept trying to make IT a "profit" center... meaning charging other divisions for the work, leading to:
      a) other divisions buying their own equipment and software
      b) other divisions creating half-baked software to get around paying IT to do it, which is why you find
                        mind-bogglingly big spreadsheets instead of databases, and
      c) cut spending by IT on hardware, software, and, I mean, why would you want to spend all that money on
                      experienced people, we can hire two or three folks right out of college who are "fresh", or maybe outsource
                      it to Asia or eastern Europe for a quarter the price.....

                  mark "then there's HR...."

Re:The problem with CEOs..

[Skapare]

Making IT into a profit center means it will want to grow. It will want to get more out of its customers. Dividing departments this way is just stupid. IT should be an "accounted cost center". It's goals should including smartly cutting the costs for the IT needs of the whole company. The ONLY profit center should be sales. Even marketing should be a cost center.

Re:The problem with CEOs..

[Dcnjoe60]

Unless your business has to do with selling information, then IT isn't a profit center, it is overhead. Overhead, should be allocated to the profit centers, however. The real problem occurs, though, when the real profit centers don't have a say in their IT costs. If doing the project internally means that it is going to cost them $X in allocation costs, but they can contract it out for 80% of that. The profit center wants to contract it out. The problem is that the IT overhead doesn't get reduced and is now just allocated among fewer profit centers and thereby appears to be ever increasing, even if it isn't in actual dollars.

The real solution to this, however, is not to outsource projects, but to decentralize IT. If IT resources are directly accountable to the units they support, then, like any other limited resource, it is used more efficiently. Put differently, if I, as a manager, am going to get in trouble for a delayed project, then I should at least be in charge of the resources for that project, not some IT manager who doesn't have a stake in the project.

Experience has shown that decentralizing IT increases individual productivity and reduces costs. Unfortunately, it leaves a bunch of highly paid CIOs and IT managers looking for work, so they usually argue against it.

Re:The problem with CEOs..

[kava_kicks]

Honestly, as a long-time IT geek and industry participant, I get tired of hearing this over an over. I am half-way through an MBA (in Australia mind you) and the focus is NOT on short-term gains. We do a lot of different things, from Statistics to Accounting and general Personnel Management. The focus is on understanding and improving the situation .. not on running things into the ground to make a bonus for the year.

Re:The problem with CEOs..

[kava_kicks]

Well, maybe the problem is the MBA course they are doing. In Accounting at my MBA, the failure rate was massive - like 20%. That was probably the hardest course, but there are plenty that are tough.

I wonder as well if the problem is the people who are doing the MBA where you are. If you take an good engineer and make him do an MBA, he doesn't suddenly become an idiot ... what he will become is more aware of the other issues involved in running a business.

Re:The problem with CEOs..

[bussdriver]

I keep telling people China will not rise much higher because they are setting up MBA schools like crazy.

Re:The problem with CEOs..

[whitroth]

For the guy studying for his MBA in Australia... I don't *care* what they teach you. A few years ago, I was arguing with a friend's now-ex who taught HR at Loyola in Chicago. I expounded on how HR screws us all, and she was outraged, saying that's *not* what they teach.

Doesn't matter, this is what they *do*. Back when I was first in college, long before some of you were born, the business course was considered a mickey mouse program. Jumping to less than 10 years ago, a friend who teaches in various Catholic colleges around the US half the year, went down the food chain of majors who took his "science for non-science majors", and the next to the bottom of the food chain, were the business majors, who "didn't get it, but didn't let that worry them".

Their ego, and their "I know how to run a company, I have a degree in it!", when they don't know what they're running, or what those who they're managing *do* (like Dilbert's PHB), *don't* know what they're doing, and move on, leaving wreckage behind them.

The reality is that most of them think, or act like they think, that running a software house is like running a steel mill is like running an insurance company is like running a gas station convenience store... and run it that way.

                  mark

chain of command

[shentino]

As little as doing what your told and catering to the potentially irrational whims of your boss may have to do with actually helping the company out, obeying orders and not pissing off your superiors is an inherent part of everyone's job for the simple fact that barring a contractual obligation to the contrary your boss can fire you for any or indeed no reason whenever he feels like it, and if there's ever a battle of wills, you will lose because your boss has your career by the balls.

To put bluntly, even if you're stuck serving on the titanic and the captain's about to run the ship into an iceberg and sink the damn thing, you still get forced to walk the plank if you are seen as prone to mutiny.

What about BEST BUY they took the Geek Squad

[Joe_Dragon]

What about BEST BUY they took the Geek Squad from good to the UP SELL Squad and caned most of the people who where real techs. Some IT Pro's used to work there part time as well a full time job. But some where along the way they stared stuff like remoteing out repair work. Moving to one repair depot that is more about moving units then fixing them right.

Also the Geek Squad should be resting / testing returns. But no they just get put back on sale with the last users data still on them.

Also the pre setup scam where they do the over priced and at times useless setup on most to all of the stock and some stores make it hard to buy them at list price.

 

Re:What about BEST BUY they took the Geek Squad

[Tharkkun]

What about BEST BUY they took the Geek Squad from good to the UP SELL Squad and caned most of the people who where real techs. Some IT Pro's used to work there part time as well a full time job. But some where along the way they stared stuff like remoteing out repair work. Moving to one repair depot that is more about moving units then fixing them right.

Also the Geek Squad should be resting / testing returns. But no they just get put back on sale with the last users data still on them.

Also the pre setup scam where they do the over priced and at times useless setup on most to all of the stock and some stores make it hard to buy them at list price.

Do you honestly believe this stuff you make up? No wonder there's so many crazies out there. Geek Squad was a 50 person company who supported the twin cities metro in Minnesota. They never left the state... What do you think happens when a national chain like BB integrates a tech company into a services company?

Accountants

[chrispdx]

Oh and the bean counters make really good CEOs at tech companies because they're so adept at software engineering...

Re:Accountants

[Dcnjoe60]

As opposed to the engineers who can't run a business? Web OS was a good piece of engineering. The bean counters new from day one, though, that it wouldn't be profitable. There is a reason why most venture capitalists have a business background instead of a technical background.

Put it in words they understand

[sirlark]

Make the T-shirt and wear it to the office!

MANAGEMENT is the BIGGEST COST CENTRE

The I in CIO means information

[aggles]

Many CIOs think their job is to keep the infrastructure running. That would be the role of a CTO or COO. There is a need in most organizations to treat information as an asset and analyze it. Analysis is what will drive growth. When a CIO says you can’t have that report needed tomorrow for three weeks, because he/she has to keep the modem lights blinking, they have become irrelevant. Many business applications are now available from cloud based providers that the business no longer needs to go to the IT organization to get much of what they need. And they don’t.

In the old days...

[Dcnjoe60]

In the old days, IT had a business manager that had tech people working for them. In the old days, the role of IT was to support the mission of the business. It was a strategic resource and managed accordingly. In the old days, a business unit had a problem and IT provided a solution to that problem.

Today, in the information age, IT is its own little kingdom and very often is not aligned to the mission of the business at all. Instead, CIOs are more like marketing managers and their product is the latest and greatest technology (not the business' product line). The problem is that unless a business can monetize it's IT offerings, the business can't sustain its operations.

IT used to be about doing things better, smarter and more efficiently. Today it is about spending more and more to make things flashier with more pizzazz. In the old days IT was run by a business manager. Today its not.

Re:In the old days...

[DamnStupidElf]

Turn off the email servers, network storage, databases, web services, and support infrastructure. There you go; you've excised the "IT kingdom" and returned to the 80's "Personal Computer" era when only the geeky managers might have a PC with Lotus to help them do their job. Congratulations.

Re:In the old days...

[Dcnjoe60]

Turn off the email servers, network storage, databases, web services, and support infrastructure. There you go; you've excised the "IT kingdom" and returned to the 80's "Personal Computer" era when only the geeky managers might have a PC with Lotus to help them do their job. Congratulations.

And yet, somehow we put a man on the moon with even less than that.

What is this, 1856?

[Medievalist]

What about BEST BUY they took the Geek Squad from good to the UP SELL Squad and caned most of the people who where real techs.

Good god, man, that's barbaric! Wouldn't the stocks be more appropriate?

What?

[onebeaumond]

How many CEOs actually said their CIO "appears to be failing"? Gartner's "newsflash" restated: "Bean counters and computer nerds aren't usually promoted to CEO".

CEOs Dismissed As Clueless...

[gestalt_n_pepper]

MBAs who can't quite grasp the obvious *business* implications explained in simple words by CIOs who understand risk management, cost-benefit analysis and the financial implications quite well (Some CIOs are just a little better at math than some CEOs). True, CIOs are light on marketing and sales, but that's what CEOs are for.

CEO's, CIO's, CTO's, MBA's and Worthless Paper

[Evisscerator]

A "Degree" does NOT make a man or a woman. It is a piece of paper, used as fodder, in the game of dollars between the HR department person and the prospective new hire. TECH Certifications also fall into this same category. Anyone can teach a monkey to push a button to get a banana from the hidden door. CEO's don't understand IT and IT Departments. CTO's are MBA's with a smidgeon of IT thrown in. CIO's are protectors of the companies secrets. The IT Department folks make or break a company any day of the week depending upon what failes and how fast it can be brought back up into working order. Trying paying your IT Tech's more money and quit relying on people in CIO and CTO positions that don't have or use any IT skills.

Re:CEO's, CIO's, CTO's, MBA's and Worthless Paper

[lightknight]

'Tis easy to understand IT. It's the spinal cord of your company. Feel free to cut as many nerves to it as you feel the need to, it's only the brain that's going to suffer.

CEOs are people who think IT is free magic

[bryan1945]

"Angry Birds only cost me $0.99, why does a datacenter cost $20 million?"
"What do you mean we need computers, mine works fine!" (coming from the guy who gets a new one every 3 months)
"It's not like we really can get hacked, right? We have firedoors in the building."
"It's 90% complete? We can fix it later, right?"
"You don't make any money for the company, you just spend it on stuff. You're just red ink."
"I want a cloud." "What do you mean it costs money? It's just out there, right?"
"What do you mean buying Oracle is a bad idea? Synergy!"

Gartner spouts business process waffle

[dgharmon]

The PHBs realize they really don't understand technical issues and therefore denigrate the job in a delusional attempt to feel good about themselves. Followed by wishfull thinking on behalf of the CFOs.

"CIO role will eventually cease to exist, claim CFOs" link

ref: masters of innovation, strategy partners. terms of alignment, breadth of business perspective, departmental boundaries, process-centric view

blinking CIO report modem

[dgharmon]

"When a CIO says you canâ(TM)t have that report needed tomorrow for three weeks, because he/she has to keep the modem lights blinking, they have become irrelevant"

There is just so much wrong in the above that I can't be bothered correcting it ...

Business concerned with people?

[dgharmon]

"Business is usually more concerned with people than technology", MrKettlePot

You have got to be kidding, business is to do with making money for the owners. Business chews people up and then discards them like empty husks. Similar to the above poster, the only people to thrive in a `business environment' are psychopaths ..

not so

[Chirs]

Once you say "private sector" the only other choice is "public sector".

Retail, corporate, etc. are all subsets of "private sector".

Re:not so

[ppanon]

The guy may be confused by privately owned (sole proprietorship, partnerships, private equity) vs. publicly traded corporations. However yes, normally the public sector is government (federal, state/provincial, municipal) and the private sector is everything else (privately and publicly owned businesses). Like ownership, for-profit vs. non-profit is another common subdivision of the private sector.

there's no way to tell beforehand

[Chirs]

You can tell good CEOs after they've been running the place for a while.

That's because IT Managers got three letter titles

[xQx]

Well that's because most CEO's have handed out three letter titles in lieu of pay increases for the past few years. Their ex-sysadmin IT Managers (CIO) have three letter titles so they can be at the same level as the head beancounter (CFO) and their customer support team leader (COO).

If they had qualified the question first with "Does your CIO have more than 5 people reporting to them, and do they know what NPV stands for (answer should be yes) and do they know what the clock rate of an Apple A4 chip is (answer should be no)" they might weed out the IT guys with funky titles.

Change the headline to what it really is: "IT Managers with funky titles Dismissed As Techies Without Business Savvy By CEOs" - and it doesn't sound like news any more.

News at 11...

[rcharbon]

CEOs pause from giving themselves another raise and more stock options to exercise their egos. In other news, sun rises in east.

profit center vs cost center

[NewYork]

CEO = Profit center
CIO = Cost center
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Profit_center