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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."
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".
When the foot seeks the place of the head, the line is crossed. Know your place. Keep your place. Be a shoe.
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.
Karnal
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."
Consistency is only a virtue if you're not a screw-up.
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.
Occasionally living proof of the Ballmer peak.
CIO's are dismissed as suits without tech savvy by engineering.
Go figure.
I am very small, utmostly microscopic.
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.
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
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.
"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.
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>
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
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."
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.
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.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
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.
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?
Support the EFF and Creative Commons. The war is coming, and they're supporting you...
In English, this means, CIO's aren't percieved as being at the same level of power mad greedy fuck headed douchebaggery as CEOs.
Shoes for Industry. Shoes for the Dead.
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?
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?
We have a completely technically inept (as in can't work his own computer) CIO.
It's like having your plumber doing brain surgery.
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.
http://saveie6.com/
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.
... 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.
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
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...."
Make the T-shirt and wear it to the office!
MANAGEMENT is the BIGGEST COST CENTRE
Good god, man, that's barbaric! Wouldn't the stocks be more appropriate?
"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!"
Vote monkeys into Congress. They are cheaper and more trustworthy.
CEOs pause from giving themselves another raise and more stock options to exercise their egos. In other news, sun rises in east.