The good news is that the enterprise-level disruptions to the CIO role represent an opportunity to re-examine their positions and make meaningful adjustments -- especially at the mid-market level.
The role of the chief information officer is changing dramatically. A decade ago, CIOs were charged with managing and protecting an organization’s network perimeter, intellectual property and IT assets. Often viewed as a compulsory cost center, a traditional CIO’s work was generally preventative and reactive. Since then, major industry trends have altered conventional technology leadership roles. At the enterprise level, many responsibilities that would typically fall within a CIO’s purview have been absorbed by other executive roles.
Today, just 58% of CIOs sit on the board compared to 71% just two years ago, and nearly two-thirds of organizations allow a “business-managed” IT spend. Midmarket CIOs in particular might be left wondering, “With all this change, am I on my way out?” Let’s explore the three major industry disruptions that have reshaped the role of the enterprise CIO:
Cloud. Cloud computing changed the technology landscape forever. Topics like hybrid and multi-cloud, microservices and containers dominate headlines and conferences. But what’s really impacting our world is the underlying DevOps movement -- the shift toward combining and streamlining software development and IT operations. Now that infrastructure and applications are no longer separate, businesses don’t need the CIO to manage server setup, code deployment or other previously manual IT tasks; or implement technologies like Kubernetes or new SaaS solutions. This is one of the reasons many traditionally “CIO-level” responsibilities have been redistributed to CTOs who own the resources and cloud infrastructure that runs their applications directly.
information security and privacy. Businesses are far more concerned with security, data privacy and compliance than ever before, and rightfully so. The average cost of a data breach today is $3.9 million, according to IBM. As the ever-growing wave of security and privacy incidents continues, we’ve seen legislative reactions such as GDPR or the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) emerge. A decade ago, CIOs would typically manage all aspects of data security and privacy based on the advice of a dedicated information security specialist. The sheer level of regulatory, financial and reputational damage at stake has shifted those responsibilities to chief information security officers (CISO). Prominent board advisers, CISOs are responsible for mitigating security and privacy risks, maintaining compliance, and preventing incidents from impacting the business.
Data. In the past, CIOs would typically be responsible for collecting, organizing and retroactively reporting on company data. Now, we view data as a business enabler that can highlight meaningful trends, provide predictive models and help maximize efficiency and profitability. Using data analytics, Netflix saves $1 billion per year on customer retention, while Walmart processes 2.5 PB of customer data every hour to increase sales. As companies focus on developing faster, more comprehensive access to data and the tools necessary to accomplish this, enterprise-level CIOs have become less involved in direct data management. With advanced technical skills and a mandate of complete ownership over company data, chief data officers (CDOs) now lead data governance, management and protection, while embedding AI systems to streamline workflows and reduce manual processes and decision making.
