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Pre-show coverage Gartner Symposium Sydney 2003  ZDNet Australia |
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COMMENTARY--The term chief information officer conjures up images of a technologically-savvy individual, able to decipher the cryptic world of bits and bytes in a flash.
Today, CIOs are told that in order to be successful, they need to have skills from a breadth of lateral disciplines and become, well, for lack of a better word -- superhuman.
A few weeks ago, I asked if the CIO was a dying breed. Some camps believe that in three years, CIOs will become non-existent. Gartner's research director Andy Rowsell-Jones feels the role will merely be reinvented.
Technology has become such an integral part of running any business that it no longer stands alone in terms of departmental responsibilities. I believe the term CIO will cease to exist in time to come and two things could happen:
a) The job title will "morph" into something more traditional like a managing director with technology services under its purview.
We're already seeing signs of this happening and ANZ Bank is a good example.
In 1998, David Boyles joined the bank as CIO from American Express where he was the senior vice president for e-commerce. The MBA holder majored in Psychology as his first degree at the University of Northern Colorado, where he also obtained an MA in the field.
He was appointed group managing director for technology, e-transformation and shared services (TeSS) and by his fourth year at ANZ, Boyles -- who will soon retire -- was promoted to chief operations officer.
Londoner Mike Grime, who will replace Boyles next month, comes with many years of banking and technology experience from Standard Chartered -- ANZ Chief Executive Officer John McFarlane's former employer.
Grime will assume the role of managing director for operations, technology and shared services.
b) Non-traditional responsibilities such as sales and marketing could come under his or her belt.
Diane Morello, vice president and research director in Gartner Research, believes at least one-third of CIO roles will transform or disappear by 2009 and most changes will be geared towards strategic partnering and business technology relationships.
I asked her if she could see future CIO managing sales and marketing portfolios since they're required to have IT and business acumen. Morello said it really depends on the individual's capability and the importance of having sales and marketing under the CIO.
"But I don't rule it out...I can see CIOs taking on sales and marketing roles," Morello told ZDNet Australia in an interview.
At the end of the day, it doesn't matter what they're [CIOs] called. It's whether corporate accountability comes with the title, she said. I couldn't agree more.
