Once upon a solutions provider's business model, it was customary for the CEO to shoulder the company's burden. From running the business, to evangelizing the vision, to shutting off the lights at night, the CEO was doing it all, and enjoying the responsibility. Over the past couple of years, however, the top job has undergone some profound changes. Increased competition, an IT spending slowdown among large customers, the advent of new technologies, and, of course, the meteoric rise and fall of the dot-coms have made the CEO's office a much more dangerous place to work.
In response, CEOs at solutions providers and software and hardware companies are calling upon a new breed of executive to lighten their load. This seasoned executive is, above all, a strategic, visionary thinker who provides the wisdom that underscores the daily actions of the CEO and the executive management team.
At many companies, the new executive has taken on the fancy title of "chief strategy officer" (CSO). To be sure, CSOs are not mirror images of one another. They come from different backgrounds and their roles tend to be customized to the nature of their organizations. Companies as diverse as Cisco Systems, Corio, Ingram Micro, Microsoft, Sapient and Sun Microsystems have appointed executives with the CSO title.
On one level, the advent of the CSO can be dismissed as simply the latest in a long line of new corporate officers. Within the past few years alone, we've witnessed the dawning of the chief motivation officer, chief innovation officer, chief inspiration officer and chief people officer. A number of those funky titles have already gone to dot-com heaven. And some industry watchers lump the CSO into this fly-by-night category.
Others, however, believe that the emergence of the CSO represents something much more important and much longer lasting. Indeed, they argue, the addition of the CSO to the upper-management ranks fundamentally changes the way that top management functions.
Many hats
The way the job is shaking out, the CSO generally has both external responsibilities to clients and internal managerial duties. He or she is charged with telling the management team what the company must do to be successful and advising the CEO on making the right strategic bets.
"I think it's a pretty important role, and it will become more important as there are new advances in technology and changes within a company and its business processes," says Prakash Parphasarathy, a senior research analyst at Banc of America Securities and a proponent of the CSO title.
"The business metrics of many companies are in a great churn right now, and the CSO could provide the insight for what a customer requires," adds Parphasarathy.
Representing the other view is Andrew Steinerman, a managing partner at Bear Stearns, who sees nothing particularly new and exciting about the CSO and doesn't see the need for another highfalutin title.
"I think this role has been around for a while, and I have certainly met a chief strategy officer along the way ... in some companies, it was the business development person," he says.
Nevertheless, given today's stormy economic climate, even Steinerman concedes that a good CSO can help provide the strategic "focus" that a technology services company must have in order to survive. But he warns against expecting any miracles from this executive. "I still think that since times are tough, the most important role is the COO, who does the blocking and tackling," Steinerman concludes. "The CSO is not the silver bullet."
