Top Ten List for CIOs

The Chief Information Officer title has been around for some time now. The title is often used to describe the person who heads the Information Technology function for a business. While this is normally true, I believe that this title should be restricted to leaders who recognize the value that Information technology should be providing for a business.

Too many CIOs are still "managing the business" That is, they are responsible for all of the technical staff and hardware and manage the day-to-day operations of the IT business. While this is a necessary function, it doesn't add value.

The Society for Information Management (SIM) have completed a study of CIOs and came back with the following list of priorities:

1. Business productivity and cost reduction.
2. IT and Business alignment.
3. Business agility and speed to market.
4. Process re engineering.
5. IT Cost reduction.
6. IT reliability and efficiency.
7. IT Strategic planning.
8. IT innovations.
9. Security and privacy.
10. CIO Leadership role.

The focus here is clearly on the business and not on IT as the driver. This says one of two things: Either the CIOs polled are taking action or at least the message is getting through.

In the past, too much of the focus has been on Reliability and efficiency (#6) or on Security (#9). While these are important, they are what the IT operation needs to deliver. The CIO needs to be focused on the business.

See Top Ten Presentation.