1. (Mt) – ATSU Roles of CIO Discussion
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What are the transformational CIO building blocks that can enable CIOs to drive the
business, as well as support the business? Rethinking business In the current economic
climate change is pervading business as traditional fundamental https://eds-p-ebscohost-
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building blocks: UMGC Library OneSearch 10/16/22, 4:26 PM principles are challenged by
many executives. Business functionals are being fundamentally impacted by developments
such as cloud computing, e-commerce and complex customer purchasing behaviour. Now
more than ever is the time for efficiency and cost reduction — the time for business to get
effective help to review their IT construct and get their IT model right. How should you as a
CIO support these business transformations? What are the transformational CIO building
blocks that can enable CIOs to drive the business as well as support the business? IT as both
driver and supporter IT is now at the core of businesses such as defence, banking, finance
and medicine, and business models are being redefined in other industries through client-
vendor collaborations. As a CIO, you can inject useful insights into boardroom decision-
making by using effectively captured transactional and customer data to resolve the
complexity and help customers to embrace the changes. This requires balancing people,
process and technology to achieve operational efficiency that is customer centric. One role
of new technologies is to fuel growth, and this daunting management challenge falls to CIOs.
People, process and technology People always come first, but innovatively melding people
with process and technology makes for a healthy organisation — strong HR is important for
high performance. This forms the basis for the transformational roadmap that will enable IT
to drive and support the business in today’s economy. Your building should be built on the
five people-focused business drivers of: leadership, workforce plan, career plan,
organisational training plan and performance management. If this model of five business
drivers does not exist at the organisational level, their planning and implementation should
2. form a key part of your transformational roadmap — but this must be fundamentally
aligned with the corporate culture. Leadership gives the purpose and direction, sound
workforce planning ensures a central resource base; individual and succession planning
leads to performance and success; continual training drives performance; and performance
management achieves clarity of roles and responsibilities of teams and individuals. If IT
does not currently support the core business process, re-engineering business process may
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building blocks: UMGC Library OneSearch 10/16/22, 4:26 PM be necessary for
organisational success. Building on any existing basic maturity, Cobit can deliver the
reference framework for process architecture, Six Sigma can enable process improvement
by working out your burning platform, reducing costs, just-in-time, eliminating waste, etc.,
and CMMI will give an overall understanding of the business maturity level and provide a
framework to move from one level to another. The technology of information, applications
and infrastructure must be aligned with people and process, which drive technology choices
including strategy, architecture, information management, security, and numerous other
facets. The CIO must work on all three levels — people, process, technology — with deep
understanding if he/she is to achieve a transformational business model that aligns with,
supports and drives the business. The CIO’s strategy — the transformational building blocks
As a CIO new to an organisation or one within an organisation that needs transformation,
what are the building blocks upon which your transformational roadmap will be built?
Within an underlying methodology of consultation, communication and collaboration, your
plan — perhaps a 100-day plan to provide focus — will progressively encompass the
building blocks of: scoping and organising; IT strategy development coupled closely with
business and competitive assessment; assessment of the current business state within that
business/competitor/IT strategy environment; and IT opportunities R&D. Scoping and
organising entails identification of IT deliverables to the business, being organised,
fashioning a key leadership team and, most important, getting executive sponsorship and
commitment. If no IT strategy exists, develop one; if it exists, ensure it is simple and align it
to the business. Make sure you have one. A plan-on-a-page (POAP) that will hit targets, a
proprietary strategy https://eds-p-ebscohost-
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building blocks: UMGC Library OneSearch 10/16/22, 4:26 PM that focuses on mobility and
access to secure information, and strong branding should be central elements of your IT
strategy. Bring these together into strategic plans with clear achievement milestones in the
short term and longer term. And finally, use the power of virtual teams to make your
strategy effective and synergistic. A business and competitor assessment should be made in
parallel with IT strategy development, because IT strategy needs business strategy and vice
versa. This can be facilitated with a balance scorecard that assesses and aligns business and
IT strategy and integrates the CIO transformational strategy automatically. For example, if a
business subdivision is envisaged, identify opportunities and the support needed; if
3. mergers or acquisitions are happening, how can you position IT to support business
systems and reduce acquisition cost? Do a competitor market assessment integrated into
business assessment. Arrange investment funding and ensure you have the CFO’s support to
execute the transformation. Undertake a current state assessment to determine what is
good, mediocre and poor; identify gaps, overlaps, opportunities, constraints and lessons
learned. Identify IT opportunities through a consultation blitz with all stakeholders —
business and your team — summarise outcomes in the context already developed, and
develop the technology roadmap. The roadmap needs quick wins plus, typically, 3-year and
5-year maps. Focus on the execution of programs and projects, skills and resources, and be
aware constantly of what you have and what you need. Success? At no stage of the
transformation should the CIO forget the underlying methodology of consultation,
communication and collaboration. Measures of your success may include: your ability to
align IT with business, to absorb unexpected business changes, to be agile enough to enable
rapid change, to reduce costs and deliver more, and to achieve faster and better decision-
making with reduced risk. For example, an HP transformational strategy achieved: faster
application development/deployment, easier integration of new acquisitions, faster
response to changing business needs, improved operational effectiveness and quality of
service, and improved business continuity and security, and they did this while also
achieving 50% reduction in IT https://eds-p-ebscohost-
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building blocks: UMGC Library OneSearch 10/16/22, 4:26 PM operational spending, 60%
reduced energy consumption, and 50% reduction in networking costs. Their strategies
included consolidating and unifying disparate teams, improved technology portfolio
management, more strategic project management, upgrading the workforce, creating
centres of excellence and collaboration, executing the right strategies with the right cost
structures while maintaining agility, replacing hundreds of disparate intelligence systems
by building a model enterprise data warehouse, and consolidating 85 data centres to six
global data centres in three locations. Successful implementation of the transformational
building blocks will depend upon innovative consolidation and automation, effective
information management and application of cloud computing, and also renewable energy
savings. The decisions we make in our lives as CIOs will dictate the life we live… over to you!
Bruce Carlos is Chief Information Officer for CenITex, the Centre for IT Excellence, an ICT
shared services agency set up by the Victorian Government to centralise ICT support to
government departments and agencies. He is also a founding member of the CIO Executive
Council of Australia and former CIO of Raytheon Australia. In the current economic climate
businesses need CIOs such a Bruce Carlos to identify gaps, overlaps and opportunities,
provide direction and give a kick start to developing transformational roadmaps. Bruce
Carlos can offer expertise as a senior IT executive specialising in IT transformation and
business unit cost optimisation in diverse industries and a strategic view of the technology
and leadership skills that businesses should focus on to manage IT and business leadership
portfolios successfully. Bruce can be contacted at a href=”mailto:bzcs@tpg.com.au”
bzcs@tpg.com.au http://www.cio.com.au/index.php?id=635448651 Copyright of CIO
