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IT Metrics - CIO Agenda and challenges


Today’s role of CIO is probably the hardest and complex role you can find in any business organization.  A CIO has to properly combine multiple skills and competences to become effective on the way he/she manage both, business and IT requirements.

This is to me the main difference when comparing the CIO’s role with other
C-level executives. While the COO, CFO, etc. are mainly focusing on their own areas of responsibility (Operations, Finance, Marketing, etc.), the CIO has to drive a complex agenda to accommodate IT related matters to what the rest of the business organization require from them.

This is one of the reasons why IT/IS has always been seen from the rest of the business as support function and not as an add value activity by itself, unless when we talk about technology or innovation companies where IT is perceived as a key business driver.  

Today’s CIO has to drive business processes innovation in a way that the rest of the C-level colleagues in the organization feel encouraged to take their own part of responsibility in the resulting projects. He has to drive the discussion whenever the CEO raises a new innovation challenge, balancing the management of an effective and efficient operation and the required level of innovation. This is not an easy equation to deal with and that’s why this business position is so critical and hard to be properly filled in by any IT professional.

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