Being in IT for quite some time, it was encouraging to read the McKinsey Quarterly report for our last class, which talked about "IT's unmet potential". How CIOs and IT managers were finally becoming more involved with making business strategy decisions.
One wonders about this apparent change though, is this because business leaders are giving more importance to IT, or is it simply because the traditional IT manager's job description is fast mutating?
It was interesting to read K.V. Kamath's interview where he said that ICICI, which has technology as one of its core competitive advantage, does not have a CIO.
Instead the CEO is responsible for the technology. Makes sense. As more and more companies outsource their basic IT infrastructure needs, new business leaders (who are more accustomed to technology), can take on IT strategy as one of their responsibilities.
Does this mean the traditional CIO role will soon be extinct? Well.. a simple google gave me articles with this same topic heading published as early as 2002, and as recent as January 2009. Guess I'm beating a dead horse but I'm posting this anyways!
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I think there will be differences depending on the industry and context... When the CEO takes over the strategic (Growth center) agenda, the CIO supports with investments and experiments. When the CEO takes over the profit center agenda, the CIO supports with cost center. The situation is much improved when the CEOs understand and appreciate the complementary nature of CIO role...
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