| | February 20178CIOReviewCIO--the Key Enabler of IT EmpowermentThe enlightened CIO of today is best described as a "business consultant". Successful IT can only be reflected in a successfully-enabled business. Business sponsors "own" the IT that is weaved into the tapestry of their operations, whereas the CIO guides them into mature and profitable project ideas, to "innovate-to-value," to set the right expectations, and to create a flexible and sustainable technical architecture. Most importantly, the CIO facilitates a cross-departmental consensus for the optimization of business processes. He/she works closely with the COO, and where there is none, or where the COO's focus is not process-driven, the CIO fills that coordinating gap. In other words, technology is a means to an end, and, regardless of the CIO's role some aspect of service delivery, his/her raison d'etre is to elevate and connect others to achieve a collective success.The Right Approach to IT AdoptionIT is an enabling layer, embedded in the business. So long as a CIO emphasizes IT as a "control function"--as is sometimes necessary for cost, purchasing or security purposes--he/she will find resistance within the business. That is a great mistake. Any notion of IT "control" will overshadow the CIO's consultative or partnership role, and resistance to it will manifest in "hidden IT." Business transformation, whether innovating or re-engineering, cannot occur without an open-ended partnership. A mentoring CIO once told me that nothing brings people together like shared accomplishment. So, building a strong IT reputation is not so much about coercing an opinion as it is about looking in the rear-view mirror about what has been achieved together, and focusing on the new road ahead. Greater Role for IT OrganizationsBusiness is undergoing transformation in the form of `Digitalization'. This involves an explosion of data, new tools to automatically exploit that data into information, and new opportunities to "disintermediate" interactions with the end-customer. The gripping aspect of this is that the line between internal operation CIO as the Bridge to SuccessBy Craig J. Berry, SVP & CIO, Siemens PLM SoftwareIN MY OPINION
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