The chief information officer (CIO), or information technology (IT) director, is a job title commonly given to the most senior executive in an enterprise responsible for the information technology and computer systems that support enterprise goals. The CIO typically reports to the chief executive officer, chief operations officer or chief financial officer. In military organizations, they report to the commanding officer.
CIO
Information technology and its systems have become so important that CIO has come to be viewed in many organizations as the key contributor in formulating strategic goals for an organization. Most likely, the CIO in a large enterprise manages and delegates decisions to employees more with details. Usually, a CIO proposes the information technology needed by an enterprise to achieve its goals and then works within a budget to implement the plan. The CIO role is also sometimes used interchangeably with the chief technology officer role, although they may be slightly different. When both positions are present in an organization, the CIO is generally responsible for processes and practices supporting the flow of information, whereas the CTO is generally responsible for technology infrastructure.
CIO magazine's "State of the CIO 2008" survey asked 558 IT leaders who they report to. The results were: CEO (41%), CFO (23%), COO (16%), Corporate CIO (7%) and Other (13%).[1]
Information technology
The prominence of the CIO position has risen greatly as information technology has become a more important part of business. In some organizations, the CIO may be a member of the executive board of the organization. No specific qualification is typical of CIOs in general. In the past, many have expertise in computer science, software engineering, or information systems, but this is not universal. Increasingly CIOs, especially those from a technical background, hold Master of Business Administration or Master of Science in Management degrees.[2]. More recently CIOs' leadership capabilities, business acumen and strategic perspectives have taken precedence over technical skills. It is now quite common for CIOs to be appointed from the business side of the organization, especially if they have project management skills.
In recent years governments and government departments have employed CIOs and recruited them from the private sector. The main reason for this is that as government departments have modernized their processes they have made costly IT mistakes and now require highly experienced IT executives to cut the best deals for their organizations.
In 2007 a survey amongst CIOs by CIO magazine in the UK discovered that their top 10 concerns were: people leadership, managing budgets, business alignment, infrastructure refresh, security, compliance, resource management, managing customers, managing change and board politics[3].
Typically, a CIO is involved with analyzing and reworking existing business processes, with identifying and developing the capability to use new tools, with reshaping the enterprise's physical infrastructure and network access, and with identifying and exploiting the enterprise's knowledge resources. Many CIOs head the enterprise's efforts to integrate the Internet into both its long-term strategy and its immediate business plans. The CIO is evolving into a role where he/she is creating and monitoring business value from IT assets, to the point where Potts in FruITion (novel) suggests that the Chief Information Officer (CIO) be replaced with Chief Internal Investments Officer (CIIO). [4]
Another way that the CIO role is changing is an increased focus on service management. [5] As SaaS, IaaS, BPO and other more flexible value delivery techniques are brought into organizations the CIO usually functions as a 3rd party manager for the organization
by WIDIPEDIA