7 business skills every IT leader needs to succeed

Today’s CIO needs more than technology mastery. Long-term career success also demands a commitment to developing a set of core business skills.

The days when CIOs could glide into a long-term career based solely on their technical abilities are rapidly fading.

“It’s no longer enough for IT leaders to be tech experts,” warns Bob Hersch, a principal at Deloitte Consulting. The best-in-class CIOs of today are also business savvy, using their knowledge to embed IT as a service capability.

“This business-centric approach integrates IT into an overall business strategy,” he adds.

The best way any IT leader can augment his or her current technical knowledge — and strengthen their long-term career prospects — is by committing to acquiring the following seven essential business skills.

1. An entrepreneurial mindset

CIOs, regardless of their organization’s size, have to act like entrepreneurs, operating with speed, agility, and ever higher levels of passion, empathy, and creativity, advises Ram Nagappan, CIO at global investment firm BNY Mellon Pershing.

Disruption is the new constant. “Competition is coming from all corners of the market, with fintechs and startups moving at light speed,” Nagappan says. To meet competition head on, CIOs must think like entrepreneurs and act as agents of change. “They need to constantly think about how their business could be disrupted at any point in time and how they can creatively deploy technology to get ahead of potential disruptors and future-proof the business,” he suggests.

2. Strong leadership skills

Leadership is a core competency that paves the way to successful technology transformation. “To truly lead, you must have business acumen in addition to technical understanding,” explains Richard Cox, CIO at media conglomerate Cox Enterprises. “Our jobs are really to leverage technology to unleash the potential of the business, and you simply have to have an understanding of the business landscape in order to exploit these opportunities.”[ Looking to upgrade your career in tech? This comprehensive online course teaches you how. ]

Leadership is a combination of internal and external engagement. The problems CIOs face today are growing increasingly complex. The future is ambiguous, and answers are often not clear or simple. “The only way to navigate in … these uncharted waters, is to build an environment that allows people to bring ideas, perspectives, and input to solve problems,” Cox says. “Building teams that create aligned empowerment is more important today than ever.”

Poor IT leaders often make the mistake of setting project plans, gate reviews, and delivery dates without educating the IT team on the who, what, when, and why of how the effort will help the enterprise, says Harley Bledsoe, CIO at BBB National Programs, a nonprofit organization that oversees more than a dozen industry self-regulation programs that sets standards for business advertising and privacy practices.

“Bringing the team along on the journey as they execute on their deliverables is critical to developing an effective solution,” he explains.

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Dallas IT News – Security expert Bruce Schneier says at Dallas cybsecurity conference that data is the pollution of the Information Age

During a panel discussion at the Worldwide Cybersecurity Summit in Dallas yesterday afternoon that otherwise was as dry as a highway in the Sahara, security guru Bruce Schneier made a provocative argument.

He contended that just as pollution was the unfortunate byproduct of the Industrial Revolution, data is the waste product of the digital revolution.

And just like pollution, all the data we generate during our lives never degrades.

He noted that almost every transaction and interaction now generates data.

Read more at Dallas News

How to Improve IT Performance and Deploy Technology Faster

When the CEO wants to reduce IT costs while increasing how much technology the company has, the CIO is squeezed. She is stuck supporting existing systems while needing to spend money to evaluate and implement new technologies. No one is happy when there is a wide gap between where the money is being spent and where you’d like it to be.

The solution to this conundrum is to use “white space,” an approach for rapidly evaluating and executing innovations. It can replace typically costly rounds of testing, evaluation and vendor demonstrations, making IT more responsive in the process.

Read More at CIO

Technology Runs the Boston Marathon

The runners took center stage during the Boston Marathon Monday, but behind the scenes of the prestigious road race was an enterprise-class data center capable of accurately tracking more than 26,000 runners and relaying that information to a number of outlets.

To watch a video report click here.

When the runners picked up their numbers a few days before the race, they were also issued a small, white piece of plastic that weighed only a few grams. The tracking chip, made by Mylaps, tied into the runners’ sneakers and used RFID technology to track them.

Read More at CIO Magazine