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7 business skills every IT leader needs to succeed

April 13, 2021/in Articles, CIO, CIO Magazine, CIOs, Dallas CIO, Dallas CIOs, IT Leaders, IT Leadership/by admin

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.

The future of IT leadership: 5 new roles CIOs must master

August 16, 2019/in Articles, CIO, IT Leadership/by admin

If you think technology leaders’ jobs have changed a lot over the past few years, just wait. Here are five new roles all CIOs must take on in the years ahead.

It’s more than an understatement to say the role of technology leaders has changed over the past few years.

The widespread adoption of cloud computing and process automation has reduced the demands for IT departments to keep the lights on. Large-scale capital expenditures on infrastructure are being replaced by increased operating expenses on services. Meanwhile, the pressure to take an active leadership role in the business’s digital transformation is greater than ever.

“If you looked at CIOs ten years ago, they spent an inordinate amount of time in the lower parts of the stack and in the data center,” says Archana Rao, CIO for Atlassian, makers of collaboration tools like Trello and Jira. “The emergence of cloud and business process automation have shifted us away from old-school operational CIOs and into business enablers.”

In a few years we’ll see the emergence of “the Bionic CIO,” predicts Jay Venkat, senior partner and managing director for Boston Consulting Group.

“They’ll transcend what’s traditionally been called information technology and teach the business how to become more digitally enabled,” he says. “They’ll need to understand not only technology but also its impact on the workforce. And if they want to become the ‘Bionic CIO,’ they’ll have to upskill themselves.”

What will the CIO job look like in five years? Technology leaders will need to be equally adept at five new roles.

How to better integrate IT security and IT strategy

August 15, 2019/in Articles, CIO, IT Departments, IT Roadmaps, IT Security, IT Strategy/by admin

Organizations see a future in which IT security is deeply woven into their overall IT strategy. Here’s how they plan to get there.

Information security has become such an integral part of IT that at a growing number of organizations, the two are virtually indistinguishable — from an organizational standpoint.

Many companies are attempting to more tightly integrate IT security strategy with IT strategy. That can mean blending departments, changing leadership structures, and embedding security earlier in the development pipeline, among other tactics.

About two thirds of organizations say their IT security strategy and IT strategy are tightly integrated, with IT security being a key component of IT roadmaps and projects, according to CIO’s 2019 State of the CIO survey.

But looking ahead, the two become even more indistinguishable, with 83 percent of organizations expecting to tightly integrate IT security strategy into their overall IT strategy within the next three years.

IT News March/April 2012

April 9, 2012/0 Comments/in CIO, CIO Magazine, CIOs, Dallas IT Staffing, Enterprise IT, Information Technology, information technology budgets, Information Technology Field, information technology hiring, Information technology jobs, Information Technology Organizations, Information Technology Projects, information technology spending, Information Technology Staffing, IT, IT architecture, IT Budgets, IT Careers, IT Consulting, IT contractors, IT Department, IT Employees, IT Field, IT Hiring, IT Job, IT Job Growth, IT Job News, it job outlook, IT Jobs, IT Management, IT Projects, IT Salaries, IT Services, IT Skills, IT Spending, IT Staff, IT Staff Augmentation, IT Staff Retention, IT Staffing, IT Staffing Firms, IT talent, IT Workers/by admin

Creating culture of IT innovation includes rewarding failure – Computerworld lnkd.in/mfGKif

In IT Projects, More Needs to Be Less Too – Information Management Blogs Article lnkd.in/rFZ3CK

Personal and Enterprise IT Gains – Information Management Blogs Article lnkd.in/fu9VKq

Attention tech sales people: Don’t go around the CIO :: Editor’s Blog at WRAL Tech Wire lnkd.in/SbT5YF

IT Must Provide Enterprise Collaboration Tools Employees Will Use lnkd.in/nf6qa9

When Will the Offshore Flow of IT and Finance Jobs End? CIO.com lnkd.in/YcF2vP

Bring your own tech: IT’s missed opportunity | Byod – InfoWorld lnkd.in/sHUXmm

Offshoring Shrinks Number of IT Jobs, Study Says CIO.com lnkd.in/553iN6

CIOs Overcome Shortage of Business Analytics Talent lnkd.in/ukwwzv

India’s IT Firms Hire U.S. Workers As They Fight for Visas CIO.com lnkd.in/fDhir8

Small Business Data Backup Plans Found Lacking – Small and Medium Business IT – News & Reviews – Baseline.com lnkd.in/yHWPaZ

Execs to IT: Take these cloud services and manage them | Cloud storage – InfoWorld lnkd.in/t6AMGu

How to Get a Hot Job in Big Data CIO.com lnkd.in/DWHzEX

Getting A Recommendation From A Past Employer lnkd.in/AnAXJE

Offshoring Shrinks Number of IT Jobs, Study Says CIO.com lnkd.in/8RnBUz

Why the ‘personal cloud’ is no PC killer | Cloud computing – InfoWorld lnkd.in/7byGYH

IT Contractors Help Companies Meet Changing Work Needs

April 6, 2012/0 Comments/in CIO, CIOs, Dallas Contract IT Jobs, Dallas Information Technology, Dallas IT, Dallas IT Consultants, Dallas IT Consulting, Dallas IT Staff Augmentation, Dallas IT Staffing, Enterprise IT, Information Technology Organizations, Information Technology Projects, Information Technology Staffing, IT Consultant, IT Consulting, IT contractors, IT Projects, IT Staffing Firms/by admin

The demand for tech part-time work can also mean the economy is improving, says an IT staffing firm

Whether companies require specific tech talent for a project or need extra help meeting a business uptick brought by the recovering economy, corporate IT departments depend on the contract workforce.

For CIOs, temporary staff offer the experience required to complete a specific task without the need, and cost, of permanently keeping them on the payroll. IT staffing firms see contractors as helping companies stay flexible and meeting the work peaks and lulls that accompany a recovering economy. In either scenario, contractors have been, and will continue to be, in demand for enterprise IT, according to CIOs and hiring experts.

CIO’s Guide to Great IT Budgets

August 3, 2010/0 Comments/in CIO, CIOs, IT Budgets, IT Department, IT Industry, IT Professionals, IT Projects, IT Spending/by admin

Some CIOs always seem to be plush with funds and have great IT Budgets. This article looks at some critical factors which influence IT Budgets.

Year on year most CIOs are facing a downward pressure on their IT spends. IT surveys in last year and year before have shown that IT spends either remained the same or increased only marginally. Even the marginal increase mainly is attributed to increasing man power costs and costs of maintenance. However some CIOs always seem to be plush with funds and have great IT Budgets. Most others who do not fall in this category attribute it to organisation’s culture (IT savy), or great boards, amazing sponsors and many other things – other than the CIOs ability to obtain the budgets. However obtaining Great IT Budgets is a skill. This article presents a few principles on how to get approvals for great budgets. (Here we take into consideration only budgets approved during normal operations of the company. In special cases such during Fund Raising, IPO, M&A – getting budgets is a different ball game).

I do not like to oversimplify things. However two important principles which lead to great IT budgets are great projects and great selling.
Great Projects

Ask any CIO and he would have at least 3 to 4 large IT projects running in parallel (and possibly on miserably low budgets). The primary reason for the low budgets is that most projects which are selected and presented to the board (or committee etc.) don’t fit the requirements of strategic projects. If you look at the IT project classification grid – where does most of your IT Budget go? Most CIOs spenGrid2d maximum amount of budgets on “support” projects (mainly because these are critical for sustaining present operations), and on “factory” projects – projects which improve efficiencies. While these two types of projects are important – these will continually face a downward pressure on budgets as these are seen as ‘necessary evil’ rather than value adding activities. Great projects are the ones which fall in the category of “Turn around” and “Strategic”. These projects hold a promise of improvement in revenue – top line and bottom lines and becoming a great differentiator spiralling companies growth.

Indentifying Strategic Projects involves number of techniques – including innovation techniques such as Systematic Inventive Thinking (which I am great admirer of), brain storming, Deep Diving, strategic workshops, etc. I will dwell into some of these topics in some of my other posts. However one thing is sure that strategic projects can rarely be identified by looking at what competition is doing.

For any CIO, it is essential to first assess where his projects lie in the above strategic grid. Once he is sure that he has a great new project which is a strategic or a turnaround project, it’s time to move on to the next step – selling the project.
Great Selling
Most CIOs / CTOs require the approval of some committee, board, or sometimes a person for their IT Budgets. It is not enough to have a great project (or line up of projects) to obtain budgets. Many times the most promising projects are shelved because lack of budgets. What the CIOs generally ignore is that however great the idea – it needs to be sold. Here I give four simple rules by which you can sell your project effectively to your board.

1. TALK BUSINESS: Start with how the project is going to improve revenues and efficiencies. Present NUMBERS. Do not go through the usual rant of business requirements, approach, specifications approach etc. No one is interested in these. Talk MONEY, talk about CUSTOMER, talk DIFFERNTIATION. Do not talk specifications.

IT Job News – The quest for IT talent

June 8, 2010/0 Comments/in CIO, CIO Magazine, Dallas Contract IT Jobs, Dallas Contract-to-hire IT jobs, Dallas Direct-hire IT Jobs, Dallas Information Technology, IT, IT Budgets, IT Candidates, IT Jobs, IT Professionals, IT Spending, Technology Budgets, Uncategorized/by admin

That noise you hear is the scrape of chairs being pushed back, laptops snapping shut and your ICT staff walking out the door. The war for talent is on again — if it ever stopped — and as with all wars, there will be victors, survivors and casualties.

Identifying, retaining and developing talent never gets easier. There are only degrees of difficulty. What should you do to attract and groom good people? How can you make your IT organisation one that offers interesting roles and compelling career prospects? How can you avoid becoming collateral damage in the war?

How much it really costs to replace staff

The market is on the move

Now, even worse news.

Peoplebank is Australia’s largest IT&T recruitment company. It claims a talent pool of more than 300,000 candidates and 3000 contractors on-site, and places 6000 candidates every year.

Peoplebank’s National IT Market Update: April 2010 reveals significant salary increases — the first sign of increased competition among employers for IT skills — are beginning to emerge. It supports anecdotal evidence of shrinking talent pools around the country.

Job Tips and Job News – Forrester’s IT Forum: Business Technology (BT) Will Be Driven By CEO-CIO Partnership

June 7, 2010/0 Comments/in CIO, IT Consultant, IT Consulting, IT Department, IT Hiring, IT Job News, IT Professionals, IT Spending, IT Staff, IT Staff Augmentation, IT Staffing, IT talent, IT Workers, technical recruiting, Technical Staffing, Technology, Technology Budgets, Technology Projects/by admin

Many future chief executive officers (CEOs) will come from the ranks of 21st century business-minded chief information officers, Xerox Chairman and CEO Ursula Burns told more than 1,100 attendees at Forrester’s IT Forum, Forrester’s flagship IT event spanning 12 roles across IT and technology marketing professionals.

Burns was among the senior business leaders — including CIOs from JetBlue, Nike, Sony, and Starbucks — that demonstrated how technology can transform the business.

“For too long, the emphasis in information technology has been on the technology — the latest and the greatest — with all too little attention on the information our businesses need to run more efficiently and effectively,” Burns said. “Forrester has taken the notion one huge step forward — putting the emphasis not on information but on business.”

George F. Colony, Forrester’s chairman and CEO, told the audience that the CEO is essential to the success of business technology (BT). For BT to succeed, according to Colony, the CEO must provide a clear high-level direction for the company, be a catalyst for bringing the business and technology together, and keep business and technology focused on strategic initiatives that drive the business forward. For their part, it is essential that CIOs be proactive, bring best practices and develop a point of view on priorities.

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

May 5, 2010/0 Comments/in CIO, Dallas CIO, Dallas CIOs, Dallas Information Technology, Dallas IT, Dallas IT News, dallas technology news, Information Technology, IT, IT Budgets, IT Spending, Technology, Technology Budgets/by admin

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.

How to Improve IT Performance and Deploy Technology Faster

April 30, 2010/0 Comments/in CIO, CIO Magazine, Dallas CIO, Information Technology, IT, IT Budgets, Technology, Technology Budgets/by admin

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.