The CIO Role: Very Much Alive and Rising in Influence

Doubters of the CIO role and function, here’s some bad news for you: a new global survey reveals “an undeniable increase in the influence of the CIO.”

The survey, conducted by Harvey Nash, a leading professional recruitment firm, and consulting major KPMG, notes that more CIOs now report directly to the CEO (34%) than at any time in the past decade. And before I share other insights from the 18th edition of this global survey that received almost 3,400 responses from CIOs and technology leaders across 82 countries, let me pull out a happy tidbit: CIOs with a direct report to the CEO are also the happiest (87% report job fulfillment).

While there could be multiple reasons for this “happiness,” my surmise is that such a direct reporting structure would certainly take away many irritants for technology leaders and untangle them from other CXO/peer “issues.”

Another indicator of the increasing CIO influence is that 57% of CIOs now sit on the executive board or other senior leadership committees (up by 50% over 11 years), as per the survey. (I know it’s a long, relatively slow march, but hey, it’s happening :)

Among other highlights is the fact that one in four CIOs now spend at least one day each week outside their core function of IT. The CEO focus, too, is shifting from projects that save money to those that make money (see graphic).

The survey (titled Harvey Nash/KPMG 2016 CIO Survey) reveals that traditional IT priorities are seeing major shifts over the past four years: increasing operational efficiencies has dropped 16%, and delivering stable IT performance has dropped 27%.

These statistics not only point to the growing influence of the CIO in a company but also that they have more time for top/bottom-line improvement and innovation.

What continues to hold them back, however, is what this media release on the survey terms as “the greatest technology skills shortage since the Great Recession almost a decade ago.”

As many as 65% of CIO respondents say they believe a lack of talent will hinder their organizations’ ability to keep up with the pace of change—which is a 10% rise in the past year alone.

For the second consecutive year, data analytics is the most in-demand skill (39%). A high 89% of CIOs are worried about talent retention. (It’s another matter, perhaps, that there have been ample job movements and career shifts within the CIO community itself: 31% of the CIOs have been in their current role for less than two years and 15% moved job last year.)

The changing talent and CIO career dynamics could also be the result of the growing acceptance and impact of Digital.

One in five organizations now deploys a CDO (no, the CDO is not off the radar, though the initial euphoria on a separate digital officer seems to have come down a bit). More important, 58% of respondents reported that their organization has a clear digital vision and strategy.

In his executive summary for the report, Dr. Jonathan Mitchell, Non-Executive Chair, Global CIO Practice, Harvey Nash (a former CIO of Rolls-Royce and a tech veteran), writes: “There is little doubt that our industry is changing rapidly. In the last two years, IT leaders have become newly invigorated. The days of budget cuts and staff losses are well behind us. New challenges such as ‘digital’ have emerged. Was this yet another technology fad? No, was the resounding response from last year’s respondents. Digital is most definitely real and it is changing the way in which everyone thinks about IT.”

While there are many challenges for CIOs in the disruptive days ahead, let’s hope that the CIO role stays invigorated for many, many years to come.

(Lead image credit: Pixabay.com. This blog post first appeared on dynamicCIO.com.)