FEATURE: STATE OF THE CIO
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TODAY’S CIO IS A TRUE BUSINESS
LEADER; HOLDING A UNIQUE VANTAGE
POINT WITHIN THE CORPORATION
THEY SERVE.
to-day roles – especially for the CIO. One
of the major challenges today, is that CIOs
are taking on more responsibility and their
role is growing to encompass wider aspects
of the business, but quite often with no
additional resources.
teams to gather data and speed up the
time it takes to derive business value from
it. Similarly, by removing the burden for
developers to manually code such data-
driven insights, the CIO frees up the IT
team to focus on other business value-add
tasks that will further the transformation
agenda. Automating the process of data
gathering can drive real business benefits
and provide a flexible, templated approach
to personalisation for every business’
unique decision-making requirements and
data landscape. As CIOs look to drive the
technology strategy to move the business
forward in a competitive marketplace,
automation has never been more important
for success.”
“Likewise, as technology spending grows,
CIOs are under more pressure to deliver on
innovation in order to stay competitive. One
of the major shifts we have seen has been
the widespread adoption of cloud computing,
which has enabled us to modify the role of the
CIO. Likewise, advancements in virtualisation,
automation and hyperconverged
infrastructure have enabled IT simplicity.
Avi Raichel, CIO at Zerto
“CIOs also increasingly hold responsibilities
outside of the IT office walls –
venturing into innovation and business
transformation. This changes CIO success
criteria and a s business models shift
towards digital, the role of the CIO will
continue to evolve. CIOs will be tasked with
discovering and advancing on technology
trends, adjusting internal expectations and
forming new organisation objectives – all
with business growth at the forefront. The
CIO of tomorrow will go far beyond simply
leading IT – they will be the key integrator
for new services and technology.”
Innovation
The role of the CIO is often entwined with
technology, so inevitably, as organisations
innovative responsibilities will shift. Aad
Dekkers, Marketing Director at Scale
Computing, explained the impact of
innovation: “Technology is fast-paced
and ever-evolving. It brings with it new
innovations and developments, but it is also
fundamentally changing many of our day-
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INTELLIGENTCIO
“Today, the role of the CIO is more focused on
improvement and driving business value. CIOs
have become more strategic, focused on IT
development and how to stay competitive and
ahead of the latest trends. Likewise, we have
seen a transition in daily routine away from IT
management and into more orchestration. It
is the evolution of IT that has enabled the CIO
to grow and take on more responsibility, but it
is essential for IT to remain simplistic in order
to support today’s organisations.”
IT developments and the impact on
the CIO
Barton, CTO at Wherescape, also considered
the changes in technology and explained
how this has impacted the role of the CIO:
“Using manual methods to gather and
work with the data required for actionable
business analysis would take months of
effort and just isn’t practical in today’s real-
time, instantaneous world. Technology can
overcome this complexity to empower the
business – and CIOs need to be leading the
charge to accomplish this.
“Fortunately, investing in automation
software can provide CIOs with a way
to do just that. Automation enables IT
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