Playing Roles: Chief Information Officer

In one of my classes I was recently required to write a paper on a position that I plan to pursue. Anyone that knows me knows that I set very high goals for myself and I often times accomplish those goals. I decided to share my paper just in case any one happened to care, or is curious about the role of the Chief Information Officer of an enterprise.
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The IT field has several positions and titles that may vary from company to company, but each is significant in its own way.  Although these positions hold some sort of significance, there are only a few that are meant to lead, use judgment, and make decisions for the better of the organization. It is common to consider a president, vice president or Chief Executive Officer, but the Chief Information Officer plays a heavy role in the success and well being of the company.

            For years I have done research on what it takes to be a manager in the IT field. Although my expertise rest in programming and development, I always thought that I could benefit from something more.  I thoroughly enjoy the organization, thought, and leadership it takes to be a manager. Additionally, I learned during my undergrad years that I also enjoyed financial, technical, and business analysis. I believe that these passions along with certain characteristics and skills such as patience, team building, critical thinking, and decision making are only the beginning of why a Chief Executive Officer is my dream position as well as the topic for my paper.

I believe that I am a born leader. Since high school I have been developing plans and goals for each phase of my life and accomplishing them. One of my first goals was to get as much technical knowledge as I could. I majored in computer science as a high school student and began programming, developing flow charts, and thinking logically and critically. During college I decided to major in Information Sciences and Systems so that I could continue to build on my knowledge of development and IT infrastructure and begin learning the foundations of business strategy. One of my post-college goals consisted of obtaining a position as a software developer to better understand requirements analysis, project scheduling, and project management. With this knowledge, I plan to follow a pretty strict, self imposed career path that would hopefully lead me to a Chief Information Officer position.

 One of the best ways to describe a CIO is the “corporate savior who is to align the worlds of business and technology” (Gottschalk, 1).  Although that statement is very general, the CIO is responsible for many tasks.  A chief information officer is expected to play the role of an HR staffing member, a financial advisor, and a provider of technical services to the organization (Gottschalk, 1).  Combining all of these responsibilities into a single positions “facilitates the closing of the gap between organizational and IT strategies which has long been cited as a primary business concern” (Gottschalk 1).  While the role of a CIO may “change at varied levels of information system maturity and information system centralization” the end goal is always the same: to align business and information technology for the survival and success of an organization (Gottschalk, 1).

From a management perspective, a CIO can be considered a manager of people and a manager of IS functions within an organization.  The CIO is usually considered a leader for the information technology team within an organization. This means that a CIO can sometimes be “responsible for recruiting, hiring, developing, and supervising staff” (Florida Tech, 23). “As a senior level executive, the CIO sets the overall direction for technology through strategic planning and evaluation. They provide leadership, planning, and management for all areas of information technology strategy, development, and implementation” (Florida Tech, 18).

The CIO also has duties from a technical perspective.  “The CIO is not only concerned with a wider group of issues than most managers, but also, as the chief information systems strategist, has a set of responsibilities that must constantly evolve with the corporate information needs and with information technology itself” (Gottschalk, 1). Technical activities and considerations for a Chief Information Officer often include “ensuring that IT systems are efficient across an organization” (ComputerWeekly.com, 37), “keeping up with web threats, viruses and hacker activity”, “evaluating overall information technology operations”, and “evaluating and procuring new hardware and software to meet company needs” (Florida Tech, 28).

Additionally, the CIO plays a financial role within an organization as it concerns information systems.  These financial duties include “budget determination, forecasting and authorization” (Gottschalk, 1). “The CIO must keep technological purchases making business sense” meaning that a business case should be available for each purchase and “the technology must be around long enough to realize the savings” (Robbins, 21-23). One role of the CIO is to insure financial responsibility when it comes to acquiring new technologies.

The position of Chief Information Officer is considered an information technology field because the role of the CIO is to analyze how an organization works to effectively plan for its technology needs (Florida Tech, 13).  “They typically oversee the IT department and development of projects and programming to advance corporate objectives” (Florida Tech, 14). The Chief Information Office is an information technology position because this individual that is essentially the executive voice for all information systems within an organization. The CIO finds ways that technology can help an enterprise achieve goals and stay on track with its mission.

The title of Chief Information Officer is “commonly given to the person in an enterprise responsible for the information technology and computer systems that support enterprise goals” (Schneider, 4).  A CIO has four broad duties: “linking technology to internal strategic capabilities, linking technology to external strategic products and services, forecasting how technology will change competition/adapting the business so it continues to thrive, and saying no to technology that does not have a business rationale” (Robbins, 54-58). When considering these broad duties, there is one thing that is common to them all. All of the duties concern making decisions regarding technology to make the enterprise successful.

The information technology field is full of unique titles.  CIO is a unique title because this individual is expected to wear more hats than most managers.  A Chief Information Officer must be a well rounded individual with a hefty skill set. The individual must possess leadership roles and qualities such as a leader, a spokesman, a liaison, and a resource allocator (Gottschalk, 5).  They must also have IS leadership capabilities that include change architect and technology strategist (Gottschalk, 6). Lastly, the CIO is in charge of monitoring every aspect of information systems including end-user computing maturity, IS management maturity, IS resource centralization and IS management centralization (Gottschalk, 6). Depending on the atmosphere of an organization, the role of the CIO can change, and the individual with may title must be willing to grow and adapt with the enterprise. Because of this, “It is very difficult to generalize what a CIO does, as there is not general CIO definition” (ComputerWeekly.com, 9).  CIO’s are unique because they understand that it is their duty to add value to the business, often times, without a solid, well defined job description (ComputerWeekly.com, 10).

            There will always be a need for human decision makers when it comes to the proper direction for a company.  No learning system could ever mimic the expertise and experience of a high level executive.  Although technology is useful in aiding a CIO with research, hiring and staffing, and communication, it is the actual person that understands the mission, goals, and objectives of the business and can determine what technology would be useful in achieving that mission. A Chief Information Officer has a lot of responsibility presently.  Starting now, and probably more heavily in the future “as cyber threats become more prevalent, an increasingly important aspect of the CIO’s job is information systems security” (Florida Tech, 31). Additionally, technology is growing so rapidly, and it can sometimes be difficult to say that newer is not always necessarily better and cheaper (Robbins).  In the future, the CIO may have a more difficult time pushing against a more fancy technology that may not necessarily be beneficial to the organization as business and IS priorities change (Computer Weekly.com).

            Although the role of a Chief Information Officer requires a lot of time, patience and responsibility it is one that I am willing to take on.  I enjoy fast paced, high pressure environments and enjoy problem solving and decision making. A Chief Information Officer wears several hats: a financial adviser, a manager, a technology specialist, a decision maker, and most importantly, a leader.
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ComputerWeekly.com. What Exactly Does a Cief Information Officer Do? 22 Jul 2005. Website. 12 July 2013. <http://www.computerweekly.com/news/2240061366/What-exactly-does-a-chief-information-officer-do>.

Gottschalk, Petter. "The Chief Information Officer: A Study of Managerial Roles in Norway." 2002. Hawaii Internation Conference on System Sciences. Document. 12 July 2013. <http://www.hicss.hawaii.edu/HICSS_35/HICSSpapers/PDFdocuments/OSITG01.pdf>.

Robbins, Stever. What does a CIO do, anyway? 26 March 2007. Website. 31 July 2013. <http://www.steverrobbins.com/articles/what-does-a-cio-do.htm>.

Schneider, Laura. CIO - Chief Information Officer - All About the CIO Title - What is a CIO? 2012. Website. 12 July 2013. <http://jobsearchtech.about.com/od/careersintechnology/a/CIO.htm>.

Tech, Florida. Chief Information Officer Job Description & Outlook | Salary & Careers. n.d. Website. 12 July 2012. <http://www.floridatechonline.com/online-degree-resources/chief-information-officer-careers/>.