The role and function of the chief information officer (CIO), the most senior IT leader in an organisation, has evolved quite significantly in recent years.

Globally, some organisations have both a CIO and a chief technology officer (CTO). Due to the size of local organisations, however, you’ll rarely find both CIO and CTO.

The difference is that CIOs typically manage internal IT needs, while the CTO focuses on customer-facing technology needs, including delivery of products and services through technology.

Many organisations have a CIO who covers both, usually with solid support from their IT team to handle internal infrastructure-related matters.

It was once a purely operational function with many IT leaders in a back-office rarely ever seen by staff except when there’s an issue that may go beyond the help desk.

Viewed as the person to call when the laptops crashed or the servers went down, the CIO is now called to formulate and deliver strategic initiatives. With the support of the CEO, the CIO must relinquish the traditional views on responsibility and rise to the challenge that is often more business than technology.

Businesses will become more reliant on technology to remain competitive, so the CIO’s role will grow. The way leaders in business view the role must now also expand beyond building and implementing IT systems to a more holistic leadership role.

A study conducted at the beginning of 2021 by IDG shows that 96 per cent of the 812 IT leaders surveyed felt their role is expanding beyond traditional IT.

“Amid the rush to fortify business operations for digital and remote work, 33 per cent of IT leaders devote time to strategy formulation such as driving business innovation (33 per cent), developing and refining business strategy (28 per cent), and identifying opportunities for competitive differentiation (22 per cent).”

In addition to the business strategy skills, being adept at leading high performance, agile, flexible, and diverse teams is another critical area of focus for today’s CIO.

With the pandemic, many local businesses demand change faster than their IT teams can deliver. The success of the CIO will require a team that can take on the operational leadership and execution and allow the CIO to have the capacity and agility needed to lead innovation and transformation.

The evolving role of the CIO will be discussed at our upcoming BizTech 2021 conference staged from November 10 to 12, 2021. Register now at biztechconf.com.