What are the Skills of CIO 3.0?

The new CIO needs to master seven key skills for business technology leadership. CIOs also need timely information, trustworthy advice, and cutting-edge tools to get ahead and stay ahead. CIO Community can help.

The CIO role was already under pressure to produce tangible, sustainable, and provable IT ROI. CIOs are now asked to become “business leaders” and “innovators!”

The new CIO, CIO 3.0, is expected to be a technology innovator, savvy enough to anticipate upcoming disruptive technology, inform and educate the business, adapt and retool the business in response, and, most importantly, create new business opportunities to leverage to create shareholder value.

The new CIO role requires seven key skills to become a business technology leader.

Technology-driven business innovation: CIO 3.0 must run an IT shop that builds and deploys cutting-edge technology that works. In addition, they must understand how to create/re-shape business models using technology, aka technology innovation.

E-Business Strategy: In the short term, mastery of e-strategy is essential because the internet is already upon us, and mobile is catching up fast. Over the long term, the ability to read trends to separate hype from reality before others have read that analyst briefing.

Innovation-driven IT Governance: Traditional IT governance has focused on eliminating risk. However, innovation thrives on risk. The new CIO must learn to create an IT governance model that embraces risk but produces returns.

Services Driven Enterprise Architecture Planning: CIO 3.0 must create a model of the business so refined and accurate that the impact of an upcoming technology can be assessed in advance, the response plotted, and change implemented at the speed of light.

Strategic Sourcing: How to extend the organizational boundaries of your nimble IT organization seamlessly and for high impact. Extreme collaboration is the new norm. The new CIO must be a master of this art.

On-Demand Infrastructure: Nimble organizations require nimble infrastructure. The new CIO must master the “on-demand” infrastructure- effortless, rapid requisitioning, deployment, maintenance, and scaling of interoperable yet secure technology infrastructure.

Soft Skills: Now, more than ever, the CIO must make ordinary people do extraordinary things. It is not easy to lead mavericks. It is even harder to find mavericks. It is excruciating to turn ordinary people into mavericks. Imagine doing this when you are stepping on the toes of every person in the business. Innovation does not happen in an organizational silo. It is a process that is intertwined with every other process in the organization. The new CIO must be adept at dealing with her peers – a relationship with the CMO is critical, but with the CFO and the other members of the C-Suite are as important. The most critical relationship is with the CEO – how do you lead your boss? How do you make them feel secure when they know you are doing their job? The new CIO must hone in those soft skills, especially leadership skills.

At CIO-Index, we believe that CIOs must retool and acquire these skills to remain relevant. It is less about getting your next job and more about keeping your current one. It is a fundamental requirement for a career as Chief Information Officer – no matter the new title.

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