MRK Marketing Services

  • Home
  • About
  • Blog
  • Contact

Is the CIO role dead? Join the Debate

September 22, 2012 by mk@mkrieger.com

Have CFO and CIO become synonymous?  I must have missed that because last time I checked, these were two different skill sets.  Yet according to a spring 2012 study by UK service provider Getronics, the role of CIO will be obsoleted by 2017.  Well, check back here then because I’m telling you the CIO isn’t going anywhere yet.

I’m not even sure why all the buzz – the study said only about 1/5 of the respondents even believed the CIO was vanishing that soon.  Not a strong number

But forget that.  Let’s look at the CFO/CIO dance.

When IT evolved out of Data Processing, it was entirely in the CFO’s realm.  The first business computing machines were all about accounting and finance.  Payroll, accounting – these were the early apps.  And enterprises wrote most every line of code themselves.

Fast forward 40 years and a lot has changed.  Every LOB, not just accounting, request IT services and functions.    Lots of those requests don’t even get to the CIO – they go to a SaaS/Cloud provider instead – and none of the CxO’s necessarily like that at all.

As public could services come online LOBs often employ “shadow IT” to get their project up and running without the perceived hassles of internal IT – just slap down a credit card and be done with it.   The good of that is there’s an outside number to compare to.

And with the boardroom focused on the bottom line, some say “The CIO came out of finance, maybe it’s time she went back to finance!”.   Are you surprised this has highlighted a power struggle between CIO and CFO?

In the too-familiar case of a CFO and CIO  each thinking they could do the other’s job as well as their own, a clue for you:  You can’t.  Finance isn’t IT isn’t Finance.

The real problem here is complexity.  When IT spun out of accounting you COULD be an expert in finance AND IT.  Today, there’s just too much – and different ways of thinking.

Share this:

  • Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)

Related

Filed Under: Tech News Tagged With: CFO, CIO

Newsletter

Want to keep up on what we're doing? Sign up here.

About Me

Michael has been involved in technology, marketing, media and research since the early 1970s. He founded MRK to share his expertise in content creation and marketing. Read More…

Hours & Info

448 Ignacio Blvd 341
Novato CA 94949
1-415-883-3790
We keep East Coast and West Coast hours (Sorry, Denver).

Start a Project

We'd love to hear about your upcoming project. Tell us all about it by filling out our contact form.

Or, give us a call at +1 415 883 3790

Connect with Us

Want to know what's going on at MRK? Follow us across our social networks.

  • Facebook
  • LinkedIn
  • Twitter

Copyright © 2019 · Agency Pro on Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in