2017 CIO Success Guide

Michael R. Wood is a Business Process Improvement & IT Strategist Independent Consultant. He is creator of the business process-improvement methodology called HELIX and founder of The Natural Intelligence Group, a strategy, process improvement and technology consulting company. He is also a CPA, has served as an Adjunct Professor in Pepperdine's Management MBA program, an Associate Professor at California Lutheran University, and on the boards of numerous professional organizations. Mr. Wood is a sought after presenter of HELIX workshops and seminars in both the U.S. and Europe.

  Strategy  

For CIOs in 2017, the issues and challenges are not getting any easier. Mobile computing, social media, cloud and digital computing, security, the Internet of Things and more are still playing a major role in the road ahead on the technology side of things.

Add to that the challenges related to talent acquisition and retention, maintaining effective relationships with fellow C-level executives, controlling costs, etc., and it is easy to understand why the role of the CIO is complicated—and success often elusive.

Beyond that, it is important to remember that the IT organization provides more cross-functional business process and analytics services to the organization than any other business unit. When services are disruptive, there is virtually no way to escape the impact. When websites go down, order-to-cash processes are impeded or payroll doesn’t process on time, there is hell to pay—and that payment is usually assessed against the CIO.

So what should CIOs (especially in smaller to mid-sized organizations) focus on to improve their job life expectancy? KPMG has identified 5 Imperatives for CIOs for 2017 as follows:

• Create business value
• Navigate business change
• Optimize IT investments
• Transform IT capabilities
• Deliver IT with confidence

Forester also identified (among other things) this guidance for CIOs:

• Focus on customer …

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