Business skills a necessity for successful
CIOs
Phil Clarke
Managing director IT and telecoms
Hudson
John-Paul Kamath is right to highlight the changing role of the
CIO. Instead of bemoaning their fate, IT staff must look to
themselves to make their mark.
It is not sufficient for aspiring CIOs to have a firm grasp of
the role's technical aspects. Our clients increasingly demand that
C-suite level candidates demonstrate their soft skills, such as a
client-facing focus, and strong interpersonal and management
skills. Most importantly though, firms want their senior IT staff
to be more commercially minded. Network installation costs
represent some of the largest investments companies make, and CIOs
are asked to play a central role in ensuring that these investments
bear fruit.
Communicating the value of IT throughout their organisation can
help ensure that the role of the CIO is never undervalued.
Measure the value of IT for the business
good
Stuart McGill
In response to your
article on the decision made by Boots and House of Fraser to axe
the role of IT director, it is now of paramount importance that
CIOs "sell" the business value of their IT investments to the
board.
However, CIOs face difficulties when it comes to quantifying
this business value, as the majority of companies do not attribute
any financial value to their technology assets in their annual
accounts. As a result, many companies are pitifully unaware of the
importance of their IT assets and are also not giving an accurate
representation of the total value of their business.
Reversing this could have a huge impact on the role and status
of the CIO, and on the company itself. Full IT asset financial
valuations could make all the difference, whether the company is
verifying it has the resources to acquire, or if it is fighting off
an acquisition approach.
When one considers that other retailers such as M&S and
Tesco are seeing year-on-year success as a result of putting
technology at the heart of their strategies, it truly highlights
the need to identify how to place a value on IT assets, and for
this valuation to be a managed component of the business. Senior
managers within IT and chief finance officers should overhaul this
situation as a matter of urgency.
Without this exercise taking place, technology will never get
the respect it deserves.
Governing body needed to keep information
visible
David Porter
Head of security and risk
Detica
The draft best practice framework for sharing personal information
issued by the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) is to be
welcomed, particularly as it deals with the individual's right to
have access to information held about them.
Currently, members of the public seeking the information that is
kept about them have to trawl through scores of organisations to
request it. The ICO recommends that organisations provide a single
point of contact for people wanting to access this information, and
also make people aware of this facility. I believe we should go
even further: individuals should be proactively notified about what
information is held about them and informed whenever it
changes.
As most people do not have the inclination or ability to manage
this process for themselves, we will need to invent a new type of
organisation to administer the creation, industry usage and
maintenance of a personal data record on the public's behalf.
After all, we gave up keeping our cash under our mattresses long
ago and we certainly do not process our own credit card
transactions. It might sound complex to build, and security would
need to be tight, but what choice do we have? Identity information
is the new currency in the digital universe and we must retain
control of key information.
But this initiative will not solve all the problems: consider
the vast amounts of data shared by private individuals working and
socialising online. In many cases this data is much more personal
and sensitive than anything governments or large corporations keep
on us. Ensuring the accuracy of a personal profile that has been
scattered to the four corners of the world will be demanding to say
the least.
Give staff time to explore their inner
entrepreneur
Martin Rice
Chief executive officer
Erudine
I read with interest
Julie Meyer's article on entrepreneurship and appreciated the
sentiment greatly. However, I do feel that the article failed to
properly address the important question of exactly how companies
could create such an environment. What should companies do to allow
Britain to breed more IT entrepreneurs?
The answer is simple, even if achieving it is not. A change in
company culture and attitude is what is needed. Companies need to
have more trust in their employees and give them more of a free
rein.
There are a range of ways to do this, but one simple and
effective method is to allow employees to work on personal projects
within working hours by allocating "free time" slots once a
week.
If, as a CEO or a CIO, "free time" makes you nervous, remember
that you are supposed to be employing creative and productive
employees, and something is needed to make sure that they stay this
way.
It is most likely that business leaders implementing such a step
will need to enforce it themselves. Giving these opportunities out
does not necessarily mean they are taken up. More often than not,
employees would prefer to make sure they are getting all their work
done rather than make sure they are being innovative, and free time
would be the first calendar entry to be cancelled if this was the
case.
Businesses must start thinking this way if Britain is ever to
start growing its innovation back to the level of previous
years.