CIO: losing ground?

In a current quick scan of the current status of vacancies for CIO’s and CIO-like roles, I noticed that in the medium size enterprises the organizational position and authority for the person in charge of IT is declining. Surprisingly often a newly sought executive will no board or MT-seat and has to report through another executive. This seems a step back from the CIO’s quest for board membership. I tried to find out why.

Is there a relation with the current economic crises?. Well, most organizations are tightening their belts and the smart ones will take up any chance to limit the number and costs for (senior) overhead positions. Looking upon IT as cost item, denoting the managerial position is an obvious thing to do especially when the current person can be replaced. Just check yourselves how many current vacancies speak about “Director IT” or “Head of IT” while describing a full demand and supply task and even mentioning in brackets the word “CIO”. Although I see a trend where the IT responsible person is to report to the CFO again, there is also a smaller group opting for the COO or equivalent. Surprisingly (?) the CEO seems not to be interested.

As a side note: weirdly enough it seems that financial positions are hardly a topic of right sizing, changes and savings. This brotherhood seems to flourish during the economic downturn.

Or is the CIO-role still not accepted in medium size enterprises? I afraid this is the case for many blue collar dominant companies like manufacturing, environmental and logistic services. White collar companies have learned (the hard way) that bad IT costs a fortune but they can’t do without it anymore so a board driven implementation has a better return.

An interesting fact is that medium sized companies with large venture capital influence seem to have the least interest in a well established IT-function on board level: the fixation on short term revenue and profit growth leaves structural business process improvement via IT as a secondary option. Strangely enough are these also the companies who could profit from a strong IT-function the most. Either because as start-ups with funding the best solutions can be implemented straight away or because mergers and acquisitions give room for IT-rightsizing with a quick ROI.

Or are there simply not enough qualified affordable CIO’s around? We are asking a lot: business acumen, technology literate, process awareness, budget smart, proactive drive, etc. The good ones are mostly absorbed by the large enterprises and angry young candidates need time to mature, all in an environment where Career Is Over adagio still hangs above the position that I think is crucial for information based companies that still want to be around in 10 years.

Are you seeing the same trends? Please share your experiences with me.

Results2Match has a strong vision on the changing roles and functions and result driven implementations.

This blog is written by Hans van Nes. Hans is a very experienced interim manager and (radical) change management consultant. You can contact Hans through his Results2Match email address.
Hans.van.nes@results2match.com