The new CIO agenda

As for new technologies and market developments, Kennedy points out that his three-year ICT plan always has a question mark after Year 3 — or even 2. “It goes so fast and changes so quickly that it is often more of a rolling plan. Information security, for example, was the province of the banks just a few years ago, now it is an essential component in every organisation’s ICT. As for ‘digital transformation’ I think it still sits where everything else sits. Something like 90% and more of my world is still composed of what we call legacy stuff and innovation has to fit in on top of that. Which in general is actually fine, probably depending on the sector you are in.”

He points out that we are coming out of a long period of minimal investment in ICT. “The iPhone was launched in recession, now it is a worldwide phenomenon. Technology in a sense exploded while the economy imploded. Now we are in a new norm and our systems have not really caught up yet — plus we are seeing a lot of new requirements like mobility and a lot of smart stuff coming down the pipe like automation of processes. That is where the CIO role meets innovation and takes it into strategic business transformation. We see it very much in transforming work on site, improving communications, assisting greater accuracy and reducing time across a range of tasks. Even in health and safety we are seeing worthwhile investment in technology. For us that is a key objective because our ethos is zero injuries or accidents, so both smart communications and data capture can contribute greatly.”

CIO report
A good picture of the attitudes and directions being taken by Irish CIOs today — with the backing or their boards — emerges from the seventh annual Deloitte survey published earlier this month. More than half cited innovation as their top priority and 48% specified growth, although actual ICT expenditure is still 78% on day-to-day costs and incremental change. Yet 22% of their budgets are allocated to innovation and growth, which many would view as quite healthy given that our economic recovery is still at an early stage. An equally encouraging result was that 58% named customers as their top business priority while the international pattern across 43 countries showed CIOs concerned with the traditional criteria of performance and costs. For them, customers came third.

 

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“Irish CIO priorities are, I think, a reflection of a positive new approach to the immediate future,” says Simon Murphy, technology partner in Deloitte Ireland and the leader of the CIO Survey project internationally. “Higher growth in the economy and new generations of technology requires investment in significantly different ICT capabilities like digital and analytics together with improvements in core systems.”

Trust levels
“It is interesting that half of Irish CIOs identified themselves as ‘trusted operators’, a higher proportion than across the global respondents. A focus on operations and execution is always required and was entirely appropriate in recent years. But in the light of significant new demands from the business for new technology capabilities, CIOs should consider if the time is right to flex their style more towards instigating and driving change in their organisation. We identified two patterns of CIOs who do this: Change Instigators and Business Co-Creators. CIOs adopting these patterns focus more of their time on leading technology-enabled business transformation and working with the business to drive the business strategy while building a strong team to focus on execution and operational excellence,” said Murphy.

“Organisations and their top management are now, more than ever, looking at the CIO as a leader who is prepared to drive business priorities through both scalable technology solutions and smart investments. It is a positive and exciting time for Irish CIOs, with a real opportunity to drive strategic transformation as they seek to support their organisations in a growth phase,” he says.