Three Strategies of CIO

A nice quality of any really good generic model is that it can be relatively easily translated from its original area of focus to any other domain. In this way a model from organizational management after minor adjustments can prove helpful for finances, knowledge sharing or innovation management domain.

MS Word in its SmartArt function (even though I don't like it) has many recognized patterns for the commonly used model shapes.

Models in the form of pyramids, value-chains, lists or matrices are used everywhere. But appropriate shape is only one side of the coin. More important one is the side on which we can read the value of the coin, i.e. the content part of a model.

Lately I tried to play with a strategic model of Treacy and Wiersema and translate it to the IT domain.

Treacy and Wiersema's analysis of successful companies led them to believe that there are three powerful ways of dominating markets, which they call Value Disciplines: Product Leadership, Operational Excellence and Customer Intimacy. Each discipline requires different skills, organisation and coporate focus although Treacy and Wiersema believed that no discipline could be neglected and companies need to be at least competent in all three.

• Operational Excellence: superb operations and execution often by providing a reasonable quality at a very low price. The focus is on efficiency, streamlining operations, Supply Chain Management, no-frills, volume counts. Most large international corporations are working out of this discipline.


• Product Leadership: very strong in innovation and brand marketing, operating in dynamic markets. The focus is on development, innovation, design, time-to-market, high margins in a short timeframe.


• Customer Intimacy: excel in customer attention and customer service. Tailor their products and services to individual or almost individual customers. Focus is on CRM, deliver products and services on time and above customer expectations, lifetime value concepts, reliability, being close to the customer.

The CIO role is usually explained by binary inherent contradictions: business acumen versus technology skills, operational fixation versus strategic ambitions, innovation versus cost containment, enterprise responsibility versus siloed demands, etc.

The triple of Treacy and Wiersema can give us a new perspective on those contradictions. Looking through the IT glasses we can see the model as possible strategies of an internal IT organization or as attention points on CIO agenda.

The three directions in this case will be:

First of all, similar to Treacy and Wiersema model, here your IT organization cannot succeed if any of three is lower than some minimum threshold. Second, depending on available budget, importance of IT how it is perceived by business, organizational maturity and other factors, one of three can really be a dominant strategy. But let's take a look at them one by one.

• Stable Infrastructure: (similar to Operational Excellence) The focus is on efficiency, low price and excellent stable operations. A company should not even notice its IT. And IT should provide reliable, stable and smooth support of all necessary functions at reasonably low cost. A better name for a CIO here is IT director.
  
  The necessary and sufficient innovation limit here is timely updates of hardware and software with as little disruption as possible. The partnership with business is limited to the reports with numbers and explanations in cases of accidents.


• Partnership With Business: (similar to Client Intimacy) Products and services are tailored here to the business needs. CIO and IT managers should understand the specifics of the business they support, main processes and information flows. Active communication between business and IT is essential. And the focus of conversations is on the business needs and problems and how they can be solved by IT.
  
  Infrastructure is important as a background here not to interfere in conversations with business managers. If the corporate e-mail server is down, it is not the best time for a CIO to discuss business needs. Innovation can be a part of conversations and make a part of portfolio. But usually this strategy is present when the core business does not require insights from IT visionaries. Besides, the number areas for possible internal improvements makes it not reasonable for a CIO to venture with radical externally-oriented innovation and risk getting spoiled relations in case of failure.


• Innovative Disruptions: (similar to Product Leadership) The role of CIO and IT managers here is to bring innovation and new opportunities. Every change in IT world - be it a new operating system, new gadget or new communication medium - can open new possibilities or bring new threats for the company. The CIO here is like a watchman skanning the technology horizon, picking the most promicing innovations, and taking measures against the most potentially dangerous ones.
  
  Infrastructure has to be stable enough here, same as in the previous point. Partnership with business is important to some degree. But instead of (or in addition to) adjusting to business needs and cementing the existing business model, IT serves now as a catalyst to organizational change.

What do you think about this "translation"? Can you find examples of those strategies or attention points in your experience?

Focus on CIO

Different focuses, different opinions, different skills and tools portfolio's... By reading different books, articles or blog-posts you might create a strikingly different image of the position and role of a CIO.

The information technology is evolving on and is becoming less of something complex, strange and specific which only techno-geeks could understand. It resembles more of inherent and inevitable part of any business where every manager or executive must know at least a little bit about.

In the same way the clear trend can be seen in articles and opinions (and of course in reality as well). The role of a CIO is becoming less and less of something like a back-office function and more about strategic thinking, vision, understanding the drivers of growth and value. Technological knowledge and related skills might still be considered as a plus, but only if they don't interfere with the really valuable competencies of C-level position. Competencies like leadership, ability to think strategically, to convey and defend your vision, to sift out really promising innovation trends come to the forefront.

A nice recent article by Harvard Business Review "Should Your Next Job Be CIO?" illustrates the situation by referring to other studies, examples and self-explaining numbers.

"Gartner Inc.'s 2008 worldwide survey of more than 1,500 CIOs showed that over 50% held responsibilities in their companies outside IT, including strategic planning, operations, and shared services."

"almost 26% of the CIOs responding were executives who had never served in IT before becoming CIO"

Another example from the same HBR article shows that the current job of a CIO is not that much different of the one of CEO. Even though the transition from the CIO position to the one of a CEO are still rare in large successful companies (see examples here and here), it might not be the case in 5 or 10 years. And the responsibilities and values for both positions have very much in common already today.

So, whether you just consider a CIO carreer or have been working at this position for somewhile, don't forget to revise your skills and competencies once in a while and make sure that "soft" ones make a large enough part of them.