Intelligent CIO Europe Issue 10 | Page 48

FEATURE: STATE OF THE CIO ////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// TODAY’S CIO IS A TRUE BUSINESS LEADER; HOLDING A UNIQUE VANTAGE POINT WITHIN THE CORPORATION THEY SERVE. to-day roles – especially for the CIO. One of the major challenges today, is that CIOs are taking on more responsibility and their role is growing to encompass wider aspects of the business, but quite often with no additional resources. teams to gather data and speed up the time it takes to derive business value from it. Similarly, by removing the burden for developers to manually code such data- driven insights, the CIO frees up the IT team to focus on other business value-add tasks that will further the transformation agenda. Automating the process of data gathering can drive real business benefits and provide a flexible, templated approach to personalisation for every business’ unique decision-making requirements and data landscape. As CIOs look to drive the technology strategy to move the business forward in a competitive marketplace, automation has never been more important for success.” “Likewise, as technology spending grows, CIOs are under more pressure to deliver on innovation in order to stay competitive. One of the major shifts we have seen has been the widespread adoption of cloud computing, which has enabled us to modify the role of the CIO. Likewise, advancements in virtualisation, automation and hyperconverged infrastructure have enabled IT simplicity. Avi Raichel, CIO at Zerto “CIOs also increasingly hold responsibilities outside of the IT office walls – venturing into innovation and business transformation. This changes CIO success criteria and a s business models shift towards digital, the role of the CIO will continue to evolve. CIOs will be tasked with discovering and advancing on technology trends, adjusting internal expectations and forming new organisation objectives – all with business growth at the forefront. The CIO of tomorrow will go far beyond simply leading IT – they will be the key integrator for new services and technology.” Innovation The role of the CIO is often entwined with technology, so inevitably, as organisations innovative responsibilities will shift. Aad Dekkers, Marketing Director at Scale Computing, explained the impact of innovation: “Technology is fast-paced and ever-evolving. It brings with it new innovations and developments, but it is also fundamentally changing many of our day- 48 INTELLIGENTCIO “Today, the role of the CIO is more focused on improvement and driving business value. CIOs have become more strategic, focused on IT development and how to stay competitive and ahead of the latest trends. Likewise, we have seen a transition in daily routine away from IT management and into more orchestration. It is the evolution of IT that has enabled the CIO to grow and take on more responsibility, but it is essential for IT to remain simplistic in order to support today’s organisations.” IT developments and the impact on the CIO Barton, CTO at Wherescape, also considered the changes in technology and explained how this has impacted the role of the CIO: “Using manual methods to gather and work with the data required for actionable business analysis would take months of effort and just isn’t practical in today’s real- time, instantaneous world. Technology can overcome this complexity to empower the business – and CIOs need to be leading the charge to accomplish this. “Fortunately, investing in automation software can provide CIOs with a way to do just that. Automation enables IT www.intelligentcio.com