CIO Survival Guide – The Recovery Begins

If you were a CIO in 2008 and survived 2009, then you have earned your stripes. 2009 felt the full brunt of the economic meltdown
ending the year with double-digit unemployment and new job creation at an all time low.

Putting 2009 aside, what does 2010 hold in store for CIOs? Will it be a year of continued lean budgets and cost controls or a year of gradual recovery and growth?

More than ever, CIOs need to focus on their business savvy, peer relationships and ability to achieve continuous alignment with business strategies and objectives. In addition, it is imperative that CIOs don’t go off on technology quests that may be too controversial or bleeding edge. While having the latest and greatest might give the CIO bragging rights at conferences and such, it does little to impress leadership teams and business unit executives if core needs aren’t being satisfied.

For 2010, CIOs would be wise to keep their technology powder dry, keep the infrastructure solid and focus on providing solutions that are easily traceable to specific enterprise and business unit objectives. Therefore, new project initiatives need to be “rifle-shot” on target and deliverables, spot on. Shorter projects with more frequent deliverables will serve the CIO better than larger, high-risk endeavors. Improving service levels should be first and foremost on CIOs' list of priorities, especially if they have suffered due to cut backs and other recession-related events.

CIO Insight weighed in on the topic in its “CIO priorities for 2010,” a recap of the survey conducted by “The Society for Information Management (SIM)” of CIOs and IT executive leaders. These priorities are as follows:

1. Business Productivity and Cost Reduction
2. IT and Business Alignment
3. Business Agility and Speed to Market
4. Business Process Reengineering
5. IT Cost Reduction
6. IT Reliability and Efficiency
7. IT Strategic Planning
8. Revenue Generating IT Innovation
9. Security and Privacy Maturity
10. CIO as a Member of the Leadership Team

Clearly these priorities reveal the focus is on sticking to basics before branching out into the innovative. To see cost reduction take precedent over revenue growth is quite telling. Disappointing was the sense that it isn’t imperative to have the CIO serve in an enterprise leadership capacity. This suggests that CIOs are still seen as second class citizens and not the peer of CFOs and COOs. In many respects, these top 10 priorities take me back to the mid-1990s in terms of what those surveyed deemed to be important. For me it isn’t so much the items making the list but the sequence and the inherent contradictions in expectations.