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By Laton McCartney
In his role as the executive director of the Center for CIO Leadership, Harvey Koeppel is uniquely positioned to see how the role of the CIO is evolving.
Koeppel himself has a wealth of experience with the CIO position, having previously served as the chief information officer and SVP of Citigroup’s Global Consumer Group, where he set the strategic direction for -- and actively supported the growth and development of -- operations and technology.
Recently, Koeppel took time to talk to CIOZone about the trends he sees developing among the Center for CIO Leadership’s 2,400 members.
What’s the big difference in the CIO’s mission today as opposed to a year or two ago?
Koeppel: The CIO traditionally has been internally focused, meaning he or she dealt with IT operations and tactical issues. Now the job is transformative and externally facing. The CIO is dealing directly with his C-level counterparts in areas such as transforming the business model around innovative, streamlined business processes. Today CIOs are also dealing with external customers and even collaborating with vendors.
How so?
Koeppel: Well, for example, the head of sales at Siemens asked the company’s CIO to participate in sales meetings. Previously, Siemens had been selling its security solutions to chief processing officers, but as these technology solutions became more robust, CIOs became more involved in the buying decision. So with Siemens’ CIO present, the sales calls became CIO-to-CIO discussions.
You mentioned that CIOs are collaborating with vendors. In what sense?
Koeppel: With outsourcing, as an example, the determining factor used to be the $129 an hour it would cost to do something in Orlando versus the $25 an hour you’d pay in Malaysia. Now, CIO and other C-level executives are looking at outsourcing and business process outsourcing deals in another ways. In this new business model the vendor takes over part of the back office as a partner and has a stake in the customer’s success. When the company does well, the vendor gets paid more. When the company does poorly, the reverse is true. And the focus is more on having the vendor or solutions provider help solve business problems.
The Center for CIO Leadership is a global organization. What differences do you see between CIOs in North America and Europe and the emerging markets in Asia in the Middle East?
Koeppel: I’m amazed at how much understanding CIOs in countries such as China and the Phillipines have of sophisticated new technologies. CIOs in the U.S. typically have all this older technology in place going back to large mainframes. They’re able to put a Web 2.0 front end on an expensive legacy system, but with a 100-year-old company that’s got a 50-year-old legacy system in place, the CIO may well be spending 80 percent of his time and budget just keeping the lights on.
In contrast, CIOs in Asia and the Mideast can start with a clean slate. They’re able to leapfrog their counterparts in older companies.
I assume the same can be said of CIOs in start-ups.
Koeppel: Yes, in start-ups and in companies that are only five or ten years old and started out at a much later stage of technology development.
What are the key skills a CIO needs today?
Koeppel: In addition to operational excellence, which is a given, CIOs need to step up in areas such as organizational talent and human capital management in order to maintain staff and ensure they have the right bench strength. Also, what were traditionally thought of as the softer skills such as business process and strategy development, leadership and innovation are emerging as important skills today and will become increasingly important in the future.
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