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What is the role of the CIO today—and what will it be in the near future? And what are the top technologies CIOs should be looking to deploy?
We put those questions to Bob Keefe, a senior vice president and chief information officer for Mueller Water Products and the president of the Society for Information Management (SIM), the leading association for chief information officers.
Keefe joined Mueller, a $1.85 billion manufacturer of products used in water distribution networks and treatment facilities, at the beginning of last year. Before that he was the CIO at athletic and sporting goods company Russell and at ConAgra Refrigerated Foods. He also held IT positions at Kraft Foods and Wyeth Pharmaceuticals.
Keefe, a New York native, now lives in Atlanta and is active in a number of organizations, including the United Way's Tech Initiative, Women in Technology's outreach program, and TechBridge, a non-profit that helps other nonprofits leverage technology. He is also a Mentor in Residence at Georgia Tech, on the advisory board at University of Alabama, and a guest lecturer at Georgia State University.
Keefe recently spoke with CIOZone's Chief Content Officer John McCormick. This is an edited version of their conversation.
CIOZone: How do you see the role of the CIO evolving?
Keefe: I see the role continuing to evolve more toward the organization, more toward the business, more toward strategic planning. How do we take, not only the technologies, but business process improvement and make our organizations more productive? How do we attract and retain customers? How do we bring more profits and revenues to the bottom line? How do we improve customer service?
Even though we're looking to improve our networks as new technologies come out, and looking at business intelligence systems to determine trends⏼all of those things—I think the role of the CIO is continuing to get integrated into senior management. And I believe it's getting to be more and more valued as the role continues to evolve into not just the shepherd of IT but as a part of business leadership.
CIOZone: But if you're an up and coming IT manager, what are some of the steps that you can take to put yourself in a position where you can be seen as a leader within your particular company?
Keefe: Well, I think getting that business acumen. That's why I'm such a proponent of the Regional Leadership Forums [a leadership development program for SIM members]. It starts you down the path of saying, "Hey, this is more than just technology." If you're a manager of technology, maybe you've got some great project management skills, which will do you well. But you've got to get involved much more deeply in terms of your business acumen, your leadership. For instance, communication skills are important, so seek out ways to hone your communication skills.
CIOZone: You have an MBA, is that something that CIOs will need in the future?
Keefe: That was my motivation. I actually had gone down the path of getting a Master's in Computer Science. Luckily for me, they closed the night school I was attending before I completed that. And then I said, "Well, let me get this thing called an MBA." So I transferred those credits and completed my MBA. But I think that's paid really good dividends for me. I started to realize the business stuff was really pretty cool.
CIOZone: Having an MBA probably just gives you more legitimacy when you're talking to other executives within a corporation.
Keefe: It does. It probably opens a few more doors. And I found it very valuable in communications with my peers, because if I'm talking to a CFO or a comptroller, I know what they're talking about when they mention different accounts. And we're working on financial systems all the time—be it financial consolidation or general ledger or any kind of analysis.
I understand operations, manufacturing and distribution, which helped since I've lived in the manufacturing world most of my career. I even had some marketing courses, which helped when I worked at consumer products companies.
It's done me well. I don't know if you need to get an MBA, but you need to get that experience someplace, somehow.
CIOZone: What is the state of the CIO profession today? We continue to see studies—including a recent SIM study—that find fewer CIOs reporting to CEOs. And there was a report in The Wall Street Journal not too long ago that said CIOs may be losing their influence. So we have these wildly different views. What's going on?
Keefe: I guess I don't really get too concerned with that because, in most cases, the CIO is operationally focused, they're into the nuts and the bolts of running an organization. And there has been kind of a shift in the COO's role, which I think is fairly recent. Now, the CEO, in a number of larger organizations, tends to be outwardly focused, dealing with the board of directors. And the boards of directors for publicly traded companies have, with Sarbanes Oxley, mergers and acquisitions, and with other things, been much more engaged in the business. So that's where the CEO tends to put their focus.
So perhaps the role of the CIO has tended a little bit more toward the COO than the CEO.
But I think that might be OK because, again, the nature of the CEO's role is more externally focused.
CIOZone: But looking back on where CIOs have been and their role within organizations over the past 10 or 20 years, I've never seen a time when CIOs have more say in their organization, or more influence on the business.
Keefe: I am in total agreement with you. I see the influence. I see the quality and the caliber of the top IT leader in organizations continuing to grow and to continue to have influence within the organization. And I think that's terrific.
CIOZone: What are the challenges that you see coming up for 2008? Obviously the economy is on a lot of people's minds. Do you see economic worries changing the way CIOs manage?
I think so. I think we're being a little bit more cautious. We're being a little bit more selective in where we're investing. I think we might be a little bit more selective in the hiring process, although I still see a good deal of hiring going on.
You know, it just might be a little bit more conservative, but I don't think it's a lot. I don't think it's a downward trend, I think people are just looking to get more value for their investment. And I think that is going to play, quite frankly, pretty well into higher productivity gains in the long run.
CIOZone: As far as technology is concerned, Web services, business process management, customer portals, business intelligence and security seemed to top SIM's list of top technology priorities. But what other technologies do you see coming into the mix over the next 12 to 18 months?
Well, certainly the ones you mentioned—business process management, business intelligence, etc.—are the ones that people are concentrating on.
I think CIOs will also work to improve networks and interconnectivity between facilities. I don't know too many firms that don't have voice over IP running in some way, shape or form, or haven't been exploring, or looking at the next generation with MTLS (Mutual Transport Layer Security) for encryption. So I think networks are continuing to evolve and improve.
CIOZone: Another thing we hear is that most companies, if they haven't already done so, are looking to push out Web services.
Absolutely. I mean that's the technology that is changing the game. In addition to Web services, personally, I'm looking at some systems I want to see in an on-demand model. Software as a service is changing our vendors and our software manufacturers. Not all of them have got it right yet, but, you know, they're working on different models for the next generation of software.
Tomorrow: Keefe talks about the Society for Information Management and his goals for the organization.
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