Autor: Trovarelli | Publicado: 2012-10-10T18:00:00-03:00


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Are The CIO And IT Organization Replaceable? 
Technology spending and influence are moving outside of the IT 
department, but let's not lay a wreath for the IT pro just yet.
By Rob Preston, <!-- remove http:// substring (if present) from the url --> InformationWeek October 08, 2012URL: http://www.informationweek.com/global-cio/interviews/are-the-cio-and-it-organization-replacea/240008574 
The new conventional wisdom is that the CIO and IT organization are becoming 
relics, as business technology decision-making and purchasing move into 
marketing, sales, HR, and other departments. Who needs a big IT organization, 
the reasoning goes, when tech-savvy line-of-business workers and their managers 
can buy the server capacity, storage, applications, and devices they need with a 
few clicks and a credit card? 
In a column titled "New 
Face Of IT: Line Of Business Execs," InformationWeek contributor 
Patrick Houston relates the example of LivingSocial, a Groupon-like startup 
whose HR chief, Jennifer Trzepacz, ramped up cloud-based recruiting, payroll, 
and employee performance-management systems in next to no time--all without an 
IT department. Concludes Houston: "Trzepacz and others like her--managers who 
know their disciplines more intimately than IT could--are destined to command 
ever bigger shares of enterprise technology budgets."



 
Adding fuel to the debate are two recent reports that conclude that marketing 
departments, whose spending on IT already is growing two to three times faster 
than other IT spending, are taking matters into their own hands. Gartner 
predicts that by 2017, marketing 
departments will spend more on IT than the IT organizations at those 
companies. And IBM, in a survey of 1,700 CMOs, found that 23% of them now rely 
extensively on external partnerships for IT initiatives--but 61% think they'll 
rely extensively on them over the next three to five years. 
[ Do you underpromise and overdeliver? Read Hypesters 
Put IT Credibility On The Line. ] 
The findings of a recent InformationWeek survey of IT and non-IT 
pros seem to pile on. Close to three-fourths of the respondents to that survey 
said they consider their IT department to be an also-ran when it comes to 
innovation, lending credence to the notion that other departments will fill the 
void. 
And it's not just a bunch of navel gazers who see a shift coming. 
InformationWeek contributor Larry Tieman, a former senior IT executive 
at FedEx, thinks the IT organization of the future "will be a 
smaller, more externally focused, higher-expertise IT organization, with 
most of the infrastructure and operational expertise outsourced. What the 
internal IT pros will be doing, what their expertise will be in, and what role 
the CIO will play (if there is one) are still undetermined." 
But before we start laying a wreath for the IT organization and dedicated IT 
professional, let's step back. A few caveats: 
-- Not every company is a startup. LivingSocial may function fine (for now) 
without an IT department, but companies with myriad legacy systems to manage, 
competitors to one-up, and regulations to comply with need in-house IT chops--in 
integration, security, application development, analytics, networking, and much 
more. "Just put it all in the cloud" works for only the smallest companies. And 
it's not necessarily an old world vs. new world divide. Consider the extensive 
in-house IT infrastructure work (servers, storage, networking, data center 
cooling, power) done by Google, one of the biggest cloud proponents. <!-- KINDLE EXCLUDE --><!-- GLOBAL CIO GLOBE -->




 

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Visit InformationWeek's Global 
CIO -- our online community and information resource for CIOs operating in 
the global economy. 

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-- The challenge before IT organizations is to earn a position at the center 
of innovation, not just plod along in a support and maintenance role--a role 
that 39% of the IT pros and 54% of the non-IT pros in our survey see as their IT 
organization's main focus. IT is uniquely positioned to lead that innovation 
charge, as it's already intertwined (or should be) with every other company 
department. But CIOs must establish formal partnerships with other department 
chiefs, not just get on a conference call with them from time to time. 
For example, Allstate runs crowdsourced "innovation blitzes" out of its IT 
organization, whose executive VP, Suren Gupta, also sits on an innovation 
council that includes top execs from the insurer's product, claims, financial, 
operations, investments, and sales departments. USAA, under its Agile Labs, puts 
developers together with subject matter experts and customer service reps to 
create fast prototypes of new products and product enhancements. USAA estimates 
that the initiative lets it go to market 40% faster than before. Beth 
Israel Deaconess Medical Center, the No. 1 company in the 2012 
InformationWeek 500 ranking, pulls IT and business leaders together 
under fast-track committees that develop business priorities and match IT 
resources. "These leaders are working to formalize tech innovation as part of 
everyday business, because the reality is that business units aren't always 
going to ask for IT's help anymore," writes 
my colleague Eric Lundquist. 
-- Meantime, CIOs need to take on roles outside of the IT organization. Among 
our InformationWeek 500 companies, 34% of CIOs are responsible for 
innovation, 33% for business process management and improvement, 13% for 
operations, 13% for procurement, 12% for business services, 5% for logistics and 
supply chain, and 30% for some other function. Only 15% of those IW 500 
CIOs have no official responsibility outside of IT. 
In the end, though, technical expertise is still critical. Asked to respond 
to the question "What's the fastest way into my doghouse," Richard Thomas, CIO 
of biopharmaceutical services company Quintiles, which ranked No. 6 on the 2012 
IW 500, said: "Working in IT but not understanding technology. If you 
work in IT, I expect you to know what you're talking about."<!-- /ARTICLE BODY --> 





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