The role of a technology champion

NOTE: Chaim Yudkowsky, CPA, CITP, is an MACPA member and chief information officer at Textilease Corp., a uniform and first aid services company serving the Southeast.

By Chaim Yudkowsky, CPA, CITP

"What do you do?"
"I am chief information officer."
"What does a CIO do?"

The experts (and the marketing guys) tell us we should be able to succinctly describe what our businesses do in the time it takes to complete a short elevator ride. The patience and attention span of those we meet is short and you never know what opportunities might arise.

Similarly, many advise we should be able to clearly define and convey our roles within the organizations that employ us with pithy descriptions. While many in executive ranks wear many hats, people have some understanding of "CEO" and can even relate to "CFO" or "VP of sales."

But what is a chief information officer?

In my role as CIO, this is frequently my challenge. Concisely explaining my primary responsibilities in social settings and even sometimes in business settings is nearly impossible.

And this is not my problem alone. Colleagues frequently tend to simplify introductions by saying I am manager of information technology for our business. Compounding this question is the confusion of technology titles and differentiation of roles. What is a CIO and what is a CTO (especially in a non-technology business), director or VP of technology, or even that ubiquitous manager of IT?

I do not have a magic answer. Instead, I have a theory. Any title bestowed upon an executive relating to technology empowers and conveys commitment to be the technology superhero of an organization. Let me explain with some background.

Corporate IT leadership has always been confusing. Outside of business, much quantifiable convenience and entertainment progress has been made. What about in business? After each initiative or fad, the question is always this: Has progress been made, or has it been one step forward and one or two steps back?

In the early 1990s, I used to quote Jim Manzi, formerly of Lotus Corp., who lamented the billions spent during the 1980s on information technology with little improvement in productivity. The late 1990s showed productivity gains eventually came. Now we are learning many things about IT investments from the last decade. Some recent reading shows we should be puzzled about our direction.

A Morgan Stanley study (and accompanying front-page story in USA Today) focused on the $130 billion wasted in the past two years on "unneeded software and other technology." Gartner estimates "worldwide, companies waste as much as 20 percent of the $2.7 billion spent on tech."
A CIO Magazine feature story indicated only 10 percent of CIOs say technical proficiency is an important skill to success. Communication skills (70 percent), understanding business (58 percent) and strategic planning (46 percent) are the big ones. (Comment: This may explain the Morgan Stanley study.)
According to a recent Business Week article, "the amount of IT equipment (not including communications equipment) per worker, measured using historical costs, continued to rise in 2001. … Business spending on software has doubled as a share of GDP, from 0.9 percent in 1991 to 1.8 percent today, barely off its 2000 high."
A recent Information Week survey of CEOs, CFOs and CIOs showed 75 percent of respondents "said they consider intangible returns on technology investments at least as important as hard ROI numbers."
A recent Optimize Research study asked, "What is the role of IT at your company?" Most of the multiple responses allowed were positive, but 20 percent said "cost center and drain on corporate resources" and nearly 30 percent said "primarily responsible for technology maintenance."

So what must technology superheroes be accountable for or oversee in today's corporate environment? They must:

provide input and feedback in the overall business strategy and budgeting process, not only IT;
help set budget priorities among the IT spending;
manage and safeguard key data, communications, hardware and software;
help improve process efficiency and reduce cost using technology; and
be an active part of an executive team with a mission of profitability and productivity.

The panic that started at Enron and has far reaching marketplace effects is over corporate governance at the largest companies. This is about more than compensation; it is about executive competence. Technology is subject to the same missteps, regardless of the titles bestowed that are often faddish, confusing and misguiding.

Still, each of our companies should have that technology champion — a person committed to a fiduciary responsibility of leveraging information and IT to continued and improved business success.

This content has not yet been Rated.

To Rate content, please Login.