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Top Issues for CIO's

According to Information Week, the Top 10 issues for CIO’s in 2009 are:

  1. Customer-Facing Innovation
  2. Attacking the 80/20 Ratio
  3. The Challenging Economy
  4. The Strategic CIO
  5. Cloud Computing
  6. The SaaS Effect
  7. Virtualization
  8. Outsourcing
  9. Green Computing
  10. Radical Desktops

I don’t disagree with this list..everything there is important for the CIO’s to consider for the coming year.

But, the issues in the Information Week Top 10 list are indicators of a larger problem aren’t they? Issue’s 1,2,3,4 and 8 are topics should have always been ‘issues’ for CIO’s….the rest are technology strategy issues. Take “Customer-Facing Innovation” for example. This should’ve *always* been the focus of every CIO and every IT organization.  The role of IT isn’t to just implement and manage technology…IT exists to allow the organization to innovate and embrace the organization’s customer base.

Rather then focus on “Saas” or “Cloud Computing” and the associated pros/cons of the technology, why not take the strategic approach to these issues?  Take a look at your organization and determine if these approaches fit into your overall business strategy…if they do, great…if not, move along.

Take a good look at the Top 10 list again.  If you think about it, this Top 10 list can be categorized into three main areas for CIO’s to focus on:

  • Leadership
  • Strategy
  • Technology

Think about it.  Everything in that Top 10 list falls into these three areas. For example: virtualization is covered in Strategy & Technology, outsourcing is covered in Strategy and cloud computing is covered in Strategy & Technology

    If CIO’s focus on the three main areas of Leadership, Strategy and Technology,then the “Top 10 Issues for 2009” or “Top 10 Issues for 2020” will be easy to solve.  Why?  Because the CIO and IT Leadership should have been leading the IT group to a proper technology strategy that aligns with the business strategy.  When new technologies or new business realities come along, the organization can shift quickly and appropriately.

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