1. What is the role of a CIO in today\'s global business environment? 2. Dr. Car
ID: 402528 • Letter: 1
Question
1. What is the role of a CIO in today's global business environment?
2. Dr. Carr presents a good argument in the "IT doesn't matter" reading. Present your view of Carr's central arguments that investments in IT are less likely to deliver a competitive edge to one company and that IT must be managed defensively (watching costs and avoiding risks). Do you agree or disagree? Support your answer with examples and data from the class.
Complete with a short discussion for each question. The second question will take several paragraphs to answer thoroughly.
Explanation / Answer
1)
The role and responsibilities of the Chief Information Officer (CIO) have changed substantially over time. As business becomes more global in nature and more companies move their operations to economic centers in Asia, technology becomes a key integrating factor in cost considerations and collaboration across cultures. The knowledge necessary to manage information, systems, and people globally has become more complex as business has become more international in focus. A changing role requires new skills and knowledge. The shift to globally integrated companies requires a new mindset in supporting business strategy. Technology components must be developed that support corresponding business components in order to provide the flexibility and adaptability necessary to remain competitive. (Sanford and Taylor, 2005). It is more essential than ever that CIOs have international business knowledge to provide insights and vision that meet the demands of a senior level position and support the company’s global strategy.
Many of today’s CIOs acquired their formal education at a time when technical competence was a primary focus or business knowledge was more general in nature. Although many CIOs in larger companies have gained international business expertise through their own experiences, most have not received formal knowledge in the international business realm specifically. Today’s CIO needs industry specific knowledge and overall business competence. Return on Investment (ROI) has become a significant part of the equation. During earlier phases of technology development, especially the internet revolution, companies poured money into technology without paying much attention to ROI. Today, that has changed as more companies are more carefully examining their IT investments. CEOs today must understand the role of technology in their overall strategy and supporting operations. The CIO plays an important role in educating the CEO and playing a partnership role in leading the organization.
2)
As information technology has grown in power and ubiquity, companies have come to view it as evermore critical to their success; their heavy spending on hardware and software clearly reflects that assumption. Chief executives routinely talk about information technology's strategic value, about how they can use IT to gain a competitive edge. But scarcity, not ubiquity, makes a business resource truly strategic--and allows companies to use it for a sustained competitive advantage. You gain an edge over rivals only by doing something that they can't. IT is the latest in a series of broadly adopted technologies--think of the railroad or the electric generator--that have reshaped industry over the past two centuries. For a brief time, these technologies created powerful opportunities for forward-looking companies. But as their availability increased and their costs decreased, they became commodity inputs. From a strategic standpoint, they no longer mattered.
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