You’ve probably heard of the title Chief Information Officer, or CIO for short. But do you also know what role they play in your company?
What is a CIO?
According to abbreviationfinder, the Chief Information Officer (CIO) is the company’s top IT manager. The following roles therefore bear this title: IT manager, IT manager, IT director or manager of information technology. Whoever bears the title CIO is primarily responsible for the planning, operation and further development of a company’s information technology.
For this reason, the position of CIO usually belongs to the upper management of a company.
Responsibilities of the CIO – What does a Chief Information Officer do?
A Chief Information Officer acts as a three-way battler: The tasks are IT operations, innovation management and IT strategy – i.e. run, change and engineer.
As a CIO, one of your main responsibilities is to ensure smooth IT processes in the company.
Run the Business – IT operations
One area of responsibility of a Chief Information Officer includes, on the one hand, ensuring that IT-relevant processes run smoothly. With the help of monitoring and controlling, a CIO can, for example, keep an eye on the hardware and software used in the company. If problems arise, he/she must initiate the correct measures required for immediate troubleshooting.
These tasks are also part of the day-to-day business:
- implement legal requirements,
- Vendor management (controlling external service providers),
- regulation of the technical infrastructure,
- ensure that IT projects are carried out successfully.
Change the Business – Innovation Management
Furthermore, the second area of responsibility focuses on the innovative aspects of corporate IT. This includes, for example, that a CIO recognizes relevant technical innovations and potential for the company and ensures that these are introduced in the company at the right time. In cooperation with the IT architect, both the structure of the IT architecture and the selection of suitable technologies are planned.
The innovations of the CIO are primarily geared towards:
- improve the efficiency of internal processes,
- ensure effective IT communication,
- contribute to maximizing corporate productivity with optimal IT processes.
Engineer the Business – The IT strategy
As a CIO, you also have to take on strategic tasks. More specifically, it is about continuously and strategically improving business processes through IT solutions.
- develop IT strategy,
- plan further technical development of IT and software solutions,
- Coordinate IT with specialist departments and management.
requirements
As with other senior positions, there are a number of requirements for the CIO. You should have the following skills:
- entrepreneurial know-how,
- technical expertise,
- technological competence,
- strategic planning,
- project management,
- change management,
- strong communication skills,
- leadership.
CIO – In line with the other “Chiefs”
The chief information officer is repeatedly mentioned in a row with other chief officers in order to define the role of the responsible person in the company accordingly. By the way, the other most common job titles are:
- CEO
- CFO
- CHRO
- CKO
- CMO
- COO
- CRO
- CTO