CIOs Connect The Dots

CIOs need to be at the strategic level. They need to be at the table. They need to be around other senior managers to gain an insight into how we can leverage the ICT as say, the enablers or tools to meet the business imperatives. A good example of this was in a recent meeting around the senior management table where we were focused on customer service delivery for our general practitioners (GPs) through our pathology department. Our pathology department services a whole range of clinics, GPs, and practices within this region. The pathology, as you'd be aware, is where a doctor refers a patient for a blood test. The blood test is taken, and the results are then sent back to the GP. Around the table, we were discussing how we enhance and bring better value to the GP to keep the GP, because there are a number of competitors within our region.

There are other pathology services. What we were looking at were ways in which we would enhance and value add our service to the GP. What I was looking for, from an IC perspective, was to enhance how we would do and provide security access to our network for users outside of our network.

Joining the dots together and knowing at the senior level what we wanted was to increase our revenue from the GPs, provide secure access to our GPs, and to provide a greater revenue stream for ourselves, we were then able to increase our Internet bandwidth. We were able to enhance our VPN and security systems on the back of the business driver, which came out of another executive director's division. That wouldn't have been possible if we weren't at the table. We would not have been able to connect the dots. There is no one else within the organization at a C level that is looking at people, process, technology, and information, and how we draw all those together. We have strong focus around the CFO in finance. We have strong focus on marketing, distribution, warehousing, stores, etc. But there's no one looking at a strategic, high level on how we actually bring all of those together. The CIO's role and the role at the strategic level at the board table is to be able to join the dots.