Neal Sunners, Avis: the most successful CIOs focus on business, not technology

The ubiquity of technology and connectivity is forcing a change in how CIOs work

The CIO's role is changing. While the responsibility for IT remains, the most successful Information Officers are those that are business-, rather than technology-oriented - or so says Neal Sunners, SVP for Innovation and Emerging Technologies at Avis Budget Group and formerly the company's CIO of International Markets.

Avis recently undertook a huge digital transformation to focus itself on innovation. In that transformation's final stage, the company passed the management of the IT department from local CIOs to a global CIO (Gerard Insall) in North America - hence the new role as SVP.

Speaking about his time as CIO, Sunners said that he had three principles he adhered to to simplify his role and help him to assign a priority to his tasks:

"The first principle is to protect the organisation from all foes, foreign and domestic. You talk about compliance and security and so on; keep the company operations running... that's the first job of any CIO, in any domain. That's the priority.

"The second is to enable the company to meet its objectives, i.e. change. You do that just about as well as you can: you're on time, you're on budget, you're on quality, you're secure - you're enabling the company to do what it needs to do.

"The third is you get to influence what the company should do next. If you're a trusted business partner on the first two [principles], you get to sit at the table and discuss the future."

Sunners is clearly drinking his own champagne; only one of his principles deals directly with technology, while the other two are about the general business path and how a CIO can help to shape it. Every IT leader, he says, needs a solid understanding of the business and its objectives in order to perform their role, which includes influencing the company's future direction:

"The CIOs that understand the business imperatives, the business direction and play their role in that executive conversation as they influence and shape the future have a much more valuable impact on organisations than CIOs that just sit their and run tests in the service provider scenario."

As every business and customer becomes connected, Sunners says that the technology itself is losing importance; the more crucial aspect now is what the technology enables. He added, "You have to be able to extract yourself from away from the bits and bytes and look at technology as that enabler."

Enlightened CEOs want the CIO to report to them

If having a say in the future of the business is important for a CIO to do, then a seat at the table - specifically, on the board - is often necessary. But how does an IT leader secure that position?

It comes down to perception. The first step, says Sunners, is to establish the IT department as "a true business partner", ensuring that the technology you enable is at the forefront of the minds of the business leaders.

"Enlightened CEOs want the CIO to report to them. I think it makes a statement, that it recognises that technology is important; whereas if you're in an organisation where the CIO reports to the CFO, you create this idea that technology is a cost. When it's reported to the chief exec, you create the idea that it's actually value creation through technology, not cost controls through technology."

As attractive as that senior leadership position might be for a CIO, it's important to remember that it goes hand-in-hand with more responsibility. If you are sharing your expertise directly with the CEO, rather than filtering it through someone else, then they will make you accountable at a senior level, Sunners warns.