Local government CEOs want CIOs to focus on business objectives rather than 'clever' technologies

Talk business, not technology, urge local government CEOs of their IT directors

Local government CEOs want CIOs to focus more on business issues rather than using "clever" technologies, a report from not-for-profit public sector IT services provider Eduserv has found.

The firm ran a workshop that asked CEOs what they wanted IT to do differently. CEOs said that they wanted CIOs to help make shared service models, demand management and great efficiencies happen, but that CIOs needed to focus their conversations around business issues rather than technology, in order to make that happen. According to them, there is an on-going issue with the poor alignment of IT activity to the priorities of the business.

CEOs also called for IT leaders to not underestimate their knowledge of IT. Eduserv said that the group it spoke to were clear and knowledgeable about technology possibilities for their organisations, and not out of touch or unwilling to exploit new ways of working enabled by IT.

However, they were frustrated with claims coming from IT - either suppliers or in-house teams - that they can "enable digital services" or "deliver transformation" without specific examples of real business issues solved by technology with measurable outcomes that are relevant to the challenges they face.

They want IT to cut away from the technology jargon and present business cases which demonstrate specific benefits to their organisation.

"Top of the wish list is for IT to seize the role of innovators and to ensure the organisation has a long-term vision and strategy for IT which embraces the latest tools and ways of working seen elsewhere in the sector," the report reads.

They are frustrated with the lack of good data about how people access and use public services available from their organisations.

"While acknowledging the limitations of legacy systems, CEOs could not understand why IT seems to find it so hard to unlock data for wider reuse and to provide better customer insight," the report reads.

And as for legacy systems themselves, the CEOs that Eduserv spoke to understood the difficulties of moving away from these systems but wanted to see a greater focus in IT strategy on achieving this.

CEOs wanted IT teams to gain their trust by delivering successful projects, thereby allowing them the opportunity to innovate more. They also called for IT teams to change the way they procure technology; moving away from complex IT solutions typically supplied by "Big IT".