CIO and COO roles are merging, say technology leaders
Either the COO has to have IT skills or the CIO needs to be closer to customers and the value chain, says Met Office CIO Charles Ewen
The chief information officer (CIO) and chief operating officer (COO) roles are merging, according to many technology leaders.
"My boss is making me accountable for the effective operation of the new ways of working. It's gone from delivery to embedding technology, making us more like business leaders… Are we getting the optimum business and customer benefit from the new technology? That's a massive change in mindset. Twenty years ago, if the technology was delivering and worked, that was what the role was about," he said.
He added: "I believe I'm judged by the performance of the business and have become more accountable now for business output."
Meanwhile, Charles Ewen, CIO of The Met Office, explained that as digital technologies replace functions such as certain types of customer interaction, more operational areas will fall under the CIO's ambit.
"There is certainly an overlap in disciplines and skills and any 'operational' CIO would have a lot of the skills to work as COO. DevOps and lean IT are probably both accelerating this in many companies as all CIOs are now acutely aware of the need for things like operational efficiencies and cost control and are typically much more on top of these kinds of issues," said Ewen.
"I am also sure that many - like us, are increasingly using Digital Technology as the customer-facing service end-point, replacing or augmenting more physical ways to interact with customers (such as store fronts and representatives).
"Also using tools like social media and online advertising to reach out to customers is becoming more common. So, I suppose that where this kind of thing is happening, it would mean that either the COO has to have IT skills and/or that the CIO needs to be closer to customers and understand service and value chains - this would suggest that for many, there is at least a blurring of the respective roles," said Ewen.
Manuj Sarpal, CTO at ETF Securities, also pointed to the DevOps and agile trends as reasons behind the shift.
"In last few years, there has been a transition of the role of technology leaders to business leaders. Business expects technology to lead the change and play a pivotal role," said Sarpal.
"There has been huge focus on innovating processes using data analysis and intelligence to lead business change. This is a move away from age-old standard technology objectives of mitigating risks and achieving efficiencies, which are still there but more looked upon as a standard technology objectives.
"This is because the extent to which automation is being introduced into business processes because of quick release cycles using DevOps and Agile methods," he concluded.