CIO's Role

As pointed out in this week 's textbook reading, CIO 's position allows him/her to have a 360 degree view of the Organization along with their great deal of business knowledge and operational experience, which enables them to achieve their ultimate responsibility of making right decision, setting directions and making sure the job gets done right.

Some of the skills required to earn a CIO positions in today 's trending market are as follows:

a) Business Knowledge - In order to understand any business, it is important to gauge real time experience in a business environment. This real time experience lends IT professionals a greater understanding of how technology affects a company 's bottom line.

b) Flexible tech skills - Today 's IT firms are dynamic environment, hence one should be able to be flexible and knowledgeable in their thinking and able to act fast.

c) Social skills - Being in a CIO position requires developing relationship in all directions, from your boss to ones 's peers, heads of all business units as well as non-executive employees.

d) Collaboration with different departments - The IT department is a central location across the organization, as all departments are brought together by technology, so a CIO is expected to have knowledge in all of these different departmental areas.

I feel a CIO needs to have deep understanding of both Business and Technology side of the Organization. Balancing the two sides is essential as it ensures utmost productivity for the organization. A mix of Business and Technology background will allow a CIO to sit at two tables: 1) Executive table - the place where business decisions are made and 2) IT table - the place where IT directors discuss implementation table. In order to get his/her point across to the business audience, the CIO has to put his ideas across in a non tech way. And at the same time he should find the right perspective to inspire and lead IT manager, analysts and developers.

References
Pearlson and Piccoli. (2014). Organizational IT Strategy. John Wiley & Sons, INC. ISBN:
9781119032908

References: Pearlson and Piccoli. (2014). Organizational IT Strategy. John Wiley & Sons, INC. ISBN: 9781119032908