The Transformational CIO

CIO: Change Is On

The role of the chief information officer (CIO) is dramatically different nowadays than it was in previous years. It used to be that CIOs supervised back-office shops staffed by lonely technogeeks. As long as employees’ computers worked and everyone could access their databases, nobody in the corporation thought much about CIOs or their technical squad’s accomplishments.

But CIOs no longer simply deliver digital services to internal customers. As corporate digital information becomes a major competitive advantage, CIOs operate at the epicenter of business operations. The best CIOs are pivotal strategists, showing other senior executives how their companies can utilize automated data to increase their productivity, become more competitive and operate more efficiently. CIOs must be transformational agents, helping their companies adapt to an ever-changing future, and they must understand that transformation projects can take years.

Pat Toole, IBM’s CIO, is typical of the new model. He is helping Big Blue slash its operating budget by billions of dollars by introducing breathtaking innovation throughout the company. Similarly, CIO Dave Smoley of...