How relevant is the role of CIO? It depends on whom you ask. In the latest Tech Pro Research survey, participants were asked if the role of the CIO has changed within their company in the past five years. Of the non-CIO/CTO respondents, 33 percent said the role has become less relevant. Of the CIO/CTO respondents, only 14 percent said the role is less important.
And a whopping 64 percent of CIO/CTO respondents said that the role is more relevant, while only 38 percent of non-CIO/CTO respondents said the CIO role is more relevant.
Read the full report, The CIO as a business catalyst: Role, relevance and value.
Obviously, there’s a disparity and it’s based on the job title of the person answering the question. While nearly two-thirds of CIO’s and CTO’s believe that the CIO role is more relevant, just over one-third of the other respondents, who do not fill the role of CIO or CTO, said that it is more relevant. (In this article and in the survey, the term CIO refers to the C-level executive in charge of all technology and the company’s focus on it.)

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Regardless, this outlook still bodes well for the position of CIO, because it shows the potential the role can bring with the right mindset. The role warrants attention because as technology advances, the future of companies will depend on the IT strategies employed by the key decision makers. The main question is whether the key decision maker for these strategies is still the CIO, or is the CIO’s responsibilities and influence being assumed by others, whether internally or externally?
Participants who rated innovation and creativity as somewhat or very important within their organization were also asked about the CIO’s impact on those areas. Of the 198 respondents to this question, there were wildly divergent views between the CIO/CTO and the non-CIO/CTO groups.

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As seen in the above chart, there is a sizeable gap of 32 percent between CIOs and non-CIOs regarding whether the role has a strong impact on technological innovation and creativity. Nearly one-third of non-CIOs feel their CIO has little or no impact, but only 6 percent of the CIOs feel they have little impact, and none feel they have no impact. The low percentages of those reporting little or no impact across both groups show a solid footprint on the part of the CIO. Overall, there were 296 respondents to the Tech Pro Research survey. The survey dealt with the activities and relevance of CIOs throughout organizations and asked about the following topics:
  • Identify how the CIO affects the business and how it’s perceived.
  • Determine what defines a successful CIO and how value is produced through his or her efforts.
  • Look at how CIOs bring about new ideas and motivate others to do the same.
  • Examine how the role has evolved and what traditional factors still empower the job.
  • Uncover whether advances in technology have had the ironic effect of rendering the CIO less significant to the company by virtue of self-service or relocated service.
  • Developments such as BYOD, outsourcing and cloud computing.