The Role of a CIO (Chief Information Officer) Essay

The Role of a CIO (Chief Information Officer) - Essay Example However, he is considered to be a key player in the CEO's panel. According to Tim Arnoult "the predecessors to today's CIO was the Senior Vice-President of Data Processing. The role was to post transactions to customer accounts and run daily financial statements for the bank. Today, every core process in the company is enabled with technology and the strategic focus is on the use of information to improve customer satisfaction and to gain competitive advantage. Twenty-five years ago, technology consisted of mainframes in the back-office; today the customer and the bank have the advantage of interacting directly with each other through technology."1 The accomplishment of the efforts put forth by the CIO highly depends upon the technological developments in the following six sectors namely information systems, system infrastructure, business systems, human resources, technology and relations. A competent CIO works by executing modified measures in the above-mentioned spheres in order to boost the IT operations being carried out in the respective company. The following paper is aimed at studying the roles of CIO in diversified fields, ranging from the discipline of learning to the administration sectors keeping in view, the challenging past of the CIOs and the prospects for them in the coming years. CIOs are the administrative executives whose primary task is to look after the services related to the information systems department. Integrating business stratagems into the technology sector of the firm is one of their primary objectives. Furthermore, they are also associated with the tasks of improving the organization's Internet and web projects and assist the CEO in attaining the targets aimed by the company by streamlining the business processes and the underlying features for IT operations. Above all, CIOs are the gurus, the symbols and the architects framing the global economy. Business Environments Affect the Role of A CIO Varying environments have a remarked impact on the roles being served by a CIO. Following are some of the milieus that could be experienced by any CIO working at any level in an organization. The first and the initial one being the Startup IT milieu in which the major responsibility of a CIO is to lay the basis for the IT infrastructure and incorporate it with the business-specific implementations. In this environment, it is the task for a competent CIO to work out ways for the expansion of business units. Next one being the High-tech business environment requires the CIO to indulge himself in the exploration of new scientific and technological discoveries and inventions in the fields of sales and marketing. He should work for the improvements of systems, for instance, emailing, VoIP businesses, video conferencing, etc. The third environ is said to be the Bricks and Mortar environment, during which an extensive stress is being laid upon conventional business methodologies. It can be categorized into setting up the IT infrastructures in health-care or governmental departments. The fourth and the most significant one is the Internet environment. The situation under discussion affects the CIO to a great extent and the CIOs of the current scenario are also the dwellers in the same environment.