More than three quarters of banking CIOs say the ability to be more innovative and creative is the biggest plus of their job. Anna Milne finds out exactly how the role is evolving, why it needs to and how current CIOs are adapting to the growing burden of creative responsibility, in line with a study by BT
In six years there could be more than 50 billion connected devices in the world, dramatically changing the way we live and do business. This runaway connectivity signals a new era of ‘digital business’ and creates a critical moment of opportunity for forward thinking CIOs.
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So goes BT’s research conclusion on its paper Art of Connecting: Creativity and the Modern CIO. The research examined the role of the CIO and how it is changing in the midst of a new wave of shadow banking.
Shadow banking is the term given to the trend of individual departments within banks buying their own IT solutions and creating their own best practice. According to the study, shadow banking now accounts for 25% of bank and financial institution’s IT spend.
Security is hailed as the top budget expense, with CIOs now spending 21% more time and additional budget on security as a result of shadow IT. The focus is being removed from a hands-on role and becoming a strategic role centred on advice, governance and security.
Toshihiro Kitanobo, Senior Executive Officer, Head of System Headquarters (the CIO-equivalent role), JCB Co. Ltd., says:
"To be successful, a CIO needs to enable his or her team to collect intelligence broadly and have lively, informed discussions. Arriving at innovative solutions is not just about relying upon the skills or capabilities of a single person, the CIO, but about fostering and igniting a team’s creativity and effort. The CIO does not need to be a creative individual per se, but they do need to inspire creative thinking."
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By GlobalDataThe original role of the CIO was to maintain a tight ship of stable IT operations at the lowest possible cost. This appears to be changing, with today’s CIOs taking on a much less hands-on and localised role and much more of a broader, strategic position to ensure speed of product and service development while running the tight ship so as to stay ahead of competitors.
"The CIO now needs to understand the most important management concerns on a company-wide basis and propose and execute the most appropriate solutions to deliver strategic competitiveness. Cost reduction is of course still important, but priorities have changed," says Kitanobo. He explains the CIO maintains a company’s strategic competitiveness.
"The nature of our credit card business means we do not have a shop or a store. So the main point of contact with our customers, and our business infrastructure, is the IT system. Fine-tuning it in response to customer feedback and maintaining its speedy deployment, cost efficiency and security is paramount. As a result, once the company has made the decision to expand, it’s the CIO who needs to be able to realise this ambition and deploy a strong IT system to support this strategy and take our service to new countries, where future customers are waiting."
So how can a CIO achieve the mission to find the most appropriate solution from the constant stream of technologies so as to contribute to business development?
By having a broad intelligence network and a technology partner, says Kitanobo. A tech partner can suggest which technological developments can be best applied to the business and how to execute the solution properly; will be able to contribute ideas and tailor-make the best solutions and overall strategy.
"The era where we built everything by ourselves in-house has ended. Now, the leadership challenge is to transform from in-house deployment to using cloud services as required. The leadership team should find the most appropriate solution with a global perspective, implement and execute it.
Develop a specialism, that’s my advice to future CIOs: Establish a niche where you’re the best. By doing so, you will gain a following, and eventually your intelligence network will expand. If you want to establish an area of expertise, the most important thing is to love what you do and master the job."
And in a win-win, these technologies are also identified as being some of the most critical to delivering commercial results. So the more CIOs are creative in their use of Big Data, Software as a Service and Unified Communications, the more likely they are to meet the expectations of their board.
According to the paper, 77% of banking respondents believe their board now recognises the need for a much more creative CIO- one that can operate with a broader view of the organisation, "orchestrating technology and skills to deliver departmental or strategic business outcomes".
The majority of banking CIOs embrace this change, says the report, with 76% saying the increased potential for creativity within their role is the best part of the job. And this goes more so for banking CIOs than any other sector.
