The role of a chief information officer: more than just tech
The chief information officer’s role has become more important, but even a CIO can’t always keep pace with change
As technology shifts the way business is done in a modern economy, decision-makers in organisations are forced to confront greater challenges."What we see is a tension between technology and business," says Daniel Acton, regional tech lead for cloud at Google SA."Even with customers, there’s a duality. You have people who care about the technology and how we run stuff; then we have people who care about the money and the business – and we don’t see those working together much," Acton says.The people at the coalface of this tension are chief information officers, a role no longer confined to delivering IT. CIOs now have input into formulating business strategy.This expanded role and influence comes as tech becomes more important for a company’s future.Keeping up with the fast pace of change is also a problem. Even CIOs themselves can be accused of not knowing or understanding the technology used in their organisations.Acton says: "We must be fair to CIOs. They probably did have a...
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