CIOs Strategic Approach or a company without a strategy!!

One of the most challenging task a CIO (for a geographically dispersed company) faces is the standardization of processes, organizational hierarchy and aligning of business with technology. I have written and preached a lot about how IT can be an ROI house as opposed to a cost center. The need for CIOs is to understand the business perspective and be able to communicate technology business terms (doesn't this sound like a job interview objective :)???).

Its very difficult for technical guys to move astray from technology and not think of the technologically perfect solution but at the end of the day its all the more important to see how much money was lost/gained. YES..a technologically sound solution would lead to that but that is also one of the reasons why most of the technical projects move out of the scope and not deliver on time. Its not the technology that "you" like or want to see implemented, its what your customers (internal or external) want. Listen to Sales/Business/COO/CFO/CEO. Try and align Technical Goals with the Company's business goals i.e. institutionalize. At the end of the day its the company's bottom line that matters...try to make your company's positive!!!

But what if the organization doesn't have a CIO or an overall technology head??? This is a complicated one. Every location has its own technical culture - also keep in mind the target market's technological infrastructure as well as the market's technical trends. To make that work the CEO or COO needs to ensure a standardization plan or guidelines for all the location heads to follow. In any case a CIO is important if you company is technology centric.

If your technology doesn't align with the customer's technical strategy, you won't be able to sell it..

STAY ALIGNED AND FOCUSED...that is what will sell