The CIO Is Dead. Long Live the CIO. The Cloud Redefines the Role of the CIO

Related: Brocade, News

The role of the Chief Information Officer (CIO) will change fundamentally in the next few years according to research commissioned by Brocade. The research asked 100 CIOs from across Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) about their roles, and revealed that the uptake of the cloud, and the democratization of IT away from the IT departments' control, is driving an evolution of their role towards consultancy and mediation. However, only by ensuring the right infrastructure is in place, will CIOs be free to adopt more strategic responsibilities, evolve into an operational position and ensure their long-term survival.

Almost half of CIOs questioned expect the evolution towards cloud adoption and the increase in business units owning their own IT procurement processes to mean that they will spend far less time worrying about the nuts and bolts of IT infrastructure. However, three quarters are concerned that Service Level Agreements (SLAs) will not meet minimum requirements, and over half worry they will be unable to predict data volumes and bandwidth requirements and therefore be unable to manage the network effectively. Both issues could lead to significant levels of downtime and slow application response levels, impacting productivity and risking both regulatory non-compliance and loss of business, while increasing IT costs.

Only 20 percent of those surveyed saw the role of CIO -- as typically defined today -- eventually becoming obsolete, and not within the next 10 years. Rather, the respondents believe the role will evolve to cover a broader business range with a third stating they see themselves continuing along a path towards becoming more involved in strategic discussions. CIOs believe that these concerns around the operational impact of outsourcing IT services will lead to the merging of the CIO and the Chief Operations Officer (COO) roles, as the corporate network becomes increasingly business-critical in nature.

Alberto Soto, Vice President of EMEA at Brocade, explained, "To access applications, information and communications systems, the network is not just another 'device' in the same way as a tablet, laptop or smartphone -- it is the enabler of all business communications, activities and transactions. If that network is not managed and developed appropriately, the consequences can be significant and financially damaging. The role of the CIO in ensuring access to applications and services will become increasingly operationally critical, strategic and central to an organization's growth."

More than a third surveyed confirmed that cloud services had been deployed by business units in their organizations without the involvement of IT, and two thirds see business units procuring cloud resources by themselves much more by 2020. While the cloud is mainly used by the IT department itself and not by the business functions, half of the CIOs questioned cited an inability to manage the corporate network effectively, due to being unable to predict data volumes and bandwidth requirements, as a key concern where the cloud was adopted without IT department engagement. Additionally, more than two thirds cited SLAs that may not meet basic requirements as an issue in cloud services adoption.

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