A CIO needs to orchestrate IT services for businesses to meet their goals

Ravinder Arora, Head – Information Security, IRIS Software feels that due to the reliance on technology to grow and succeed, the CIO has become a fundamental part of the business and business also rely heavily on CIO for success of any projects. “Rather than being the controller of technology spending, a CIO has to today orchestrate the availability of modern IT services that the business needs to meet its goals, compete effectively and respond to the demands of the market,” he says. 

According to him, the CIO’s main responsibility includes -
•    Managing the Top Management
•    Setting & Managing the overall user expectation
•    Managing the ICT team such that they always feel relevant & get engaged with what they do Giving them freedom of operation and guiding them to the growth path
•    Managing the Vendor to get the best of the technical service & support & reasonable cost
•    Occasionally disrupting the way the business is done by Innovating ideas & areas where the technology can make difference in the business process

The increased responsibilities and burdens that have beset the CIO have also increased their power and influence within an organization too. However, this also means that CIOs are being forced to look beyond simply “IT matters” and to also consider changing business regulations and laws to ensure that their infrastructures meet the responsibilities of the business. As such a CIO must look beyond whether the company’s servers are provided by Dell or HP and instead examine the overall capabilities of a network to support a business.