The Business Of Being A CIO: How CIOs Can Use Their Technical Skills To Help Their Company Solve Real-World Business Problems
By Jim Anderson
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About this ebook
All too often CIOs can get caught up in all of the technical details of the job: boosting uptime, replacing servers, guarding against cyber criminals, etc. What we tend to forget is that IT exists to serve the rest of the business and they are there (in most cases) to make money. This means that there needs to be a business side to IT and that is one of a CIO's key responsibilities.
What You'll Find Inside:
* 10 WAYS THAT IT CAN SOLVE REAL-WORLD BUSINESS PROBLEMS
* ARE CIOS LOOKING DOWN WHEN THEY SHOULD BE LOOKING UP?
* 3 WAYS TO FIX AN IT DEPARTMENT (SUGGESTIONS FROM EUROPE)
* HOW CAN YOU MAKE YOUR IT DEPARTMENT STRATEGIC
The business is always facing a set of business problems. What you need to do as a CIO is to take the time to understand how these problems appear to the rest of the company. Then you need to use your technical skills to identify ways that the IT department can help the company solve these problems.
This is going to have a huge impact on how you accomplish your CIO job. Your focus is going to have to shift from your department to watching over the rest of the company. Your top concerns are going to have to be business based, not technology based.
In order to be a successful business based CIO, you need to establish clear lines of communication with the rest of the departments in the company. This means that the way that you talk about IT is going to have to change. No longer can you use the technical shorthand lingo that is used within IT, instead you are going to have to simplify things for everyone else.
In the end it has to be your goal to transform the IT department. Gone are the days when you could simply be a support arm of the company fixing email systems and laptops. Now you need to become the strategic partner that the rest of the firm is going to have to rely on in order to accomplish their business goals.
This book has been written in order to provide you with an understanding of how you can use your technical skills to solve business problems for your company. Follow the suggestions in this book and you'll transform your IT department into a powerful competitive tool for the rest of the firm to use.
Jim Anderson
J Jim Anderson is Visiting Research Fellow in the Department of Educational Studies at Goldsmiths, University of London. His work focuses on: theories and methods of second language learning and bilingualism, including Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL); multilingualism and new literacies; and language policy. Underlying this is a commitment to an integrated and inclusive approach to language and literacy education incorporating the areas of foreign and community/heritage language learning as well as English as an Additional Language and English mother tongue. Jim is co-director with Dr Vicky Macleroy of the Critical Connections: Multilingual Digital Storytelling Project launched in 2012.
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The Business Of Being A CIO - Jim Anderson
All too often CIOs can get caught up in all of the technical details of the job: boosting uptime, replacing servers, guarding against cyber criminals, etc. What we tend to forget is that IT exists to serve the rest of the business and they are there (in most cases) to make money. This means that there needs to be a business side to IT and that is one of a CIO's key responsibilities.
The business is always facing a set of business problems. What you need to do as a CIO is to take the time to understand how these problems appear to the rest of the company. Then you need to use your technical skills to identify ways that the IT department can help the company solve these problems.
This is going to have a huge impact on how you accomplish your CIO job. Your focus is going to have to shift from your department to watching over the rest of the company. Your top concerns are going to have to be business based, not technology based.
In order to be a successful business based CIO, you need to establish clear lines of communication with the rest of the departments in the company. This means that the way that you talk about IT is going to have to change. No longer can you use the technical shorthand lingo that is used within IT, instead you are going to have to simplify things for everyone else.
In the end it has to be your goal to transform the IT department. Gone are the days when you could simply be a support arm of the company fixing email systems and laptops. Now you need to become the strategic partner that the rest of the firm is going to have to rely on in order to accomplish their business goals.
This book has been written in order to provide you with an understanding of how you can use your technical skills to solve business problems for your company. Follow the suggestions in this book and you'll transform your IT department into a powerful competitive tool for the rest of the firm to use.
For more information on what it takes to be a great CIO, check out my blog, The Accidental Successful CIO, at:
www.TheAccidentalSuccessfulCIO.com
Good luck!
Dr. Jim Anderson
About The Author
I must confess that I never set out to be a CIO. When I went to school, I studied Computer Science and thought that I'd get a nice job programming and that would be that. Well, at least part of that plan worked out!
My first job was working for Boeing on their F/A-18 fighter jet program. I spent my days programming fighter jet software in assembly language and I loved it. The U.S. government decided to save some money and went looking for other countries to sell this plane to. This put me into an unfamiliar role: I started to meet with foreign military officials and I ended up having to manage groups of engineers who were working on international