Is a skills gap and poor communication holding back the CIO?

Technology is moving at a rapid pace. It has disrupted countless industry sectors, and those companies that have failed to keep pace have paid the price. Recent years have seen many household names disappear altogether for failing to adapt to this trend of digital disruption, only to be replaced by many more at the forefront of this technological revolution.

Few roles have been at the fulcrum of this revolution quite as much as the CIO. Not only is the CIO responsible for ensuring a company has the right technology in place to guarantee the smooth running of business operations, they are increasingly being expected to develop the digital strategy that is needed to stay ahead of the competition.

A recent research report commissioned by Reconnix, entitled The Future CIO, highlighted many of the challenges that technological advancement will bring to the current crop of CIOs over the next five years. Some of the headline findings included that 73 per cent of IT leaders were unsure that the CIOs of today will be the right people to lead IT within UK businesses by 2018.

Half of those surveyed felt this came down to a lack of general knowledge of business strategy, while more than two-fifths (43 per cent) cited that a lack of technical skills as a concern. Over a third of respondents also believed that current CIOs lack technical knowledge and their skill sets will not be suitable for the IT landscape of 2018.

Overall, the results of the Future CIO survey make for sobering reading, with two findings in particular sure to set alarm bells ringing for those leading IT in businesses today. Firstly, that of the IT leaders surveyed, 49 per cent and 52 per cent felt that CIOs had little or no understanding of Cloud and Hybrid models of IT respectively. Secondly, an average of 48 per cent of IT leaders felt that stronger relationships with other members of the board were required to be able to fulfil the obligations of the CIO’s roll effectively in five years’ time.

The lack of knowledge around Cloud and Hybrid IT models should especially cause concern to any business thinking about digital strategy in the coming years. Undoubtedly, one of the biggest disruptors in business practice has been in how services are delivered in a digital context. Cloud has been at the forefront of that, and increasingly this is taking the form of a Hybrid Cloud model – a blend of public Cloud services such as Amazon Web Services and private Cloud – essentially what is being run from your own datacentre.

Hybrid Cloud can be seen as a ‘best of both worlds’ solution. It gives all the benefits of running your own datacentre environment such as security, controlling costs and the flexibility it offers in terms of configuration, while at the same time offering the best factors of a public service such as global point of presence, rapid scalability and almost unlimited compute power. Any organisation wishing to implement a content delivery network rapidly as part of its digital strategy would be wise to give serious consideration to the Hybrid Cloud model; however, the apparent lack of skills in this area amongst current CIOs may mean that more businesses are left behind as digital disruption continues unabated.

But the lack of technical understanding is only one part of the problem. A CIO may fully understand the benefits a Hybrid Cloud model can bring to a business, but an inability to communicate this effectively to members of the board is potentially an even bigger barrier to adoption.

Before the Hybrid Cloud model was refined, public Cloud was often pitched against the need to have private datacentres. One of the main tactics used to convince those in control of the purse strings at the time was a move from the capital expenditure (CAPEX) associated with datacentres towards the operational expenditure (OPEX) payment model for the Cloud. And even though private datacentres can lead to closer control of costs, it is the need for both CAPEX and OPEX for a Hybrid Cloud which may distress CFOs or other financial decision makers. If they had to switch payment model before, why now burden the company with outgoing service costs and a depreciating asset on the books.

This is why it is crucial for CIOs to be able to communicate effectively with other leaders in the organisation. And for communication to be truly effective, the CIO not only needs to be persuasive about how it will benefit his aims, but also the wider aims of the business. The best communication is, is not just one-way, but multi-directional – the CIO will need to take on board what other areas of the business need to succeed and interpret how to achieve these goals with technology solutions. Failure to do this could put any business on the back foot, and today’s rapid rate of change, no one can afford to get left behind.

While the findings of the Future CIO report present challenges for technology leaders over the next few years, there is no challenge that does not at the same time offer an opportunity. Digital disruption allows CIOs to present themselves as true innovators and an invaluable asset to the future success of the organisation. By closing the skills gap and communicating effectively there is nothing to hold back forward thinking CIOs from becoming amongst the most influential in any boardroom.