By Steve Ranger, 23 September 2008 08:00
COMMENT
I had an interesting discussion over coffee the other week. The subject: how a CIO should act to gain the attention and the interest of the board.
Of course, spilling all the company data by leaving an unencrypted laptop in the pub or setting the sprinklers off in the server room while having a cheeky smoke will get you noticed. But we were thinking of more subtle options.
It's not as easy as some CIOs might like to think. One of the people I was talking to was Cathy Holley from headhunters Boyden Global Executive Search who pointed out that many CIOs are interested in how they can be perceived better - and not as a technical person. There's an inner circle on the board and they are the outsider who wants to break in.
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Her point was that CIOs need to have a reason to talk to the CEO. And it can't be about whether they should upgrade from Bloatware 3.2 to Bloatware 4.0. They have to have a bigger agenda than IT: "They really have to behave like ordinary business people if the CEO will want to hear what they have to say," she said.
So what is it that CEOs want to hear? It's no longer enough to tell them you are a 'proactive change agent'. They want something more.
Cathy reckons she's got some ideas: "There are topics coming up like changing the business model and customer churn - and how to prevent it - that are good angles for the CIO to learn enough to go to the CEO and say something new," she told me.
David Butler from customer engagement company TripleIC also argues that customer churn is a biggie - "the profit killer of the 21st century" and something that CIOs are well placed to battle with.
It's also likely to be something close to the heart of any CEO and thus a good opportunity for a switched-on tech chief to get noticed. As he points out you have to understand how your CEO is rewarded, "and good business performance usually revolves around your customers giving you more money".
Companies are still spending millions on customer research - the marketing director has failed in this area and they know it, Butler says - which means the CIO has a good opportunity to swoop in and save the day. Which is always a nice position to be in.
It's an interesting argument. Issues like customer churn are often corporate orphans, not really sitting under marketing or sales or having any other obvious pigeonhole, yet can really undermine the good work being done across the organisation. And that could mean it's a good issue that CIOs can pounce on and use to distinguish themselves. I'm sure there are more issues out there as well and I'd be keen to hear about them from you (post a Reader Comment below or email me at editorial@silicon.com).
But the discussion did pose an interesting question for all CIOs who are craving a seat at the big table - next time you're sitting in on a board meeting, what would you like to talk to them about?
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Comments
There are 3 comments. Join the discussion
1. anonymous
Green Agenda is also a good one to start the conversation.
2. Glenrick White
Getting noticed by the CEO is not as difficult as CIOs think, they need to move away from talking about the bells and whistles of the lastest bloatware to talking about the commercial benefits to the organisation of the latest bloatware e.g. not how fast and secure the new website is going to be, but the ease of customer communication with the introduction of the new services made available by the introduction of the new website which will result in increasesd transactions and improved customer service which will have an impact on business improvement.
In other words discuss business benefits not technology features.
3. Aly Moore
While we understand the CIO’s desire to take advantage of a perceived opportunity to raise their profile with the CEO through the issue of customer retention, we would like to warn that (as marketing has learned) talk can be cheap.
Any CIO who wants to take a stab at it will need input from the Chief Marketing Officer on what customers really need and what marketing and sales would like to see in a technology platform that could actually put positive change into action. Any CMO worth his or her salt has known for years that marketing effectiveness is demonstrated not only in customer acquisition, but in retention. The problem in achieving this has not been inherently with marketing, but with the technologies it has had to wield in the battle. This is beginning to change as customer experience technologies that can make a measurable difference are beginning to emerge, however, decisions regarding customer experience cannot be made in isolation by the CIO, or marketing, or any one group. In order to have the biggest impact, marketing and technology directors, while admittedly approaching projects from a different mindset, must work hand-in-hand to select and implement the right kinds of technologies. Only through such collaboration can both departments get the kind of attention they want from their CEO.