• silicon.com
• Management
• CIO Insights

By Tim Cook, 6 August 2009 09:00

COMMENT

Yes, we're in a recession - but there are still jobs for CIOs. Recruiter Tim Cook tracks today's trends - from what the board wants to why firms need new IT leaders.

The IT function is often a problematic one to hire into. A client of mine recently asked his experienced operating board whether any of them had worked with an outstanding CIO in a previous company.

Not one of them had. Some of them had worked with good ones but not great. All of them had examples of poor experiences with the role.

Failure is expected within the IT function: software projects get under specified and are too expensive; ERP implementations get delivered late; infrastructure is not maintained and falls over and vendors win contracts that in the long term cost more for less.

This is of course only a perception but for many executives this perception brings with it a built-in expectation and tolerance of poor performance. Such tolerance is unlikely to be found in sales or P&L roles.

Silent service
To many people the IT function is like a utility: an outstanding service is one that is always available but runs silently in the background with no visible problems. They want a service that supports the launch of new products and corporate changes as well as integrates acquisitions in an effective but quiet way.

While this is a fine view, 'business as usual' is generally not an attractive proposition for change-oriented CIOs; they want visibility and access to the CEO and operating board. They want to be seen to have impact.

The market for senior IT professionals is often characterised by candidates who are either Steady Eddies or Dan Dares. Many organisations want a Dan Dare who can implement change and get the function to a position where it is operating effectively but silently, at which point they want the Dan Dare to become a Steady Eddie.

There is nothing wrong with a Steady Eddie; organisations fail without them. Indeed many Dan Dares move on before they have completed the change programmes they came to deliver, sometimes leaving their organisation in a more difficult place as a result.

CIO supply and demand
The supply of good CIO candidates tends to be limited in any market.

In the current economic environment the supply of candidates for all IT roles is high, as many organisations have reduced costs - and thus laid off staff - in their support functions.

However this does not mean the supply of good candidates is any larger than usual. Organisations tend to retain their best performers, and these individuals are conservative in their approach to new opportunities.

The recession has meant that some individuals who have lost their roles through redundancy are picking up interim work, although often for very short-term projects.

Typically, however, we are seeing many organisations reduce their reliance on external contractors and implementing hiring freezes.

Despite this, activity levels are on a par with 2008, or slightly higher, in our experience. There has been constant activity in the CIO recruitment sector during the first half of 2009. The demand for good CIOs, and their direct reports, is being driven by the creation of new organisations in the public and private sectors, on the one hand, through to the restructuring of organisations on the other hand. No sector seems to be immune to this, though all sectors are also scrutinising their costs base as we continue through the recession.

Search trends
I have analysed our search activity for CIOs, CTO and IT directors over the last four years to see if there was any discernable trend in the reasons behind the assignments that we are undertaking.

I categorised them into three areas: succession planning covers those situations where the CIO is leaving voluntarily either due to retirement or through taking up another role elsewhere. Poor performance covers those situations where the CIO is leaving on an involuntary basis, because of a project failure or other performance issue. Strategic change covers those situations where an entirely new role is being created e.g. a shared services function.

Here are the results:

It is very interesting, but perhaps not surprising, to note that over the last four years we have seen many more examples of new roles or positions being created. This situation is exacerbated as the recession forces mergers and cost cutting initiatives in companies. More surprising perhaps is the increase we are seeing in assignments where the CIO/CTO/IT director is being forced out due to poor performance.

This is potentially good news for CIOs because it may indicate that there is an increasing intolerance of poor performance in the IT function and, as a consequence, a greater realisation that silent running may in itself be an indication of great performance by the function.

Tim Cook leads the London CIO practice at Russell Reynolds Associates, the executive search and assessment firm.