A few paragraphs into an April 25 press release touting HP's strategic IT advisory services, the authors pause to point to recent Gartner research indicating that "new revenue generated each year by IT will determine the annual compensation for most new Global 2000 CIOs."
"Our research shows that by 2016, innovation accomplishments will be among the top three selection criteria for new CIOs," notes Ken McGee, vice president and fellow, Gartner. "This trend is indicative of the extent to which IT will be so closely aligned with enterprise goals that it is the key driver in growth and profitability. To get to this future state, IT must move from supporting to empowering the enterprise."
Really?
Yes, this trend is quite real, according to some of the world's top IT consulting leaders.
Consider the emergence of a number of new, disruptive technologies that IT department's business partners are hungry for: cloud computing, social media, mobility (also referred to as the "consumerization" of IT), analytics and even cyber-security. Thoughtfully and strategically applied, "these technologies might be able to help you launch new businesses or divest a new business," says Janet Foutty, Deloitte Consulting's national managing director, technology.
Foutty and Gary Curtis, Accenture's chief technology strategist and global managing director of the firm's technology consulting, agree that IT functions within pure technology companies can more easily "empower" the enterprise. In other companies, it also can be difficult to "trace a straight line" from the CIO and IT function's contributions to the bottom line, Curtis acknowledges.
However, Curtis and others say that CIOs should heed attention to Gartner's point. When advising CIOs on this support-to-empowerment issue, Curtis encourages them to "make sure that's it is well understood that the CIO is a full-fledged member of the top executive team, understands the business at least as well as the other members of this team and can explain how a significant IT decision … impact to the bottom line," he notes. "The best CIOs can say, 'Here's how a way that we can change the company, and here's how we expect it to show up in the P&L.'"
Helping CIOs to "cross the chasm from support to innovation and business results," as Worldwide Vice President and General Manager of HP Technology Consulting Arthur Filip puts it, not only makes good consulting sense; it also makes good business sense. The mission of HP's new services approach is "designed to help CIOS use IT as a key driver of innovation, growth and profitability."
—Eric Krell
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