Before submission of my posting, let me quote a section from a recent review of Gartner:

"Gartner recommends that IT leaders have to shift away from technical skills towards relationships, flexibility and business processes and a bottom line which speaks of unique style of IT leadership. It is recommended that CIOs take on non-IT business projects to prove their credentials to the board, and hone their PR skills to promote themselves and their departments. The fundamental problem is that chief executives perceive IT as a barrier, not an enabler, to growth, Gartner's research indicates."

I guess in the Indian scenario, barring few exceptions especially in the BFSI segment, many CIOs feel like second-class citizens within the corporate structure in absence of direct and regular interaction with the CEO. CIOs dealing with a technically challenged CEO have a unique set of issues to contend with, even if the CEO is relying on their expertise.

Unless a CEO understands computers, uses them in their daily life and takes that strategic view of IT to the business, involves CIO in the corporate vision, the relationship between the CEO and CIO will be like a blind date. A key obstacle to improving the CIO-CEO relationship is the need to change the CEO’s perspective of the IT leader’s value to the enterprise.

In today's business environment, it's vitally important for the CIO with adequate support organisation to become a true business partner of the company's CEO and CFO. Together, these three executives can drive significant strategies that benefit their company. Sharp CIOs make it a priority to get under the hood to discover what drives the company and how it's successful. In other words, they learn the business quickly. Every industry has leverage points where technology can improve profitability and productivity, create a competitive edge, or provide other value that's important for a company's success in that industry.

CIO wears many hats. Effective CIOs take care of business methodically and use proven formulas of success to generate positive results for their company. They can use these processes in any company or industry. Hence, it is desired that CEO takes him into confidence and directly assigns him the strategic responsibility of designing technology blueprint for business solution.

While some CEOs share the view that IT and CIOs should be strategic, a significant number still look at the CIO's role as largely a support function. The disconnect becomes problematic when it leads CEOs to conclude that IT is a service function that doesn't need to be involved in the creation of long-term business plans. When CIOs aren't part of those discussions, they lack a forum for showcasing their capacity for creativity and innovation, making it even more difficult for them to prove their strategic worth.

But even though they're at the top of the IT food chain, they're still functional executives. CIOs may find themselves being viewed as having a tactical role because they're the ones who are accountable when a virus hits or a project derails.

The problem with all this is familiar: When CEOs don't view IT as strategic, they don't invite CIOs to the planning table. CEOs need to extend a mentoring role to advocate for advancing the ideas generated by the CIO and his IT group and helping people understand the impact those innovations can have on results.

In my humble experience of around three decades, corporate power structure often depends upon ready reference to topline and bottomline effects made by respective functional contributors. Despite debating on enhancement of operational efficiency, strategic inputs on streamlining business processes, direct boost to productivity, etc , no CIO can match the volume contribution of powerful functional heads depending upon the type of industry one is engaged. In such an organisational structure owned primarily by CEOs, irrespective of the level of CIO, he/she will continue to be treated as a second-class citizen. The problem is further dimensionalised in third world countries because of perceptional difference between CEOs of western world and their counterparts in India.

Subrato Das is an IT Evangelist and can be contacted at dasubrato@yahoo.com