Executive Insights
 |
 |
Leadership in IT
HIRING THE RIGHT EXECUTIVE
Hiring the right executive to lead your information technology department starts with settling on the right job description.
Often that’s a question of knowing whether your company needs a unit vice president or a C-level member of the executive leadership team.
“Some companies take a purely transactional interest in information technology,” says Tom Collins of Conroy Ross Partners (http://www.conroyross.com) in Calgary. “Their requirements are purely functional and the person they need is a vice president who is technically astute and able to do cost/benefit analyses on what they need right now and in the near future.
“Others see technology as a strategic enabler of their business — a part of who they are,” Collins says. “At some stage in their development, these companies will need a chief information officer and a clear division of roles between the CIO and the VP.”
Drawing on his own experience as a senior vice president with two of Canada’s largest companies, and directing technology development for both, Collins recently helped a client work through the process of deciding whether to elevate their vice president or bring in a new CIO.
Collins says a VP and a CIO should take complimentary but entirely distinct views of four key management drivers; strategy, operations, systems use and general management.
The vice president should focus on the short and medium term and on excellence of execution. By contrast, the properly-functioning chief information officer should delegate those responsibilities to the vice president and concentrate on how the IT department will keep pace with the trajectory of evolving technologies to serve the changing and growing needs of the company in the longer term.
Strategy
Where strategy is concerned, the vice president should be charged with crafting a five-year plan for IT development and providing IT support to business priorities. The VP should be responsible for making sure that the company has the electronic architecture to meet medium-term needs and for working as a member of the management team to achieve immediate and medium-term corporate goals.
“The VP should be taking care of today’s business and making sure you don’t do anything that sends the company down any blind alleys.”
Collins says the CIO should oversee the five-year plan but maintain a wider view. C-level responsibilities should focus on harnessing the IT department to the longer-term strategy of the company. The CIO should identify longer-term needs of the organization and how those will affect IT planning and, conversely, how long-term developments and trends in technology will pose threats and opportunities for the company.
“Computer performance is nearing the levels at which natural language processing, very complex data mining algorithms and the integration of communication, computing and entertainment will become part of the everyday experience. The CIO needs to know how new technologies will impact the business world in general, your industry and your company, as well as how the company will need to use IT to its advantage,” he says.
Operations
Operationally, the vice president must carry the larger role. The VP must ensure daily and short-term IT needs are met for all client departments, keep systems and capabilities current and ensure efficiency and best practices within IT. In addition, he or she must ensure the tools and data are available for comprehensive and timely business reporting, provide for timely acquisition of hardware and software and maintain all aspects of systems security and reliability.
The CIO should assess business operations with a critical eye on maintaining and enhancing the core competencies of the business. This means ensuring the company maintains competitiveness and that the organization uses data effectively to create knowledge and leverage that knowledge into competitive advantage.
“As an example, the CIO might be working actively with the executive leadership team on expanding markets, using the web to help the business reach a global client base. The vice president would be translating that plan into network requirements and thinking about whether internal systems are able to handle the potential traffic,” Collins explains.
Systems Use
It’s the job of the vice president to maximize the use of IT systems and the value gained by the company. At the most basic level, policies and procedures must be developed and communicated and security must be assured. Effective training must be readily available to maximize IT benefits and methods should be devised to measure gains achieved by the organization.
The role of the CIO in systems use is to assess the effectiveness of IT support to all front-line activities and to plan programs for continuous improvement.
“If an oil company wants to install remote production controls on its wellheads to reduce costs, it's the job of the vice president to research and acquire the most cost-effective technologies,” Collins says. “It’s the job of the CIO to envision how the resulting ability to quickly increase production volumes might be used to capture new opportunities, such as high-value spot-market sales or product swaps to enter new markets.”
General Management
In the area of general management, the vice president must ensure adequate budgeting for all IT functions and responsibilities, set the tone for personnel management and provide opportunity for career development within the overall needs of the organization.
The CIO would be held responsible for the internal reputation and credibility of the IT department, being a strong contributor for the achievement of enterprise goals. The CIO should ensure the department is managed in a way that attracts top talent and also ensure succession planning within the department and as it relates to succession within the company.
“In short,” Collins says, “the vice president is the custodian of the technology, while the CIO has to speak the language of the business and understand its needs. The CIO is, first and foremost, a business person who understands IT and who wakes up every morning saying, ‘How can I use IT for strategic advantage?’ ”
Tom Collins is a partner with Calgary-based Conroy Ross Partners, a member of IIC Partners, Executive Search Worldwide. IIC Partners is the eighth largest global search organization by revenues, with more than 45 offices in 31 countries. |
