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Blog: William McKnight« Live to a ripe old age - with a little help from your friends | Main | Today's News: INFA #1 in Gartner Market Report » The end of the CIO?The premise of this article in E-Commerce Times is that the CFO is so responsible for organizational data (i.e., compliance) that, in some shops, s/he might as well run all of IT. Wow! I'm not sure where this "consensus" referenced is coming from, but I have not encountered this. We've come so far in terms of legitimizing the CIO position away from being pure support of any department and/or reporting to the CFO. Most CIOs are peers of CFOs. Despite the obvious importance of Sarbanes-Oxley, I don't believe this is a trend. CIOs must be sensitive now to not only internal knowledge worker clients supporting customer needs, but to internal compliance requirements. This is a natural step for most CIOs. The position has developed strong business acumen over the years and should be able to work closely with the CFO to deliver on compliance requirements without the entire function going under the CFO.
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Comments
It would certainly be interesting to see some real data, as indeed one instance does not make a trend. However I do disagree with your statement "Most CIOs are peers of CFOs". I know of very few organizations where the CIO is on the board of a company. Usually, at least in my experience, the CIO reports to the CFO. The interesting question is which way the trend line is moving. I have seen figures quoted that only 5% of CIOs are on boards of directors (http://www.findtechinsights.com/5826/insightDetail.htm) so I think they still have a way to go to catch up with the CFO.
Posted by: Andy Hayler | November 28, 2005 10:28 AM
Hi William and Andy,
I have been a management consultant to the C's for over 20 years and while peer may be a strong word, I agree with William's point that CIOs have come a long way and their business skills enable them to handle compliance support along with the myriad of other job requirements.
Where I still see CIOs reporting to CFOs, it seems to be a nominal reporting at best. Board appointment notwithstanding (if CFOs aren't required to be on boards, I'd be surprised), in the day-to-day, many (most?) CIOs have as much responsibility as CFOs. I'd hate to see this trend go backwards.
Posted by: David Bland | November 28, 2005 12:04 PM