UTS hosted the 2011 IT Management Program (ITMP) CIO Roundtable in June, with a distinguished panel discussing the topic, “how is IT enabling the business today and into the future”. The event partners were Gartner and Wipro IT Business. UTS thanks these sponsors for helping to make this event possible and such a success.
The ITMP provides students with a world-class postgraduate business education and access to a strongly bonded network of IT professionals and strategic business leaders.. The CIO Roundtable event is held every year and is one of the major initiatives of the ITMP community with 100 guests attending including present and future students, alumni and ITMP partners.
The panellists for the roundtable discussion were:
- Associate Professor Ken Dovey - ITMP Director, UTS
- Kerry Holling - CIO NSW Dept of Family and Community Services
- Dr Vladas Leonas - CIO Transport Construction Authority
- Peter Nevin - Principal and Owner, Nevin Consulting P/L
- Linda Price - Group Vice President, Executive Programs APAC, Gartner Australasia P/L
- Al Sheean - IT Executive Leader and Group Manager Enterprise Architecture, George Weston Foods (ANZ)
Findings from Gartner’s 2011 CIO Survey were presented by Linda Price, Group Vice President, Gartner Executive Programs APAC. Price spoke about role of the CIO and the necessity for that role to evolve away from the traditional IT focus. She outlined how CIOs will need to embrace innovation and new technologies instead of being risk adverse in their management style.
“The CIO has to stop being the person who has built a career on being risk adverse and driven by structure and process. A sure sign that you are obsolete is when the CIO is being left out of the ‘new’ IT”, said Linda Price.
The panel examined the issues around traditional IT and the increasing need for CIOs to be in a strategic influencers’ role within an organisation. The need for organisations to embrace new technologies and social media was also discussed. This was viewed as essential if organisations are to stay competitive and take advantage of new business opportunities. CIOs will also need to ensure that the “new IT” is not managed outside the IT sphere by another department such as marketing.
“Traditional IT will ultimately be commoditised and outsourced” said Peter Nevin, Principal of Nevin Consulting. “
“The traditional CIO empire is going to shrink or disappear. Evidence in this trend can be found in the annual State of the CIO survey which has shown an increasing split between CIOs relegated to keeping the lights on and those in a strategic role at the executive table”, Vladas Leonas, CIO, NSW Government Transport Construction Authority agreed.
“CIOs will need to become innovation specialists, evangelists for the opportunities that emerging capabilities bring to an organisation”, said Kerry Holling, CIO Family and Community Services, NSW Government.
The panel concluded that the most critical skill for a CIO in the next decade will be the ability to be an effective and strategic leader.
