IT needs to restore its credibility with the board

CIO representation in the boardroom is generally quite low – in the private sector only 8% of FTSE 350 companies have a CIO on their board according to research by Grant Thornton. With IT having such little exposure at board level its ability to support and influence the direction of today’s business has, to some extent, become limited.

During these recessionary times IT, as a business function, is frequently viewed as a cost problem rather than a recovery solution. So how can today’s IT senior management turn around such a challenging situation?

For some considerable time IT hasn’t been delivering the tangible benefits that organisations need to succeed

Key IT decision makers from both the public and private sectors came together last month to discuss the challenges that the CIO will face in the future. In the roundtable hosted by Badenoch & Clark, one message emerged loud and clear – IT as a business function needs to deliver tangible and demonstrable benefits to restore its credibility.

The assembled delegates conceded that for some considerable time IT hasn’t been delivering the tangible benefits that organisations need to succeed. With a legacy like this the IT industry has shaken senior management’s confidence in its ability to make sound commercial judgements to deliver tangible benefits. All too often there is a lack of trust in IT’s ability to invest budget wisely.

Every CIO is bound to inherit some form of legacy, efficient or inefficient, good or bad. Legacies are not the fault of the person who inherits them. It is how the legacy is dealt with by the incoming CIO that will dictate the level of their success in delivering substantial benefits to their organisation.

It was felt that, rather than investing in new systems, CIOs need to take into account what’s required to maintain business as usual and the value of any proposed changes, perhaps making the best of what systems are in place.

Successful delivery of IT projects is all about getting everyone in the team to ‘buy in’ by letting them see clear objectives at all times. This means that detailed objectives need to be communicated really well and in bite sized proportions.

Contractors also have a big part to play in restoring the credibility of the IT function. The departure of contractors can often pose a challenge for CIOs in terms of skill attrition. It is crucial that CIOs and IT functions find a way to work with contractors so that at least some of their skill and experience can be transferred to permanent members of staff. CIOs need to clearly define a contractor’s role and associated schedule, using differently skilled contractors at different stages of a project. This way the function’s overall skill and experience level will be elevated so that it is able to deliver better quality to the organisation it serves.

In order to regain the respect of senior management CIOs need to stabilise current systems, improve service level agreements to suit the organisations they serve, deliver better value for money by maximising existing infrastructure, use management information systems better, reconfigure their supply chains and be brave enough to consider de-scoping or cancelling projects.

Get the full picture of what IT leaders believe needs to happen to restore senior management’s confidence in IT as a function: download the key insights from our recent roundtable event.