Would I like to be a COO? Sure... why not?

I asked myself a question - Why can I not be a COO? 

This further raised a plethora of related questions -  How am I different? Am I not expected to have all the traits as any category "C" business executive? Am I not considered to be a business executive? Am I not expected to understand and contribute to the business? Am I not held responsible for the business outcome? So... how am I any different than any other category "C" business executive? Why am I treated differently?  

Well... today, as a CIO, I am expected to run IT as a Business and NOT Cost Center. I am suppose to charge back for all IT Services and Systems to end users / verticals / business units across the organization. I am suppose to convince ("sell") the IT Services charge back. Run it (IT) as a Business... I am told. 

If I run IT as a "business" with defined Service Level Agreement (SLAs) with my users, rather let us call them customers; if I classify my customers as "Class A", "Class B" and likewise and define the response time and issue resolution time based on the customer class; if I measure, monitor and publish the SLA performance on a routine basis (very similar to the quarterly results that the COO is responsible to delivery), also measure and monitor the performance of the other components of the "business" - networks availability, server availability, minimize unplanned downtime and maximize uptime; if I provide solutions and services (applications and infrastructure) to my customers to satisfy their need to carry out their businesses effective and efficiently (again very similar to the COO); if I am expected to respond to the changing needs of my customers (well the customers call it business changes, another similarity to the COO / CEO's role) and for me "change" in constant then am also I not playing the role of a Chief Operating Officer (COO) or maybe even a Chief Executive Officer (CEO)? 

Am I not responsible for the IT Business in the similar manner as the CEO is responsible for the success and failure of the organization as per the expectations set by the board of directors. Am I not the CEO of the IT Business though it is internal in nature?

Well... one can argue.. - but then I do not have the "feel" of the "real" customer of the organization. Well... do all the Chief Financial Officer (CFO) have that exposure to the "real" customer of the organization, perhaps not everybody, but the number of CFOs promoted to COOs and CEOs is much more, is it not? Of course....the COOs and CEOs themselves "acquire" the requisite  understanding / knowledge over a period of time and so would the CFO, right? Then why not the CIO too can acquire the same knowledge domain?

It is an accepted business truth today that, IT is expected to be more receptive to changes than others parts of the organization. Now this exactly works in the favor of the CIO,  this orientation toward change allows a CIO to take a complete fresh look and new perspective at areas of operations wherein  the CIO can actually drive down or even drive out the cost and deliver better service to the "real" customer. Also, is the CIO not expected to "document" all the "as-is" and "expected-to-be" business processes in the organization?

The fact is - with the cloud computing and mobility and all the consumer technology, technology will continue to move to center stage. Furthermore... today with all the discussions / events / conferences around "BIG Data" and storage, database structure, data extracting tools which are beyond the available and traditional conventional database structure, the role of the CIO is expected become complex (traditional CIOs be happy that there CIO role is not going away), but for the more adventurous CIOs this an fantastic opportunity. The business needs - to  understand the real customer better, of extracting customer insights, of mapping the customer preferences, to be able to cross-sell and up-sell products and services, the need for effective, efficient and more importantly flexible business processes, can make the change. So, data is business and the key success factor for the business - about world-class internal and external processes, about customers, about employees.

So, why cannot the custodian of the data and this key success factor for the business have a shot at the COO role in an organization? It is only CIO who can deliver all of the above to the organization / management and board of directors. 

If the CIO is able to deliver the business results (the probability of doing so is the same for any other  category "C" executive) then I, the CIO, deserve to be given a chance. So... it is time to change, change this time in the attitude and approach by the management / board of directors at looking at the CIO role. There is no point in just saying as most management do - "change is a ONLY constant".

Then where is the problem? Well... the problem is - CIOs simply do not volunteer to take over additional responsibility, additional roles in the organization. Now, is it the fear of rejection or is it the fear of been the "first" of the CIO kind to ask for it or is just the top management or the board of directors's perspective that it is too silly for a CIO to even make an attempt at ask to be a COO?

Would I like be a COO? Sure.... why not? I am willing to take up the challenge and keep things running while realizing the vision for the future. The question is - would you like to give me a chance?

"Sucker" for HOT technologies?

Come January.... and every technology enterprise company, every CIO forum, every research agency associated with the IT World and even some CIO themselves start looking into their "crystal balls" and attempt to predict the technologies that will impact and change the way businesses is done in the coming year. Lets call them the "hot" technologies. Predictions are made on what are the "hot" technologies for the year, what should CIOs do about them, how should CIOs go about deploying these "hot" technologies in their businesses. And then there are CIO Round-table discussions seeking the CIO perspective and seeking the CIO "seal of validation" about these "hot" technologies. Finally, a consensus on the "hot" technologies for the year is arrived at.

Well... after all of the above and the euphoria around it even in 2013,  there seems to be a board consensus on the Top three (03) "new" and "hot" technologies for year 2013 amongst the CIO community at least here in India - 

• Big Data

• Cloud Computing

• Mobility

CIOs, the logical people they are, like clear, precise definitions, but "Big Data" is a relative concept. Also, it depends on who is defining it. On a very board conceptual front, "Big Data" collectively an be referred to as - 

"the strategy, business processes, tools and technologies that relate the datasets in an organization that are, in fact, beyond the ability of traditional database software tools in size and complexity when it comes to capturing, storing, managing and analyzing them." 

So, "Big Data" would mean different things to different vendors, CIOs and all those involved with it. In fact, the majority of the "Big Data" projects underway today are primarily in the space where a lot of customer-centric information is been collected through various individual and perhaps stand-alone systems. These datasets on their own may not help derive as much business benefits as if they all are looked at and analyzed together collectively. For example - inventory positions, truck delivery logos, RFID based product location, POS logs etc.  in case of a retail company or maybe - loyalty card database, customer visits to the company website, ticket booking and billing information for an airline company or holidays booked for a time-share company or even insurance policy buying. It can be even customer demographics,  buying transactions, GIS-based development patterns for an infrastructure company. In short, it is all about looking at all the diverse datapoints available in an enterprise which could be either - structured, non-structured or even semi-structured and then using tools and technologies on these datapoints to analyse them all and aid effective  "business decisions".

The next "hot" technology seems to be - "Cloud Computing". A few of my eminent CIOs friends would like to perhaps see 2013 as the "year of the Cloud".  "Easy provisioning", " easy manageability", "effective OPEX model", "dynamic resource availability" etc are typical points sighted when marketing the cloud and of course, all that is true. There have been great success stories around "cloud computing" technologies particularly in the SME community. Big enterprises with their heterogeneous and virtually environment seem to have adopted hybrid cloud solutions - maintaining their internal private clouds and deploying applications on an external public clouds. In my personal view, Cloud Computing has great potential from the disaster recovery (DR) perspective and with service offering like Amazon Glacier even with all its limitations there is potential. Data which if archival in nature and which requires to be stored and managed for various statutory requirements over a long period can definitely be a candidate for such a service. In the end, it is all about cheap and nearly limitless processing power and storage capacity. Cloud Computing is useful wherein the reach of the application needs to be maximized and available 24 by 7 and Cloud Computing coupled with Mobility Apps solutions will be the future of application delivery.

That brings us to the third of the Top three "hot" technologies of 2013 - "Mobility". There is a bit of a confusion when it comes to mobility... It seems to have many names - BYOD (Bring Your Own Device), Mobile Data Management (MDM), in fact, I once attended a seminar where in a technology enterprise classified secure VPN solution and security under mobility solutions. Well.... whatever be the case, the fact is that the cheap smartphones are here to stay, all consumer interactions are becoming mobile, even physical interactions are getting converted into digital signals and social networking is becoming a rage and reality. Businesses today cannot afford to ignore this trend. Mobility and mobile apps are been written and are fast entering the mainstream business processes and making the enterprise data available to a wider audience and also making it available "anytime anywhere". In fact, mobility is leading the consumerization of data and will be a major "disruptive" technology in years to come.

The newer technologies are great and they definitely help CIOs perform better. It is also true that these technologies are here to stand and they will impact businesses and business processes.  It is the CIOs' ability and imagination on how the use these technologies in their businesses that will determine their success. 

But before you jump in on that journey to success using these technologies, just a few pointers... 

• get on the bandwagon and initiate projects around the "hot" technologies ONLY when you think there is a "Business Case" for them in your business and not just because a peer CIO in a similar industry as yours is doing so;
• check, evaluate and retrospect the use in your business; 
• bounce off your ideas with peers in the CxO team within your enterprise and get a buy-in from them; 
• demonstrate the business value; 
• it has a better chance of success as a "business" project with a business sponsor rather than a "technology" project conceived by the CIO alone, and
• most important, remember - you need the budgets to deliver it all.