Why is the CIO position reporting structure broken?

Don’t look now, but something’s wrong with the CIO world. The CIOs I work with are being asked to do more and more for their companies. It would be fair to say that IT has become an essential part of the companies these CIOs work for. So can you tell me why in some companies CIOs don’t report directly to the CEO?

The bad news

In a recent survey of companies, less than half of the companies that responded said that the CIO reported directly to the CEO. This means that even as IT becomes increasingly important to the economic well-being of a company, the person assigned the task of implementing the company’s IT strategy cannot participate in planning the strategy. general of the company.

What does this really mean? Simply put, it means that a critical line of communication is longer and more prone to breaking than necessary. Considering all the challenges modern companies face, the CIO should be to the right of the CEO when discussing ways to move the company forward.

A good example of what can happen if the CIO does not report directly to the CEO happened at Sony. His PlayStation network was hacked and unknown parties took confidential customer information. As big and as sophisticated as Sony is, its CIO reports to the Director of Transformations, who in turn reports to the CEO. Talk about a broken pipe!

To Ray Of Hope?

The solution to this problem is clear: the CIO position must report directly to the CEO. The challenge is to find a way to convince those 50% of companies that do not have this structure to make the necessary changes to make this happen.

The big question is what will motivate these companies to make this kind of change? As with all things in business, the reason for making a change should be based on the results of the business.

In the case of the CIO, it is the IT department’s activities that have nothing to do with keeping the lights on that will provide a compelling story for the CIO to report directly to the CEO. Tasks like mining customer and sales data that the company has collected to detect new customer needs and buying patterns are things the CEO needs both to lead and to respond to. The only way this can happen is if the CEO and CIO are speaking directly.

Additionally, as the spectrum of digital theft becomes more and more possible, the CIO must work with the CEO to determine what data should be stored, how long it should be stored, and when the information collected can be deleted. from. Only by agreeing to a company-wide policy and then implementing it can companies begin to grapple with creating an effective defense against piracy.

What does all this mean to you?

Too often, companies talk lip-service about the importance of IT to their overall success, while at the same time relegating their CIOs to reporting to someone other than the CEO. This contradiction clearly shows that something is broken at the top of many companies.

Recent surveys have revealed that CIOs reported directly to the CEO in less than half and perhaps even fewer of the companies surveyed. What this means is simply that the CIO is not being heard where he or she needs to be heard: at the top of the business. As security threats increase and the value of business data becomes increasingly important, this type of organizational structure cannot be allowed to remain in place.

The change that must occur is that CIOs must report directly to the CEO of the company. It is only by setting up this type of reporting structure that the types of conversations that need to occur around data retention, infrastructure security, etc. it will happen. Considering what the rest of the company asks the CIO to accomplish, it seems like inviting them to the big table is something that has to happen sooner rather than later.