In the Age of Agility, Chief Information Officers are Agents of Change and Business Transformation

Welcome to the Age of Agility, in which new business models evolve every six months and success hinges on swift reactions to shifting currents in the marketplace.

In an environment marked by continual transformation, competitive organizations increasingly rely on the Chief Information Officer (CIO) to serve as a prime architect of fundamental change.

The emergence of the CIO as a strategic player is not surprising. At progressive companies, the CIO is one of the few senior executives with a genuinely holistic view of the enterprise, particularly those organizations that have undergone transformation in business processes and the underlying technology. As a result, today’s CIOs are increasingly assuming leadership roles in company operations and now in the creation of new products and services and the discovery of new markets.

“CIOs are often uniquely placed within their organization to both understand the real-world transformation challenges as well as identify enterprise breakthrough opportunities,” writes Gartner Group Analyst Graham Waller. The CIOs interviewed for this executive report agree strongly with Waller’s assessment. The flow of information services into every nook and cranny of the modern corporation significantly expands the responsibilities of the CIO. The omnipresence of IT also requires the CIO to master a broad new set of cross-functional skills and capabilities.