Leadership in enterprise technology must come from all organizational functions
Recently I gave the opening keynote at SAP Australia Users Group Summit on Leadership in Enterprise Technology.
One of my central themes was that leadership in enterprise technology no longer resides just with the CIO and IT function.
The Future of the CIO is absolutely a critical frame, not least because I believe the CIO has primary responsibility for guiding boards of directors and top executive teams to understand the importance of technology in their organization’s future.
There is a divergence between organizations in which technology is being marginalized and treated as a commodity, and those in which its role at the heart of strategy, new business models, and value creation is recognized. The CIO must drive this recognition and the resulting investment.
Yet every leader and every organizational function – including HR, Marketing, Finance, Procurement, Sales, Supply Chain and more – also has the responsibility to shape the future of technology in the enterprise.
Technology is no longer just a support function. It is embedded into the core of almost every aspect of how organizations create value, internally and externally.
Each business function needs to build richer relationships with other internal functions and external capabilities. Just as organizations are shifting to create and tap value across broad business ecosystems, business functions need to widen their ambit and the scope of their value network.
From this technology-based opportunities for value creation become evident, along with an increasing recognition that executives from across the organization must provide leadership in shaping enterprise technology.
Certainly the CIO must be at the heart of shaping the role of IT, but they must increasingly be a channel and conduit for energy and insight across the organization in tapping the potential of technology.
