How can the CIO achieve their innovation potential and stay one step ahead of the competition?

CEOs today want more from IT departments and are excited about the possibilities technology can offer to the organisation. These CEOs are looking to their CIOs to deliver internally and externally focused innovation to help their organisations remain competitive. Indeed 74% of CIOs, believe that technological innovation is a requirement and if they do not innovate and embrace new technology, their companies will lose market share.

However, only one-third of global CIOs believe they have achieved their innovation potential.

The evolving strategic role of the CIO and the opportunity to adopt disruptive technologies presents many opportunities for CIOs to drive competitive advantage through innovation.

What are the new technologies?

There are some clear forerunning technologies that CIOs are beginning to employ, for example:

• more than 50% of CIOs are already using social networking technology

• 52% are currently testing or using mobile technology

• 27% of people are experimenting with the cloud.

In fact more than 22% of the organisations have implemented mobile technologies over two years ago, 40% have implemented in the last two years and 23% are intending to do so soon. The key benefit of these technologies is the wealth of new information they generate. Organisations that understand how to capture and analyse this information increase their capacity to innovate and, crucially, to move ahead of the competition. However almost half of business leaders said their organisation uses only a fraction of the data assets these technologies yield. A change of mind-set – to one that views data as the raw materials or a key component of new products and services – is the first step. For example, the Met Office, the UK’s leading weather forecasting service, has created a ground-breaking portal for professionals and amateur enthusiasts. The portal has transformed the way the organisation creates, shares and distributes weather data and has established the Met Office as the number one weather data aggregator in the world.

What are the skillsets that CIOs are looking for?

The use of these new technologies and the increasingly complex business environment means that 20% of CIOs are looking for new skillsets in their teams. This trend is only set to increase leading to heightened demand for a restricted supply of skills. Adding to this pressure, no single technology skill will be instrumental in ensuring the innovation the company requires. In addition to traditional skills such as enterprise architecture and business intelligence, social media and mobile solutions will be increasingly in demand.

How are the current technologies driving outsourcing changes?

New technologies in mobile business, social networking and the cloud are driving many CIOs towards smaller, niche experts who can support innovation. For example, through application development. It is this level of specific, granular knowledge that CIO’s will be demanding from their outsourcing partners as these technologies become more prevalent. CIO’s should look to reflect this in contractual arrangements with outsourcing providers, moving from a price focus to concentrating on differentiation and innovation.

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