Can SaaS Make CIOs Strategic Again?

By: Tim Minahan

January 21st, 2009 - My visits with business executives and media mavens over the past few weeks involved heated discussions about the future role of the Chief Information Officer in this age of Software as a Service (SaaS). Public perception is that SaaS is in direct competition with the CIO, chipping away at the death grip this top IT exec has long-held over enterprise technology infrastructure and buying decisions.

But, as is often the case, the reality is much different than the going perception.

In fact, my discussions reaffirm that savvy CIOs view SaaS as an opportunity to reassert their importance and improve their role as a strategic advisors. With the growing adoption and relevance of SaaS business applications, the role of the CIO becomes less about managing infrastructure purchases and uptime, and more about identifying and assembling best-practice processes to support and improve enterprise performance.

I floated this observation during a chat with CIO Magazine Editor-in-Chief Maryfran Johnson recently and she concurred. In fact, she noted seeing an increasing number of CIOs with new titles: CPO, that is, Chief Process Officers.

As further evidence of this shift, a CIO at a major hospital network I was speaking with last week said he too sees a �natural role expansion into process as well as sourcing leadership for top-tier CIOs.� However, he notes that transitioning to the role as Chief Process Officer will require a mindshift for the CIO as well as his or her IT team.

�For that role expansion to happen, [the CIO] must have a seat at the table. To get a seat, he must earn it by showing that he is not a geek but a businessman. So he must free himself of all the toys and gadgets and look at the big picture: the TOTAL COST of Ownership.�

In addition to doing some soul-searching on their own role, CIOs looking to become more strategic process directors must overcome pushback from their own teams, many of whom feel that SaaS somehow reduces their role in the organization. Maryfran and the CIO both argue that SaaS doesn�t kill IT. Instead, it enhances the role of the IT organization, finally making them tighter partners with the businesses in defining and assembling the best processes for competitive advantage.

While we are surely in the pioneering stage of this trend, the growing adoption and large-scale deployments of SaaS applications - not to mention the hype around Cloud Computing - could accelerate the CIO�s transition to a more strategic process director role. Yet, the hospital CIO projects that the transition will happen quickly out of sheer necessity: �Sad to say that if expectations and standards don�t change in the CIO community - if the CIO continues to be the �head geek in charge� - then the CIO role will rightfully be banished to a subordinate role.�

The only question that remains is will your CIO make the transition?

Source: http://www.supplyexcellence.com/blog/2009/01/21/saas-solutions-make-cios-strategic/

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