* The 10 biggest opportunities and challenges in IT and what it takes to master them
Welcome to 2005, a year that holds many challenges for CIOs. Unprecedented new governmental regulations, increased global threats and a higher degree of a vulnerability and risk have magnified the importance of IT in growing and protecting shareholder value.
A new free report from Deloitte Consulting’s CIO Advisory Services practice, “CIO 2.0: The Changing Role of the Chief Information Officer,” highlights the 10 biggest opportunities and challenges in IT and what it takes to master them.
Here are some of the highlights:
* IT and the law: CIOs must design and build business processes, systems and organizational structures that are not only compliant with today’s rules, but also anticipate the direction of future regulations.
* Security and risk: Executives needs to work together to identify threats, balance risk and cost, and test vulnerabilities, plans and assumptions to ensure the safety of goods, people, information and facilities.
* Business integration: Organizations are building stronger, more efficient partnerships and supplier relationships by simplifying business processes.
* Value: It’s critical to shift projects and assets to areas most likely to generate returns, and shed or streamline assets and operations that are destroying value.
* Alignment = collaboration: IT must be at the table to make sure that IT’s role is clear and that spending ties back to business goals.
* Governance and funding: Adopt a simple governance model that produces timely decisions, responsible actions, and reasonable results.
* IT sourcing: Develop a sourcing strategy based on fact-based assessments of cost and quality, core competency and effective management/control structures.
* Performance measures: Regularly assess and benchmark performance to validate internal improvement targets and identify stellar performance.
* Growing talent: Make more effective use of staff by realigning the work to match people’s interest and skills.
* Beyond customer service: Performing a critical assessment of customer IT needs, cost to deliver, and value to the company provides a mechanism for managing demand as well as supply.
There are far more ideas in the report than I have room to elaborate on here, so check out the complete copy at www.deloitte.com/us/cio2
