The CIO and IRM

Since corporations have acknowledge the importance of timely and accurate information in their efforts to gain competitive advantage in business, the creation of IS departments have gathered a following, with companies making it a point to utilize their environment data and information for their own advantage doing this effectively by assigning a particular person to head a specific department to handle such tasks. CIOs, they are called, are vital to a company's plans of gaining competitive advantage.

What then are CIOs?
CIOs (Chief Information Officer) are senior executives responsible for all aspects of their companies' information technology and systems. They direct the use of IT to support the company's goals. With knowledge of both technology and business process and a cross-functional perspective, they are usually the managers most capable of aligning the organization's technology deployment strategy with its business strategy. CIOs oversee technology purchases, implementation and various related services provided by the information systems department. However, at many leading-edge organizations, the CIO delegates many of the tactical and operational issues to a "trusted lieutenant" in order to focus on more strategic concerns.

The "information" part of the CIO's job is increasingly important. The effective and strategic use of common enterprise-wide information requires someone with a cross-functional perspective. CIOs have taken a leadership role in reengineering their organizations' business processes and the underpinning IT infrastructures to achieve more productive, efficient and valuable use of information within the enterprise. Many also take a leadership role in knowledge management and the valuation of intellectual capital. Similarly, CIOs are in an ideal position to lead organizations' Internet and Web initiatives.

CIOs usually report to the CEO, COO or CFO, and they often have a seat on the executive steering committee or board (or at least have frequent and close access to top officers). While the specific title CIO is generally a clear indication of an IT executive's senior rank and strategic influence, many executives with the title VP or director of information technology, systems or services hold comparable positions.1

In many corporations, the chief information officer (CIO) or IT director is the newest addition to the senior management team. But while it may be the latest ingredient in the alphabet soup of corporate management, the CIO's role is growing fast in both numbers and importance, and it is evolving as it grows.

The number of corporate CIOs has increased dramatically over the past two decades as information management moves from the wings of company operations to centre stage. The CIO's role is shifting from the technical business of data processing to the more broadly conceived job of 'knowledge management.' So important has managing knowledge become to the success of a company that harnessing knowledge may be a corporation's most pressing challenge-and at the very heart of the CIO's evolving role.

Though a relative newcomer to the executive wing, the CIO has become in many ways the most challenging and dynamic leadership role in the business world. Throughout the '80s and '90s, corporations have faced dramatic challenges brought about by changes in markets and corporate organisations. In many industries, both production and markets have globalised. Companies have experienced major shifts both upward and downward in their of scale of operations through significant downsizing and major mergers and acquisitions. In responding to these dramatic changes, companies have invested vast resources to reengineer their operations. It has been estimated that companies worldwide are spending $52 billion a year on reengineering, of which $40 billion goes annually into information technology. In other words, the CIO is at the centre of many of the most volatile and costly changes in the life of a corporation.2

Then what is IRM?
One of the dilemmas facing today's manager is that on the one hand they seem to be suffering from information overload, yet on other hand, they often they complain about shortage of information needed to make vital decisions.

Symptoms of overload are a growth of incoming information, including electronic mail, an explosion in the volume of information sources (there are over 10,000 business newsletter titles and a similar number of CD-ROM titles). Symptoms of scarcity are the lack of vital information for decision making, unexpected competitor moves and the inability to find the relevant 'needle in the haystack.

There is also the crucial problem of exploiting an organisation's proprietary information as a strategic asset.

Underlying these problems is that of having "the right information, in the right place, in the right format, at the right time".

Partial solutions include Executive Information Systems (EIS), On-line and CD-ROM data-bases, alerting services. A more encompassing solution is to adopt the principles of Information Resources Management (IRM) (not to be confused with an information management or information systems). Whereas the value (often declining!) of tangible assets, such as property and office equipment, is regularly assessed and audited, similar processes are lacking for intangible assets, such as information and knowledge, whose asset value is increasing in many organisations.

Information Resources Management (IRM) is an emerging discipline that helps managers assess and exploit their information assets for business development. It draws on the techniques of information science (libraries) and information systems (IT related). It an important foundation for knowledge management, in that deals systematically with explicit knowledge. Knowledge centres often play an important part in introducing IRM into an organization.3






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1 "What is a CIO?" http://www.cio.com/summaries/role/description/?action=print As of 02 February 2006.
2 "The Changing Role of the Chief Information Officer" http://www.cio.com/research/executive/edit/kornferry.html As of 02 February 2006.
3 "Information Resources Management" by David Skyrme http://www.skyrme.com/insights/8irm.htm#whatis As of 02 February 2006.

Knowledge Management is the explicit and systematic management of vital knowledge - and its associated processes of creation, organization, diffusion, use and exploitation.