INDUSTRY OPINION

By John Rade*

The future of CIOs

The tenure of CIOs will move from an average of three years to close to two years in those companies who do not aggressively adopt a Knowledge Management (KM) capability. This is based on a recent survey of CIOs and their compatibility with CEO and CFO business needs.

The immediate needs to solve 'technology only problems' has not focused on key business management requirements within Year 2000 compliance efforts.

Many business analysts believe that new application deployments that were previously 'technology only-based' must become 'value-based', focusing on improved KM productivity gains. Those companies who embarked upon a Year 2000 Compliance Project merely to eliminate the Millennium Bug from their systems will be severely disadvantaged compared to those which chose to use the Year 2000 Compliance Project as a means to improve their operations and the distribution of knowledge within the enterprise.

Because of the large expenditure on Year 2000 Compliance efforts and the resultant CEO and CFO back lash, CIOs will find it difficult to justify large IT budgets with no ROI. We are seeking a shift in senior management attitudes towards information technology. There is a resurgence in IT centralisation (IT controls and measures), and a demand for knowledge management tools that deliver immediate productivity improvement. We are seeing every key enterprise software solution evaluated based on its knowledge management architecture and its ability to deliver KM value.

Those CIOs who do not anticipate this trend are in a perilous situation. Those IT organisations that can quickly adapt and deliver the short term knowledge management productivity success will capitalise on this IT shift.

*John Rade is CEO of Computron Software.