TechRepublic wrote a piece on the changing role of the CIO in today’s economic and cloud computing landscape. There’s no question that the role of the CIO changes when a company moves to the cloud, I’d hardly say the role has become undeserving of the C-level. Patrick Gray writes that IT will likely split into two areas – purely operational and internal consultancy.
The operational and business consultant sides of the CIO won’t necessarily separate as Gray indicates. Yes, a lot of operational aspects are handled for you when you move to the cloud, but there is still very real work to be done in maintaining security and control in the cloud that is directly related to C-level business efforts. No doubt we’ll see the position of the CIO evolve, but the role is still vital to business & IT operations.
CIO = Chief Integrations Officer