by Daniel W. Rasmus

Categorizing the CIO Role

Analysts like to categorize. As reported in a 2016 Wall Street Journal article, Korn/Ferry categorized CIOs into four groups:

• Commercial
• Transformational
• Innovative
• Technology-oriented

I think those categories have dated. But more importantly, CIOs are not defined as much by their traits as by their circumstances. In an ideal model, perhaps every role in every company perfectly aligns skills, proclivities, personality, and aspirations to the work. But ideal models don’t exist…

Recession flags are waving heading into 2023. And technology continues to wriggle and shift regardless of economic slowdown or hope for stability.

Part 2 of a two-part series 

The following list outlines the key CIO Priorities for 2023. Any organization looking beyond six months without using scenarios to guide their visioning risks facing poor forecasts amid multi-vector volatility. Once you read the list, you’ll see these concerns will drive action far in the future and prove plenty to keep even the most adept CIO busy for the next six months.

– Daniel W. Rasmus, Serious Insights

Recession flags are waving heading into 2023. And technology continues to wriggle and shift regardless of economic slowdown or hope for stability.

Part 1 of a two-part series 

The following list outlines the key CIO Priorities for 2023. Any organization looking beyond six months without using scenarios to guide their visioning risks facing poor forecasts amid multi-vector volatility. Once you read the list, you’ll see these concerns will drive action far in the future and prove plenty to keep even the most adept CIO busy for the next six months.

– Daniel W. Rasmus, Serious Insights

Regardless of how you arrived at an interest in Digital Transformation, this series has focused on fundamental issues facing those seeking to deliver digital solutions for customers and for the business. They maintain value no matter the name associated with the change. Holding too tightly to plans in a changing world, adopting cliches, and not realizing the value of story in selling an idea can be applied to many aspects of life because, in the end, we are all transforming all of the time, and these lessons can help make transitions from one state to another more enjoyable, more meaningful, and less stressful.

– Daniel W. Rasmus, Serious Insights

A workday easily fills with distractions. A week, a month. Add up the distractions, and a lot happens when you aren’t paying attention. If you are working on a digital transformation project, losing focus equates to delaying value realization. In this article, Dan Rasmus explores four topics that offer insight into common distractions that may result in the failure of a transformation initiative.

– Daniel W. Rasmus, Serious Insights

Years ago, while working at Giga Information Group, several analysts got together and created a service we loosely referred to as “events,” and then wrote about what we had captured as best practices over the years. With companies now going back to having in-person analyst events, I thought it would be handy to cover some of those best practices again to help companies improve the quality of their events.

– Rob Enderle, The Enderle Group

The rapid pace of change. Velocity. Many use those terms to describe what everything about business feels like today. Despite the global pandemic slowing down parts of the economy, the transformation to digital seems all the more obvious and more critical. The time to wait is over, and now is the time to act. While engaging in digital transformation quickly and with purpose is absolutely necessary for most businesses, doing so with overly rosy expectations of express returns and swift transformations might prove more the first step toward failure than the first step toward success.

– Daniel W. Rasmus, Serious Insights

Digital transformation is a business strategy. It is not innovative. Many organizations already operate as digital businesses. Most organizations migrating to a digital strategy do so to catch up with their peers. Businesses that do not adopt the latest technology will become less relevant over time as consumer and business-to-business markets move to digital engagement models.

– Daniel W. Rasmus, Serious Insights

Analysts like to categorize. As reported in a 2016 Wall Street Journal article, Korn/Ferry categorized CIOs into four groups: Commercial, Transformational, Innovative, and Technology-oriented. I think those categories have dated. But more importantly, CIOs are not defined as much by their traits as by their circumstances. In an ideal model, perhaps every role in every company perfectly aligns skills, proclivities, personality, and aspirations to the work. But ideal models don’t exist. 

Let's dive into what type of CIO you want to be…

– Dan Rasmus, Serious Insights

Doesn’t IT own the policies around which technologies and systems get deployed? Not always. If your organization does, then this post may not be relevant to you. If your organization delegates authority to lines of business and business units for non-centralized IT, then you will want to read on.

– Daniel W. Rasmus, Serious Insights