another major change took place. Large integrated enterprise software packages commoditized many busi-ness-process support tools, empowering business and IT managers to outsource these tools to external vendors/partners for improved productivity and customer responsiveness. More often than not, the middle part of the development life cycle—design and develop—was outsourced to external enterprise software vendors. CIOs had to become adept at managing large and small projects from multiple vendors, by focusing on planning, analysis, implementation, and integration. 15

As we entered the 21st century, the focus of IT management shifted to developing newer applications using advanced Web- and social media-based technologies. The advances made in Internet and Web-based technologies in the 2000s led to a plethora of hardware, software, and service companies, all serving various parts of a firm’s extended value chain and empowering customers to seek improved services. As a result, CIOs today must manage two different life cycles: one looks at digital innovations to explore newer technologies, while the other continues to support legacy systems. Multiple partners are used to assist with both these life cycles. Today’s CIOs must be adept at keeping the lights on and quick pilot testing of new digital innovations. They have to balance the strategic needs of a changing business through exploration while maintaining a reliable backend operational system using a mix of both established and innovative technology vendors/partners, or two-speed IT. 2

These changes in IT led to the es-
tablishment of two distinct vendor
groups, in addition to the traditional
IT user within a firm. One group of
vendors continues to advance IT in-
novation with new products and ser-
vices (such as social media, Internet
of Things, and data analytics) in sup-
port of changing business needs, while
the other continues to implement and
maintain commoditized IT products
or services (such as enterprise systems,
data warehouses, Web services, and
standardized hardware plug-ins). The
IT leadership within a firm is expected
to interact with both types of vendors
firm must decide if candidates from
the same industry are more attractive
(because they have similar domain
knowledge) or if IT professionals
from other industries are more attrac-
tive (because they have a wider range
of experience). The data in our study
shows 75% of the IT professionals
who changed organizations in order
to obtain their first CIO position also
changed their industry. This indicates
that firms are looking for profession-
als with diverse IT experience or that
IT may be industry agnostic. In either
case, it appears that IT professionals
are not tied to an industry.

Changing Nature of IT

Information technology is constantly changing. Advances in the digitization of business processes/services, the miniaturization of digital products that store and manipulate data, and the use of agile development methods that deliver applications faster to meet business needs, are just a few examples of such changes. One by-product in IT is an increasing specialization of roles among those who design, develop, and implement IT.

In-depth interviews by Tanniru15 with more than 80 IT executives in 2012 showed a stark change in the focus of IT leadership over the past four decades—from focusing primarily on costs to focusing on strategic alignment and entrepreneurship. In the 1970s and early 1980s, a few large companies produced almost all the IT products worldwide, with IT leaders using these products to seek cost reductions in business operations. The life cycles for these projects tended to be quite long, and the CIO was responsible for managing all phases of the projects.

In the late 1980s and early 1990s, introduction of PCs and a large number of small product vendors and off-the-shelf software tools empowered business users to seek control of their IT resources for decision support. This led to two parallel approaches. The spiral development approach facilitated multiple smaller projects, while the conventional waterfall approach developed and maintained larger projects. CIOs had to become adept at managing both large and small projects.

In the late 1990s and early 2000s

In the new
environment,
talent can be
recognized
sooner than
in the past, and
there are more
opportunities
to display
leadership as
IT becomes
a strategic tool
for competitiveness
in the marketplace.