Bradley Kalgovas

New research shows that the head of IT within an organisation – the Chief Information Officer or CIO – needs to become ambidextrous to deal with all the conflicting demands placed on them.

Business needs CIOs who are as comfortable managing people, systems, and budgets as they are with the technology, and CIOs should be capable of juggling all the complex tasks that come their way. To do that they need to use both ‘arms’ of their skills: hence we call it ambidextrous.

My research found that CIOs need to develop a deep understanding of the organisational implications of technology decisions – in particular where it hits the company’s bottom line. Their focus is on project management, delivering IT and business strategy, as well as human resource and change management within their teams. Their role has changed from an ‘IT Manager’ to an executive who is responsible for mitigating the ‘complexity gap’, whereby they are expected to pioneer technology in an area that is rapidly changing.

They need to be business people first, managers second, and of course also deal with the technology and ‘keep the lights on’.

Ambidexterity is a framework that aims to resolve the tension between conflicting roles and skills. This type of management theory has been examined extensively at an organisational level, but has received little attention when it comes to the individual. And yet for a CIO it is vital.

Of course the CIO is very different from an IT manager: the CIO reports to the board, whereas the IT Manager deals with the technology.

A key finding for CIOs is that ambidexterity will result in delivering a quality product. Over the past decade there has been a transition to ensure that the CIO is no longer a data processor: they are very strategic. They are part of the planning process, as opposed to hearing about it second hand and being told to implement it. Part of this is because the profit at many companies comes from their website. They are not just a company that uses IT: IT is core to ensuring they make money.

Bradley Kalgovas is an Honours Bachelor of Commerce Student at the Australian School of Business.