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While technology-based business tools proliferate within organizations, those dedicated to CIO management are often very limited. And yet, over the years, the CIO has become a key department in the organization chart. Once confined to managing IT resources and supporting users, the CIO’s role has evolved to become an indispensable support to organizations’ efforts to innovate, improve performance and capitalize on Digital transformation.
The CIO’s responsibilities include managing substantial Budgets, optimizing costs, managing commercial and contractual relations with numerous suppliers, federating and delivering Projects, organizing maintenance and support activities, and managing people and Teams. But these essential, time-consuming tasks are poorly equipped.
From operational management to communication and collaboration
To boost CIO performance, a holistic approach to the CIO’s job must now become the norm. It must incorporate not only the technological and consulting dimension, but also the CIO’s relational dimension with management and other departments. In the triptych of “Knowledge, Know-how and Do-Knowledge”, it is the third aspect that the CIO lacks most. It must be able to rely on digital tools to communicate and explain its actions. For example, a CIO must be able to communicate with his CFO, and, thanks to concrete operational steering elements, demonstrate the rigor with which the IT Budgets are kept.
“A CIO needs to be able to communicate to his CFO, and,
with concrete operational management data,
demonstrate the rigor with which the IT Budgets are kept.”
This is just one of many examples of how the CIO can explain its actions, communicate and collaborate with the company’s business units. And this dimension, following a trend that runs through all industries and business units, necessarily relies, in these times of digitalization, on digital tools specifically dedicated to the CIO. Tools that help structure this dimension of communication and collaboration. These new and unprecedented tools must enable the implementation of a structured, shared working framework, and a common method for harmonizing practices and guaranteeing the consistency of information.
The CIO’s new collaborative tools
Information systems are a key dimension of the Agility enterprise, and their governance is becoming increasingly important. The CIO must therefore have the collaborative tools to steer, arbitrate and implement in real time, in order to adapt to the company’s new rhythm and continuously align with its needs. This requires permanent availability of the elements needed for this steering. These must enable decisions to be simulated in real time, so that their impact can be measured and easily applied.
It’s also a question of reducing the effort involved in tracking and producing dashboards, adapted to just what’s needed (without over-quality), with productive tools that don’t require double entry and are capable of generating up-to-date status reports and KPIs based on operational tracking data.
This is what the Abraxio platform offers. It enables the CIO to have a clear picture of the situation at all times, without having to spend a great deal of effort gathering information and drafting a presentation. It is then possible to communicate to the company’s management, and in particular to senior management, all IS-related activity, the current situation, any discrepancies, and the decisions to be taken. This transparency highlights the work carried out by the CIO and demonstrates the rigor of its management. New confidence is built up, and decision-makers understand what’s going on, get involved, and play their role as decision-makers.
Abraxio is the first operational management and steering platform for IT departments. It provides a structured, productive and collaborative framework for managing Budgets, Project portfolios, Suppliers and Teams. Based on management data, and handling both operating activities and capital projects, it provides a native capacity for real-time analysis, cost and resource optimization, and communication.
By Samuel Revenu, CEO & Cofounder of Abraxio