CIO “Brand” Consistency: Developing Your Commercial Instincts
You may know by now that I am not a fan of increasing the CIOs role. Rather I see tremendous value in centralizing non-IT executive control of projects (IT and non-IT) supported by a PMO-like organization. Even so, I’m am NOT saying I’m against CIO role improvement; 
what I am saying is that other executives need to become more familiar with what IT is doing, and the projects they are working on, as they relate to company strategies FIRST.
Darin Brumby deals with the CIO role as a “brand” (i.e., “what do you think of first when you hear CIO”) in his Computerworld article “Risks Pay Off in Brand Building”. Interestingly, he focuses on developing a CIO’s commercial instincts:
“One of the ways we become top performers as business strategists, transformation experts, effective managers of people and masters of our IT domain is to hone our commercial instincts. We should be good at finding money-making opportunities.”
The reality is that many projects originate from the IT area, and they tend to be internal, infrastructure projects. “Commercial” projects, or those designed to focus on the external, customer-facing, demand development side of the business, are often not emphasized enough. The result can be continued development of internal capabilities with no demand creation to take advantage of them. My posts on how a PMO can impact marketing strategies, developing a compelling marketing offer, and an example of such an offer in a consulting firm, emphasis this.
More on Brumby’s article in my next post.
Do you have, or are you recognized as, a CIO that has “commercial” instincts? Why is this important? Should “commercial” projects reside in the IT area? Is it better to have a PMO take on these types of projects?
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