SAP and China’s partnership remains solid and unaffected despite the bitter trade battle between the US and China as shown in the recent data gathered by Thinknum, a web platform that tracks companies websites and creates data sets measuring factors such as hiring, revenue, and foot traffic.

In Bill McDermott’s CNBC interview earlier this year, the CEO shared that SAP continues to invest in China in the same manner that China continues to invest in the German software company.

McDermott’s assertion proves to be true as shown in the data gathered by the web platform. According to the data, SAP increased its workforce in China by nearly 50{aa282f308afcc222aaa21b0478c79e01a8fedd01972e2180867097bd93930f22} from 2018 until today at a time when most major American technology companies are stepping back from production and supply chain development in the country. The data also showed that SAP reduced the total number of global job postings it had online over the same period. The numbers considered were from the 27 July 2107 to 16 July 2019.

The German tech giant’s valiant investment in China is deemed contrasting to the American technology industry strategy of slashing more than 25 percent job postings there.

On an analyst call made by Thinknum, Luka Mucic, a member of the Executive Board and Chief Financial Officer of SAP, said that SAP managed to grow cloud and software revenue in China for its prior earnings deadline. It has to be noted that the commendable revenue growth materialized at an uncertain time when companies, including Apple, are withdrawing from China and when other technology companies that are being pushed by party officials to maintain their operations in the country.

Thinknum has also covered SAP’s Software Engineers’ Job postings. In the data gathered from 16 October 2016 to 16 July 2019, the company appears to be boosting its Software Engineer all over, rising more than threefold. Job postings this year went up to 32{aa282f308afcc222aaa21b0478c79e01a8fedd01972e2180867097bd93930f22}. Over the last few years, the company’s postings have been relatively even ranging from a low of 1,800 to a high of around 3,500.

This year, in just seven months, SAP has substantially increased global job postings for Developers rising to 69{aa282f308afcc222aaa21b0478c79e01a8fedd01972e2180867097bd93930f22}. 

As of July 17, SAP is up 36{aa282f308afcc222aaa21b0478c79e01a8fedd01972e2180867097bd93930f22} with expected 1.09 a share increase of EPS as tracked by Zacks Investment Research Analysts.

Bill McDermott previously stated in the CNBC interview that SAP expects a stronger 2019, emphasizing the company’s ambitious strategy in China as SAP’s Crown Jewel. As the company’s fastest-growing market with an investment that doubles every year, China is expected to receive the German company’s support steadily as a business partner. The data shown by Thinknum aligns with that objective.

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Lancers has utilized the Open Talent Platform Concept to implement SAP Fieldglass, which integrated both Palaft Co., Ltd. and Persol Holdings Co., creating a database that connects individuals to a broad range of networks within the SAP community. The program uses an analytics suite to better manage their external workforce, such as contractors, temporary staff and freelancers. Recently, Shareful – an on demand matching platform – has been launched to this purpose. 

“We agreed to promote data linkage with the cloud solution SAP® Fieldglass® provided by SAP Japan.

Lancers website: https://www.lancers.co.jp/news/pr/17451/

SAP Japan confirms SAP users can now access a wide range of freelance talent while contributing to the promotion of corporate business growth. The program will allow for collaboration between companies using SAP Fieldglass, and will assist in optimizing their selection of external sources.

 “Our vision is to create a society where everyone can work in their own way with technology.”

Lancers website: https://www.lancers.co.jp/news/pr/17451/

The collaboration will benefit freelancers and part-timers, allowing them a broader scope to take advantage of opportunities offered by SAP companies. 

“SAP Japan welcomes Lancers’s announcement of the solution collaboration with SAP Fieldglass from the heart. As a means to solve the labor shortage in Japan, the collaboration of the freelancer is indispensable… We confirm that SAP users can connect with more freelancers and contribute to the promotion of freelancers at the same time as corporate business growth, and prepare training programs for SAP consultants whose needs are increasing. Also, I look forward to Lancers’s activities.”

Satoshi Osawa, General Manager, SAP Fieldglass Business Division, SAP Japan Co., Ltd.

Currently, the companies are considering providing education and training programs for registrants of Lancers, to develop their knowledge and capabilities relating to SAP introduction consulting. This will greatly increase the opportunities for pairing companies with individuals, while at the same time, expanding individuals own application possibilities.

“Through this initiative, we will support the improvement of skills and the transition to new areas…it becomes possible to source human resources from a wider range of options.”

Satoshi Osawa, General Manager, SAP Fieldglass Business Division, SAP Japan Co., Ltd.

SAP Japan was established in 1992. SAP is an industry leader in cloud technology, using advanced analytics and machine learning to help people and organizations make better business decisions. 

Read the announcement from Lancers Inc (Japanese)

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The PAN India program will be delivered via either hands-on or e-learning approaches across 19 centres in India, with modules offered including Advanced Business Application Programming (ABAP), Financial Accounting (FI) and Controlling (CO), Material Management (MM), Production Planning (PP), Plant Maintenance (PM), Project Systems (PS), Sales & Distribution (SD) and Human Capital Management (HCM).

“In the current wave of digitisation, the industry needs skilled technology professionals who can now take it to the next level,” said Manoj Banthia, head of SAP Education, SAP India. “TimesPro has the acumen to enable upcoming talent to boost their technology profile to enhance career prospects. With most organisations across the globe running SAP software, this will certainly provide them with a competitive advantage.”

“Organisations are increasingly looking for candidates who have the perspective and expertise to look at operations with a broader business outcome,” said Anish Srikrishna, president, TimesPro. “Backed by the legacy of the Times Group and the knowledge resources from its diverse companies, our partnership with SAP Education will enable technology professionals to go beyond their roles and add true value in the current business environment.”

To find out more and to enrol, visit www.timespro.com/SAP.

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The new courses will be:

• Find Your Path to SAP S/4HANA: The course will help existing and potential customers and partners answer the questions of why, what and how to simplify with a digital core. Experts from product management and co-innovation for SAP S/4HANA will explain the fundamentals of the journey to adopt S/4HANA and explain processes for new implementation, system conversion and landscape transformation.
• Getting Started with Data Science: This course will introduce learners to the fundamentals of data preparation, predictive modelling, data science and the deployment and maintenance of models in a business environment following an established project methodology.
• Introduction to SAP Screen Personas software: SAP Screen Personas 3.0 allows IT professionals and SAP experts to simplify classic enterprise resource planning (ERP) screens for SAP ERP Central Component, SAP Business Suite powered by SAP HANA, and SAP S/4HANA, and the course will provide training on how to use the software to simplify screens and build simple ‘flavours’.
• SAP Business ByDesign Financials: This course explains the major concepts of the financial area and demonstrates these using the Business ByDesign software.SAP reports that in 2016, the platform increased course enrolments by 21.7 per cent to around 600,000 enrolments, bringing total enrolments to over 1.6 million. Over 150,000 learners signed up for openSAP in 2016, an increase of 53 per cent from the end of 2015.

“Going into its fourth year, openSAP again increased its user base significantly, and more people use it to stay on top of SAP product and cloud innovations than ever before,” said Dr Bernd Welz, executive vice president and chief knowledge officer, products and innovation, SAP.

“With openSAP in combination with SAP Learning Hub, which provides on-demand access to learning content covering all SAP solutions in great detail, it has become easy for busy professionals to keep their knowledge up-to-date.”

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“Learners are taking part in courses more frequently than before, largely due to faster technology cycles as well as the need for broader skill sets,” said Bernd Welz, executive vice president, scale, enablement and transformation, SAP.

“The success of openSAP and SAP Learning Hub is a direct result of the fact that these custom courses are relevant and truly add value to the lives of professionals. We look forward to further growing the platform with the same high-quality content.”

Seven new courses will be introduced to the platform in the coming months, including:
    •    Imagine IoT: This hands-on course will allow learners to combine their understanding of the Internet of Things (IoT) with their own imagination of what’s possible, as well as offering a methodology for prototyping your own IoT experience.
   •    Big Data with SAP HANA Vora: The third class in the SAP HANA Core Knowledge Series, this course explores how to provide enriched interactive analytics on data stored in Hadoop and how to combine big data with corporate data in a way that is both fast and simple.
•    Basics of Design Research: From identifying users’ needs through field visits to developing points of view, this course provides learners with a foundation for conducting design research in a people-centric way.
•    Developing Java-Based Apps on SAP HANA Cloud Platform: Aimed at developers, this advanced course demonstrates how to develop Java-based apps on SAP HANA Cloud Platform using the newly updated enterprise sales and procurement model (ESPM) application.
•    Design the Future of Your CRM: This course will demonstrate why it is almost impossible to run a successful business today with a customer relationship management (CRM) system from the past. It will reveal how today’s SAP solutions for customer engagement and commerce help to drive relevant experiences across all of your customers’ touchpoints in real time.
•    SHINE Reference for Native SAP HANA Application Development: This fourth course in the SAP HANA Core Knowledge Series provides insight into SHINE features, including a demo and deep dive into the major capabilities, as well as an introduction to SHINE for SAP HANA extended application services, advanced model.
•    Talent Management Best Practices with SAP SuccessFactors: Aimed at those looking to learn more about how SAP SuccessFactors solutions can be used for talent management, this course provides a comprehensive look at all the major talent management processes and functions required to build and maintain a high-performing workforce.

For more information on the program and available courses, visit openSAP.

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By providing effective SAP training, students will be able to bring the industry-academia gap and improve their employment and entrepreneurial prospects.

“SAP courses will make our students industry ready to face the challenges of the corporate world. MREI has ventured on an academic collaboration with SAP to herald a training culture and address the much lamented industry-academic gap,” said Dr Prashant Bhalla, president, MREI.

SAP modules relevant to disciplines of engineering and business studies will be offered at MREI, including:

• SAP ABAP (Advanced Business Application Programming),
• SAP MM (Materials Management),
• SAP HR (Human Resource Management),
• SAP FI (Financial Accounting), and
• SAP SD (Sales and Distribution).

“In today’s digital economy, it is imperative that students imbibe change and adapt to suit the needs of the hyper dynamic industry. SAP’s enablement programs are getting students ready to master latest technologies so that they can run their lives and careers with no limit. The SAP program will give students an opportunity for job-ready skills along with quality education,” said Cameron Brown, regional VP and head of education, Asia Pacific, Japan and Greater China, SAP.

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Salary was cited by 77 per cent as the main drawcard for a job change, up from 16 per cent in 2014, overtaking work/life balance.

The survey canvassed the views of nearly 3000 technology professionals from more than 30 countries, with a significant proportion of respondents from the UK, US, Switzerland, Australia, and across the European Union.

The increased pressure on salaries is driven by skills shortages, reported by 53 per cent of technology hiring managers globally in 2015, up from 51 per cent in 2014. Large and small technology companies are driving up pay and incentives with hopes of recruiting and retaining scarce tech talent, with almost three quarters of tech (73 per cent) believing their next role will be outside their current organisation.

“For many companies, attracting and retaining high tech staff has become their number one concern. Whilst work/life balance is clearly a factor, what this report shows is how important pay and working on ground-breaking digital projects have now become as motivators for changing jobs,” said Albert Ellis, CEO, Harvey Nash Group.

“We see the impact of this with larger companies citing so-called unfair advantages being given to hugely successful digital start-ups like Uber and Airbnb. The reality is that highly talented technology talent aspire to work for start-ups, recognised disruptors and challenger brands, so rhetoric like this is self-defeating. What traditional organisations need to do is urgently formulate positive strategies to compete effectively with the digital insurgents. That includes re-thinking their pay and employment proposition to the pool of high tech talent.”

When it comes to retaining staff, pay and work/life balance are not the only two motivators, with opportunities to work on innovative projects also cited by 69 per cent of tech workers as a way to keep them engaged.

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There are more options than ever for engaging with SAP educational content – from formal education, to MOOCs for an overview of the very latest developments in technology, down to the SAP Community Network for answering individual task-level queries. Here are some of the methods available.

University courses

Universities offer both undergraduate and postgraduate courses in IT or more specific areas such as ERP or Business Intelligence which cover SAP. SAP also has its University Alliances Program, which helps students gain access to technologies and experts through networking and educational activities, social media, and partner networking.

Classroom training

If traditional, instructor-led classroom training is your preferred learning option, SAP Education offers classes at training centres, via partner delivery ecosystems, or on-site for customers. Courses are available across the full range of solution areas.

Online learning

More education content from SAP is now available via online learning – and comes via several different modes and methods, including:

eLearning via the SAP Learning Hub: SAP’s Learning Hub is a subscription-based cloud service. This model allows users to access courses at a time convenient to them. The Learning Hub is supported by Learning Rooms, which are SAP expert-led spaces covering particularly topics, allowing users to interact and have a social learning experience. The Learning Hub Discovery edition provides free access to around 120 introductory courses, but it provides personalisation and tracking of learning activities.

Virtual Live Classrooms: These offer the same benefits and curriculum of instructor-led classroom training. Students can interact with their instructor online, and also have access to SAP systems to undertake hands-on activities.

eAcademy: Provides access to bundles of classroom curriculum in a self-paced eLearning environment. eAcademy training also includes access to SAP training systems.

Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs)

SAP has moved quickly to offer the ecosystem enterprise-grade learning about leading edge technologies for free via its openSAP platform. With MOOCs, learners simply register view content, and complete a weekly assignment before preparing for a final exam. Optional SAP system access is available, as is a record of achievement. Recent offerings include ‘Digital Transformation and Its Impact’, presented by SAP’s Sven Denecken and Bert Schulze, and ‘Rapid Deployment of SAP Solutions’.

Certification

Certification in a particular area is typically achieved by completing the requisite courses and sitting an exam, then maintaining the certification by completing delta enablement courses periodically. In the past, this has mostly required physical attendance at a Pearson Vue testing centre for exams, but SAP Education is introducing a new model for certification, specifically for the cloud-based solutions such as SuccessFactors, which will incorporate remote proctoring, enabling students to gain and maintain their certifications almost entirely online.

SAP Community Network (SCN)

At the more informal end of the education spectrum is the SAP Community Network, which provides user-created content around areas and issues in the SAP ecosystem. While some articles are more discursive in nature, others provide detailed technical explanations about how to complete certain tasks. The level of interaction with other users makes it perfect for drawing on the collective wisdom of the community to answer any tricky questions.

Training mapping for some common scenarios

The big question, of course, is how to combine these various modes of education to reach the level of professional skills, accreditation, and specialisation you are seeking.

The first place to start is SAP Training and Certification (training.sap.com). This not only has a full list of all courses across the various solution and industry areas within SAP, but it also provides detailed curriculum maps, outlining the classroom training, e-learning courses and certifications you will need to undertake to achieve competency in a particular area.

[See left for an example of a curriculum map – for SAP HANA Implementation and Modelling (SAP HANA SPS08).]
Your first priorities for SAP education will depend on your starting point and your professional goals.

Developing initial competency in SAP

Lejla Seperovic, head of business development, SAP APJ, says for someone who is employed in an organisation, already has some involvement with SAP, and wants to develop their capacity, the first step is to consider what knowledge they have  – whether that is in finance or HR – and what their ultimate aim is.

Undertaking free courses, such as SAP’s MOOCs, or those in the Learning Hub Discovery edition – rather than having to ask for training budget – might be a good place to start.

“They are introductory courses which give you a flavour or an overview of a solution,” says Seperovic.

Once you have completed a ‘taster’, you might be ready for a more structured approach – which is where the Curriculum Maps come in.

“It’s a logical sequence of courses with a starting point and an end point. In a particular area, the curriculum map will actually have the end result of the SAP certification, and you can then work backwards, with preqrequisites, foundation, level one, and level two courses,” Seperovic says.

Upskilling or specialising in new areas

For an SAP professional who might be looking to specialise further or simply upgrade their skills, SAP Education recommends the SAP Learning Hub, built on the SuccessFactors platform. It’s part of a move away from one-shot training to consistent, ongoing learning, and as a subscription service providing access to more than 4000 courses in the platform.

“We went from being quite protective of IT and learning about two years ago, to opening everything we have to the customer and partner community,” Seperovic says. “This means that at any given point of time, wherever I am in my career, I can actually learn at the point of need. I can go into the platform and search for anything – from all the ERP solutions to the new front-end technologies, anything that’s out there is in the Learning Hub.”

Within the Learning Hub, more than 60 global solution-focused Learning Rooms provide a forum for interaction and guidance on the learning content.

“SAP is not always that easy, so this is where social learning comes in,” say Seperovic. “You have peers, and you have an instructor who is a global SAP subject matter expert, and this person actually poses a schedule with homework and milestones, and you can ask questions and participate in a discussion. So now we are giving people who have learnt this theoretical knowledge the opportunity to actually socialise with their peers, 24/7, on a more informal basis.”

At this solution level, students can also utilise Live Access – a preconfigured SAP system specifically related to the course they are undertaking, which provides a safe ‘sandbox’ to practice new skills.

Having certification recognised

Once SAP professionals are certified, making the most of this accreditation is important, particularly for consultants looking for new project opportunities. SAP has recently launched Credential Manager, which will be a freely accessible database for customers and partners to check the certification status of consultants or prospective employees they are looking at hiring.

“Customers who are more and more requesting certified people now actually have a pool to search for people, by solution and by geography,” Seperovic says.

She agrees that by making this information more accessible, Credential Manager has the potential to disrupt the SAP recruitment sector.
“We have more than 95 per cent of our global SAP consultants certified, but we needed something more formal. You have got peace of mind now, because  it is easy for anybody to search the internet for these people.”

Planning your education for the year

So how much education should the average SAP professional be undertaking each year? It depends – if you are seeking to achieve a new SAP certification, in the traditional environment you should expect to devote around 20 days to learning, revision, and a certification exam.

Even for those who are already certified, if you want to stay up to speed in a certain area and be considered an ‘expert’, a daily or weekly commitment to education will be necessary – whether that is undertaking an eLearning course, completing a quiz, or reading some relevant articles.

“If you are planning the year ahead, look at what’s your priority, where your passion is, and where you want to move to and work backwards. Leverage what’s free out there – there’s probably more than you think. Put it in your calendar – people have the best of intentions and find a course, but they still don’t work through it. It takes a little bit of discipline to finish something,” Seperovic says.

“Also reach and out and leverage the mentors, and dare to ask questions. You can only really immerse yourself in the subject if you can be proactive and really take ownership of it.”

This article was first published in Inside SAP Summer 14/15. 

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Predictions and debate about the changing role of the CIO have abounded in recent years. Can CIOs successfully make the transition from being seen as simply keeping the lights on to strategic partner? Will they be completely sidelined as the line of business only buys cloud-based point solutions? Does the CIO really understand the business well enough to take on more commercially focused roles? Are they contributing to the organisation’s success or simply guarding the IT fiefdom?

There are now certainly some examples of CIOs who have been entrusted with broader business roles, and even the top job.

Transfield Group CIO Stephen Phillips was handed additional responsibility for operations business processes in February, in the midst of the company’s massive Project Quantum SAP roll-out.

At Suncorp Group, CIO Matt Pancino was promoted in June to the role of chief executive of business services, reporting directly to the group CEO. This is a well-worn path at Suncorp, with Pancino’s predecessor Jeff Smith also holding the CIO role first.

And David Hall, Jetstar CEO for Australia and New Zealand, is one CIO who successfully made the transition into the top job – though perhaps telling is that his background was in finance. Hall picked up business operations experience in the mining industry, and then joined Jetstar as CFO. When Alan Joyce became CEO of the Qantas Group in 2008, Hall was made chief-of-staff at Qantas, a portfolio which included technology, including strategy and transformation programs as well as managing the office of the CEO. Having a non-technical person in such a senior technology role was a first for Qantas.

He told CIO Magazine that no technologist should believe that the CIO role is the glass ceiling for them, but also added, “I never claimed to be a great technologist – I have always seen myself as a savvy and commercially-oriented business leader… What I was able to bring was financially savvy, strategic intent, but also the message that business-led technology was a true enabler. I needed to help people focus more on customer service aspects rather than just the technology aspects, and assist in transforming the Qantas organisation.”

That approach certainly paid off for Hall – so can other CIOs make the same transition?

Gaining a solid footing

In some ways, now could be seen as a time of great challenge or great opportunity for CIOs, as their roles and that of technology in the organisation undergoes significant change.

It’s almost as though all the cards are being thrown up in the air, according to Rob Livingstone, who is Fellow at the University of Technology, Sydney, and also runs his own advisory practice.

“Executives in the line of business are looking to do things flexibly, cheaply, quickly, with great precision and at the lowest cost. That adaptability and agility does not always fit in with the conventional traditional model of how they have perceived the IT department working,” Livingstone says. “There is a lot of change, a great diversity of perceptions as well as misunderstandings about how, when, where and what technology should be used within an organisation.”

Another issue is the comparatively low level of digital literacy on many established company boards – and specifically levels of understanding about how enterprise technologies work – a point not lost on the Australian Institute of Company Directors, which recently identified this as a challenge. Organisational context could also be a barrier for CIOs.

“If you look at the transition from the conventional IT department which is working typically under a CFO, and it’s seen as a cost centre and ‘service provider’ to the business, those structures do not always allow or encourage IT to be a transformational value-add to foster and drive innovation across the business,” Livingstone says.

The emphasis on the cloud is also changing the way organisations think about their IT strategy, how it aligns with where the business is going, and issues around capability and cost, according to Peter Ryan, senior technology partner, Deloitte.

“I haven’t done as many IT strategies as I am doing now for around five years. So that’s a signal to me that the successful CIOs have now got to be thinking about what they have got and where they need to take it. They can’t do that as technologists. They have got to be talking to the business and aligning with the business,” says Ryan.

From a recruitment perspective, Ross Stacey from the CIO practice at Harvey Nash, believes that while businesses are genuinely starting to see technology as a strategic enabler, not just a cost centre, it’s not without some internal battles.

“There is a significant increase in demand for commercially minded CIOs, who have a track record of influencing at the exec level; the shadow IT debate, however, has created an unwanted power struggle in organisational leadership teams,” Stacey says. “I think it would be clear to see that currently actually this battle is facilitating a clearer path for the CMO to move in to the CEO position rather than the CIO. The success of future CIOs does now rely heavily on their ability to demonstrate their value identifying and implementing technologies that don’t just meet the demands of the business but deliver competitive advantage, through the broader use of enterprise data, for example.”

Stacey says that while CIOs are lagging some way behind CFOs, general managers, and sales and marketing directors in being the obvious choice for CEO roles, this is changing – “especially as there is now a new breed of technology leader emerging who has strong experience outside of IT and is – arguably – more ‘battle ready’ for life at the top”.

The Harvey Nash CIO Survey 2014 found that 39 per cent of CIOs had strong experience in at least one other role, for instance, general management. Only 16 per cent had that experience in finance, and only 13 per cent in marketing, which are two disciplines particularly useful for a CEO to have.

And while some signs point to CIOs being taken more seriously, Peter McClure, CIO at MMG and chair of the SAP Australian User Group Executive Council, says this is not always the case.

“In my own organisation, I can say that I feel that I am certainly taken seriously and have a seat at the table whenever I need it, but that’s based on evolving credibility for what the function has been able to deliver,” McClure says. “In some areas, I have seen in banks, for example, the CIO role has stepped down a level after reporting to the CEO, and is now reporting to the chief operating officer.”

Certainly this has been the case at Airservices Australia, where the role of CIO was reportedly abandoned after its last CIO, Gordon Dunsford, left in March. In its place was established a general manager of business systems role, which sits within the agency’s engineering division, and no longer reports directly to the CEO.

McClure attributes the changing priority for the CIO role to different organisational responses to industry-specific challenges, but maintains it continues to be an important job.

“Obviously in some fields, they are being severely disrupted by new entrants with advanced IT, whether that’s banking or consumer packaged goods or retail. In other areas, perhaps the changes are a bit slower like utilities or heavy industry. All organisations, as they grow, are facing the challenge of complexity, and really you need a role like a CIO to help an organisation navigate that.”

There is, of course, the challenge of ‘shiny new object’ syndrome, with the advent of the Digital Director role increasing pressure on the CIO community, says Stacey.

“In central government now there is a feeling that the role of the CIO is redundant and it’s all about Digital Directors. However, it’s more apparent probably that a new breed of CIO will come through with digital in their veins, and then the CIO will truly warrant a seat at the highest table.”

Key attributes for taking the lead in the C-suite

CIOs have certainly had to switch from being reactive to getting on the front foot to successfully lead in organisations. This means adopting a proactive, consultative approach with an ability to engage the business, manage stakeholders, understand their market and shaping business strategy accordingly, manage change, and foster collaboration and influence.

“The research has shown that the most effective CIOs have very similar competencies to the CEO, in that they need to understand how the business works, they also need to understand the organisational context, they need to understand what the customers are, they need to understand where technology can underpin the business – and not only from a service point of view, but also in terms of adding value,” Livingstone says.

“One of the key capabilities that a CIO needs to have – in fact, any leader for that matter – is to be able to collaborate with, and have an influence with people over whom they have no authority. Strategic orientation is another one – how can a CIO think strategically in terms of business awareness, integration of information and the ability to develop specifically actionable plans in business terms?”

McClure agrees, saying, “You have got to have some sense of the broader pattern of things, where the world is headed, and how you can make a contribution in your particular industry, to enable your business to profit from that in some way or another.”

Of course, having reasonable technical skills is critical to actually deliver successfully in a CIO role – without which any move up the ladder will be impossible.

“If you don’t have technical literacy, you struggle because you really can’t translate some of the broader patterns into specific architectures and objectives. You just don’t know whether one is better than another; you have no sense of what is good. You have got to have that nose for what works and what is likely to be a dead end,” McClure says.

And while in some quarters,  data – big or otherwise – has become the favourite buzz word of the moment, it shouldn’t represent much of a shift for CIOs.

“What people forget is that the ‘I’ in CIO does and has always stood for information. Data is not a new issue to the technology team, it has just garnered greater notoriety, in reality, because the digital economy has finally woken up the rest of the organisation to the importance of being able to centrally and efficiently access data,” Stacey says.

“The CIO needs to continue to immerse themselves within the business and continually and proactively promote IT as a ‘demand’ enabler and not purely a supply function. The most successful CIOs will be those that can create and foster a strong and trusted working relationship with the CMO and CEO.”

Ryan believes that consultative process and guiding the organisation to the right solution – which increasingly may be in the cloud – is what is going to make CIOs successful.

“They are going to have a happy client, they are going to have controlled expenses, they are going to have the governance in place. That’s going to look great to the Board and the executive suite – and that’s where potentially all of a sudden they do become a CEO,” he says.

Avoiding the technology box

Even with all these skills in place, how can CIOs position themselves as more than just technologists?

While the organisational context and how IT is structured and perceived within the company can be crucial, making the transition from IT leader to business leader also depends on personal positioning.

“If one were to be a fly on the wall in an executive meeting, and after 15 or 20 minutes of conversation, you don’t know who the CIO is, then they would have made it. Because they are not talking technology, they are talking in business terms,” Livingstone says.

McClure says it’s about making sure “you have got your own backyard in order” first, in terms of the foundational services the CIO is responsible for, and then having a vision and engaging with peers to collaboratively develop that vision.

“If you manage to break through a few barriers, and if you can develop those relationships, that will result in doors being opened,” he says.

Demonstrating a solid understanding of financials is essential, as is building a strong team to take care of the routine aspects of the role.

“CIOs need to build the right leadership team around them so they can focus less on operational IT and begin to drive strategy and innovation,” says Stacey. “With that said, I think the future lies in developing entire enterprises within an organisation that has a greater focus on the customer. Indoctrinating this principle throughout the IT organisation and shifting away from ‘keeping the lights on’ towards a customer-centric model creates innovative thinking and will resonate closer with the business. It’s almost an entire paradigm shift.” 

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