The role of the CIO is changing, and more regional CIOs are getting into management roles and business decision-making. This according to the CIO Mena Advisory Board, a group of senior-level CIOs called together to form the agenda of the CIO Summit MENA 2011 that will be conducted in Qatar next month.
“CIOs are more involved in board-room meetings and are part of the strategic decisions that are being made by higher management in most established, tier one organisations in the region. In fact, there are many organisations where CIOs are actively considered for moving to top-level positions, including the CEO post,” said Mohammad Al-Mandeel, CIO and assistant general secretary, Council of Saudi Chambers (CSC).
“The business side of the equation is becoming to even dominate CIO work elements. In fact, I would say around 70% of overall time for working CIOs is now being spent on discussing business and making strategy decisions, and only around 30% is being spent on solving technology related issues,” stated Saji Oomen, GM for group IT at the Al Batha Group.
The board, which had gathered together to discuss a potential agenda for the summit that will take place in May, stated that cloud remained an increasing area of interest and concern for regional CIOs.
“If the right regulations existed, and a legal environment was in place for cloud technologies and services, I think the cloud can transform our lives and enable everybody – from enterprises to consumers – to work better and more efficiently going forward,” said Al-Mandeel.
The CIOs also discussed at length about security in an enterprise, the corporate responsibility in the occurrence of data breaches and the absolute necessity of business continuity and disaster recovery measures in any high level organisation.
The CIO Summit MENA 2011 will take place between the 2nd and 4th May 2011 in Doha, Qatar.
