This is interesting and the first time I have seen it quantified in a survey. More than half of CIOs have responsibilities outside of IT.

Gartner's 2008 CIO Agenda Study of 1450 IT execs found the average CIO's tenure remaining steady at 4 years and 4 months, and that 39 percent report to CEOs and 23 percent to CFOs. More than half of CIOs have responsibilities outside of IT. "The CIO role is expanding. We've seen CIOs getting responsibility for logistics and supply chain, or for customer contact centers. If I am going to change the company's cost structure, then as a CIO I have an opportunity to make a big contribution to the enterprise by providing more than just technology services," Gartner Group Research head and Group Vic President Mark McDonald says.

Begging the usual skepticism about surveys (probably not all CIOs, don’t know how the question was asked, self-selecting, self-reported, etc.) – it’s still intriguing. What does it mean?

A few possibilities (choose one or add your own):

1. CIOs are top performers. They have proven that they are so good at improving and automating processes, the boss wants to give them more to run. For CIOs who have been on the job an average of 4 years and 4 months, it is quite feasible that a positive reputation has solidified. They may look more confident at running standardized and repeatable activities, aka other hared services, like facilities, accounting, order management, etc.

2. CIOs are bored. They have less to do with their smooth running IT organizations and they seek additional responsibilities that perhaps pave the way to COO or other promotion. CIOs in tech services firms seem particularly likely to add operational services to their portfolio to expand their toolkit and resume.

3. CIOs are business folk, without an IT background. IT and business leadership is becoming blended into a Business Technology (BT) approach. The CIO has delegated running the day-to-day of the IT organization to the next level down. Rob Carter of Fedex has delegated day-to-day operational responsibility to a COO of IT, freeing him to run one of the business units.

4. IT as a standalone organization is disappearing. The smart CIO knows this and is becoming ready for a next move inside the current company or in the next company.

One final thought on this: some think this is a pretty worrisome trend -it's my impression that Ralph Szygenda of GM and others think that the CIO job is big enough to take up all the time and be a career end goal in itself.

Perhaps this high percentage implies devaluation of the strategic component of IT, and begets a CIO that is thinking less about how technology can help the firm compete in the long run and more about the day-to-day tactics and performance of the added non-IT groups.

I might also conclude from this that the CIO job is easier to do, time-boxed into being ‘done’ and less important than ever, thank you Nick Carr.

What do you think?

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