The role of the CIO, rather than that of IT Manager or IT Director, is a relatively new one. In fact the IT function itself originally was part of operations, and before that office management. Despite its ‘newness’ the CIO job function is seen in some quarters as being under threat.

Today’s CIO is dealing with three major trends that are each, creating a step change in enterprise IT and nibbling away at the edges of the classic CIO remit.

First up is BYOD. The adoption rate for BYOD and mobile technology shows no sign of slowing. This is impacting the three-to-five year PC refresh cycle that CIOs and their departments typically manage. These days users buy kit from local retailers rather than it being procured centrally by their employer. Not only are they now defining their own productivity needs, (and yes they are raising their productivity levels), they are also altering how the IT department works with them.

Second is cloud computing. The speed of business means CEOs are often no longer willing to wait for months for what seems to them like a relatively simple software deployment. As a result CIOs are turning (or being pushed towards) SaaS or cloud- based solutions. At the same time, thanks to easy to install, license-less applications, IT departments are being completely by-passed when it comes to purchasing small scale software. Enterprise application management is therefore becoming harder for CIOs and they have less control over not only the application estate but security too.

And then there is social media and the digitisation of business. As more and more business is digitsed and automated, (think: CRM systems, big data analytics, multi-channel customer engagement, social media,) the role of IT is being shared with other departments. CEOs, realising the power of technology, now want to spend their money on technology that directly powers growth. The result is that decisions about technology are being made less and less by the CIO, and not just in the case of the smaller software that bypasses them. A survey published by Harvey Nash IT recruitment in May this year showed forty-three percent of CIOs feel there is a degree of shared ownership of digital technology between the IT and marketing teams. A growing percentage of CIOs see more than 10 percent of their budget controlled by people outside the IT department: 38 percent today, compared with 34 percent in 2012 and 26 percent in 2011. Some see this as a boardoom battle for control of technology spending, but other see it as a chance for the CIO to align IT with business priorities.

The consequence of all these changes is that some CIOs are predicting that they will eventually be relegated to a back-end procurement function. Others see themselves becoming something more comprehensive. Whatever the end result, the role of the CIO is certainly not going to stay as it is and those that weather this stormy evolution will shift their focus from IT delivery to a business specific data focus.

What’s this got to do with Future Processing? Well, the more context you give us around your projects the more we can suggest ways that it can add extra value to your organisations – and align to your business needs. And that is what the role of the CIO is all about isn’t it?