New Survey: The Evolving Role of State CIOs in 2015

A new survey says that CIOs play many different roles and operate in a faster-paced, more complex environment. Today’s CIOs must balance the demands of IT strategy, operations, service delivery and policy, while exhibiting a variety of leadership skills to deliver technology services from diverse sources at the highest value for government.

A key finding from the survey, conducted by Grant Thornton in collaboration with the National Association of State Chief Information Officers (NASCIO) and with CompTIA, indicates that the business model for IT service delivery is changing. State CIO organizations play a new and dynamic role as the broker of services. This “broker model” is a disruptive force, says Graeme M. Finley, Managing Director of Global Public Sector at Grant Thornton. With this shift, public sector leaders can keep up with customer demands to adapt to changing circumstances, while delivering business value.

“Unanimously, state CIOs say that they are moving to some kind of broker model now or in the near future,” Finley says.

In the last few years, new business models have been used to deliver on IT services, including a steady progression towards data center consolidation and increased use of outsourcing, particularly for IT applications and services.

The process for deploying IT is also changing. A clear majority of state CIOs — 70 percent — say they are anticipating increased adoption of Agile methodologies in the near future. There is great interest in moving away from extended, traditional waterfall lifecycle projects, and a push towards rapidly deploying software in an incremental fashion, Finley says.

Not only is there a mindset shift taking place, but also a shift in the skills and capabilities of IT teams. To be successful, state CIO organizations must exhibit certain leadership traits and abilities. A majority of respondents rank being effective communicators, strategists and relationship managers, as the top three skills for CIOs today. These skills extend to the organizational culture, too, Finley says.

“It’s a very different type of skill set than what we’ve seen before,” he says. “Rather than have a very technical workforce that can do cabling, server maintenance and database administration, much more you need an organization where people know how to handle customer relationships and manage contracts.”

In addition, state agencies are wrestling with a host of challenges around data governance, legacy data, data access and sharing and new flows of data from new sources. Most CIOs are working to drive value from data, but 47 percent say they still have a long way to go when it comes to using enterprise data within government.

Meanwhile, state CIOs are continuing to push on cloud adoption and mobility to drive value and new services, while keeping cybersecurity top of mind. A majority of respondents say they are using cloud and mobile strategies, and the vast majority — 80 percent‚ say that they have adopted a cybersecurity framework based on national standards and guidelines.

The survey findings come from a recently released report, published by Grant Thornton — The Value Equation: Agility in Sourcing, Software and Services. The report, released earlier this month in conjunction with NASCIO and CompTIA, includes a survey of state leaders in 47 NASCIO member states and territories. Click here to download a complete copy of the report.

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