Instead of just ‘keeping the lights on”, CIOs are now increasingly in relatively new territory - the frontline, working with partners and customers.
By Jack Loo
22 Aug 2008
‘The Future of the CIO’ study, by the Center for Information Systems Research (CISR), examines the expanding role of the chief information officer. It concludes that CIOs today are expected to go beyond the basics of just providing IT services and managing the IT unit; they are now increasingly being called on to work with non-IT colleagues on product development and innovation.
While this trend is particularly prevalent in service-related industries such as the hotel sector, it seems the same thing is happening with CIOs from the logistics industry as well.
I recently caught up with locally-based supply chain management (SCM) specialist YCH Group’s CIO, James Loo, at his office, for an interview for a transport and logistisc feature in CIO Asia magazine. Loo shed more light on his role in YCH.
Besides performing the IT service and support function at the organisation, Loo is the Chief Operating Officer (COO) of Y3 Technologies, a spin-off from YCH that focuses on producing SCM systems.
This enables Loo to work with vendors like Motorola and Oracle. On one hand, the vendors can obtain valuable feedback from the viewpoint of a user in the logistics space, while on the other hand, YCH and Y3 are able to get hold of technologies and products, way before their actual release to the market.
According to Loo, having such early access gives YCH more agility and speed in what the organisation can offer to its customers (potential or existing). This also helps YCH to make up for what it lacks in terms of history, branding and size in its industry.
I will be writing in more detail about Loo’s CIO role in upcoming issues of CIO Asia. In addition, I am researching more about CIOs who have functions in the customer-facing space. So stay tuned.
A staff writer with Fairfax Business Media, Jack Loo is a full-time web and magazine reading addict, from bbc.co.uk to webmonkey and monocle.
