A new Asia Pacific research results show that CIOs want to learn new skills that go beyond technology to better manage the changing demands on their job.

According to CA Technologies’ new released report, “The Future Role of The CIO (Asia Pacific),” polled 270 CIOs across the region, found that 70% of the respondents felt they needed to develop new skills to remain effective in the future. More than half, or 55% of CIOs, said they want to acquire new skills such as learning more about regulatory and compliance issues, privacy and data protection laws, as well as the need to understand risk.

These two factors were the most heavily-reported needs amongst CIOs in the report, illustrating how the role of the CIO is changing: it is no longer enough to be technologically competent; there is a need to fully understand the changing legal ramifications of handling data. This need for new skills is most apparent in organizations with 1,001 to 3,000 employees where 76% of CIOs identified the need for such skills as key to their future effectiveness. 

The report cited cloud computing and the increasing adoption of offsite (often overseas) backup as emerging changes that are creating a knowledge gap, and which made it necessary for CIOs to understand the implications of storing information outside both the company and country of origin. 

Amongst other needs, 54% of respondents wanted to develop their understanding of commercial procurement, 52% wanted to improve their negotiation and sales skills and 46% wanted more competency in legal matters. Another 28% of CIOs wanted to develop their service performance skills, suggesting a need for them to understand what business services are required rather than to focus purely on what technology can deliver. 

“The CIO’s role is now being challenged and re-defined. They need to optimize technology planning in the context of the business goals. The CIO has to move from managing and maintaining IT to delivering business services to ensure that the organization can stay agile by being fast, productive, efficient and cost-effective,” said Lionel Lim, president, Asia Pacific, CA Technologies, on the report. “Once the CIO is able to do that, the increased value of IT to deliver business service innovation will enable him the opportunity to find new revenue streams that can further drive growth in the organization.”

Cloud computing also had a strong impact on the IT department. The main drivers for change that are cited the most by the CIOs surveyed are those which can be addressed through the adoption of cloud computing. The report revealed that 91% of respondents selected expanding volumes of data, an increasingly mobile/distributed workforce and the demand for business innovation as significant drivers for change.

The report added that ‘cloud CIOs’ are exploiting and optimizing IT, as 87% of respondents said they use IT to grow the business to the extent that it should. Amongst CIOs not investing in cloud, just 55% could say the same. Eighty percent of ‘cloud CIOs’ polled said they will need to develop new skills to remain effective in the future, compared to 63% of ‘non-cloud’ CIOs.

“As IT becomes more integrated with other business functions, cloud CIOs will can better leverage the capabilities of these new technologies and optimize IT’s value to the business,” added Lionel Lim, president, Asia Pacific, CA Technologies.

CA Technologies commissioned independent specialist technology market research company Vanson Bourne to undertake the research upon which the report is based. 

A survey of CIOs in organizations with 500 employees or more was conducted during June 2011. 270 CIOs were interviewed via the telephone across Australia, China, Hong Kong, India, Malaysia, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan and Thailand; and those respondents had to presently be the CIO in the retail, telecommunications, financial services and manufacturing sectors.

The objective of the research was to look at the current role of the CIO within a variety of organizations around the world, with a focus upon his or her aspirations and the dynamics between the CIO and the board. The research also looked at how technology, specifically cloud computing, is changing the CIO role and what that change means for the future role of the CIO.