Dubai: Chief Information Officers are facing new types of challenges due to the four pillars of trending technology — cloud, big data, mobility and social, industry experts said.
“The constantly evolving nature of the technology landscape is having a profound impact on the leadership challenges facing those tasked with managing it,” said Jyoti Lalchandani, vice-president and regional managing director at research firm International Data Corporation (IDC) Middle East, Africa, and Turkey.
In this regard, he said it is clear that IT leaders now need a trusted source of information, advocacy and resources to help them define their strategies, enhance processes and navigate future roadmaps.
To discuss the evolving roles and some of the key areas that in particular affect CIOs today in the Middle East, the research firm is hosting a two-day event titled ‘Being a CIO in the New Business World of Tech + Transformation’ in Dubai at Jumeirah Beach Hotel on February 24–25.
Around 300 delegates are taking part and out of this, around 188 CIOs are from the UAE.
Shaikh Nahyan Bin Mubarak Al Nahyan, UAE’s Minister of Culture, Youth, and Community Development and Chairman of the Higher Committee, will be making a keynote address at the summit.
“The role of a CIO has changed drastically. CIO was only a service provider before, but as the technology improved IT became the key topic. Now, IT has to be really aligned with the business, so a CIO plays a business role more than an IT role. They [CIO] should be more known as Chief Innovation Officers,” said Ahmad M. Al Almulla, vice-president of information technology at Dubai Aluminum (Dubal).
The key business challenges CIOs face include — driving innovation through IT, manage growing expectations from users, measuring return on investment from IT investments and managing IT governance, risk and compliance.
“CIOs are facing a lot of pressure due to the awareness of the technology by the users and the changing IT environment,” said Mohammad Al Suhebani, Chief Technology Officer at Saudi Arabia Ministry of Finance.
