Leadership Forum: What is to be done?

[April 2007 - CIO Asia - By Teng Fang Yih & Christopher Koch] Now’s the time for CIOs to seize opportunities to reinvent the innovation process at their organisations. ... At the IBM-sponsored CIO Leadership Summit immediately preceding the annual CIO Awards & Conference 2007 at Raffles Hotel on 23 March 2007, more than 50 of the nation’s and region’s senior information executives packed a room to hear some bad news, and some good news. They were welcomed by newly anointed managing director of IBM Singapore, Teresa Lim. The editor of this magazine then set the tone for the rest of the session, aligning it with the theme and purpose of the entire CIO Awards & Conference 2007 programme: technology deployment and its role, as well as that of its leaders, in driving innovation in today’s global economy.  More specifically, it was about why the CIO and his IS division is often not involved in innovation, and how that must be changed, considering their special place within every large organisation today: at its core as the enablers and collectively the lifeblood of every single process. The top executives on the day were reminded of the fact that their mission was driving innovation.  Innovation. Not merely supporting and enabling the business, but about enhancing, then generating, creating and transforming their businesses, industries and economies. This is an important imperative for delegates at the forum to move after. As companies all over the world seek more and better ideas, their top executives in IT should seize the opportunity now to reinvent the innovation process by enabling their business people to collaborate, and by making IT an engine for business growth. More