It's one thing to say that CIOs need to serve as business leaders in today's global enterprise, and it's another thing to offer concrete suggestions on how to do it. Ben Kerschberg, founder of BK Advisory Group, outlines three steps. 

The first step is to reconcile the need to standardize IT globally with the need to allow regional divisions to abide by regional rules, Kerschberg writes in a post at Forbes. The CIO has to find efficiencies through consolidation while considering the unique local needs of sales and marketing initiatives.

The second step is to make sure you are at the table when possible mergers and acquisitions are being discussed. Newly combined entities can harbor a hornets' nest of complicated IT environments, and that reality needs to be addressed early on.

"Including the CIO in M&A discussions acknowledges the fact that bringing together two corporations is likely to create highly complex information technology landscapes with disparate structures that must quickly support equally disparate business units," Kerschberg writes. "Failure to properly acknowledge this can have serious repercussions, such as a negative effect on the customer experience and an inability to rearrange the customer base across multiple brands."

The third step is to be an active advocate not only of IT but also of business initiatives. This may not be a painless process, however, as it requires delving into the middle of the corporate hierarchy and learning to communicate in a new language.

"CIOs who talk to business managers about software migrations and database updates will be seen as technicians and not as business leaders," he advises. "But CIOs who manage how IT adds value to the business, by increasing efficiency or driving revenue, will showcase their savvy sense of business."

For more:
- see Ben Kerschberg's post at Forbes

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