How a CIO Oversees the Protection Operations and Maintenance of a Companies Network

¶ … CIO Oversees the Protection, Operations, and Maintenance of a Company's Network

In the Age of Information, an organization's chief information officer has a vitally important role to play in helping achieve and sustain a competitive advantage. Although chief information officers do not make the big decisions that affect a company's course, they do provide the information needed to make informed decisions. Although every organization is unique in some fashion and therefore every chief information officer's job is different, they do share some common responsibilities that help characterize the position. To determine what these commonalities are, this paper provides an explanation concerning the role of a chief information officer in a company, followed by a summary of the research and important findings in the conclusion.

Review and Analysis

The role of chief information officer (CIO) has been elevated to a high-level executive position in many larger public and private organizations (Romanczuk & Pemberton, 2009). According to Romanczuk and Pemberton, "The CIO is a relatively new and often controversial position in the business environment. In those organizations which employ CIOs, the positions are highly placed and filled by well-compensated senior managers" (p. 14). Chief information officers are typically tasked with maintaining the entire information systems for their organizations (Rose & Flores, 2008). Chief information officers are usually responsible for ensuring that information systems are maintained in the following areas:

1. Availability. The system is available for use at times set forth in service-level statements or agreements.

2. Security. The system is protected against unauthorized physical and logical access.

3. Integrity. System processing is complete, accurate, timely, and authorized.

4. Maintainability. The system can be updated when required while continuing to provide availability, security, and integrity (Lanz, 2009, p. 72).

The responsibilities of the chief information officer differ from those of the chief technology officer (Lord & Velez, 2013), and the term "CIO" is used to differentiate the "senior executive responsible for establishing corporate information policy, standards, and management control over all information resources" (Romanczuk & Pemberton, 2009, p. 14). In higher educational settings, chief information officers have been tasked with administering the IT system, the e-mail network and telephone systems (Ganey, 2006). Some of the other responsibilities that are typically assigned to CIOs are:

1. The development of information resources policy;

2. Strategic planning for information resources;

3. Coordination of information technology;

4. Educating management concerning information technology; and,

5. Environmental scanning (Romanczuk & Pemberton, 2009, p. 14).

Based on this expanded conceptualization of the role of the CIO in modern organizations, it is not surprising that the position has been elevated to a high executive level that carries advanced requirements for education and experience (Romanczuk & Pemberton, 2009). Indeed, Romanczuk and Pemberton (2009) suggest the position of CIO "has attained an exalted status, and has unofficially been labeled the 'computer czar'" (p. 14). This assertion is congruent with an early description of chief information officer provided by Garrison (1998) who reported, "New titles, such as chief information officer, have appeared. If nothing else, these information czars are becoming more important by serving as the points of consolidation of all information gathering, storage, and retrieval for the business" (p. 229). In reality, though, most CIOs possess an advanced degree in computer science and/or a master's degree in business administration (Romanczuk & Pemberton, 2009)

Although the above-listed responsibilities and credentials form the basis for the job description of many CIOs, there are other areas in which they also exert influence and authority, including the CIO's responsibility for developing information management policy and established related administrative guidelines for the organization (Romanczuk & Pemberton, 2090). According to Romanczuk and Pemberton, "The CIO's job is to translate the overall organizational plan into an architecture that best uses technological opportunities" (2009, p. 14). In this area, the CIO has two main responsibilities: (a) to keep abreast of technological applications, and (b) to exert a company-wide influence, if not direct power (Romanczuk & Pemberton, 2009, p. 15). Although CIOs are not usually tasked with formulating high-level decisions, they are responsible for providing the information decision-makers need to make informed decisions (Romanczuk & Pemberton, 2009).

The ARMA International Job Descriptions Directory places the CIO at the head of information management services. In this regard, Romanczuk and Pembeton advise that, "[The CIO] has organization-wide responsibility for the use and management of information, technology, and administrative services" (p. 230). It is important to note that this expanded job description makes CIOs responsible for more than just technological issues to include the analysis of "overall business and financial strategies and objectives in order to provide services, technology, and support" (Romanczuk & Pemberton, 2009, p. 15)