InformationWeek

CIOs' Horizons Go Global

Understanding other cultures and their impact on business is now a key skill

Edited by Marianne Kolbasuk McGee
Issue date: Jan. 13, 1997

If your new year's resolution is to become a CIO at a global company, you might consider brushing up on your Japanese in addition to reading up on Java. Working in Asia for a few years would be even more helpful.

The job description for CIOs has been broadening for some time. For example, while it's important to understand lines of code and to hel p improve the bottom line, people skills are increasingly important. Now add to that list an understanding of the dynamics of global business-- an awareness of how local culture, language, and business practices can affect IS strategies that involve integrating systems and standardizing platforms.

"Over the last 12 to 24 months, there has been an evolution in the level of international experience being sought in CIO candidates at Fortune 100 firms," says Paul Daversa, president and CEO of Resource Systems Group, an IT executive search firm in Stamford, Conn.

Daversa says solid international business experience is one of three major attributes his clients want in their CIOs. The other two are experience with large-scale process reengineering in operational environments, and accomplishments in transitions from legacy systems to client-server environments that led to a bottom-line improvement.

"Before, it might have been enough to have spent time in a business unit in London," Daversa says. "But beca use the U.K. functions so much like the U.S., someone with that experience doesn't have the same advantage of another candidate who also has operational experience in Eastern Europe, the Middle East, Southeast Asia, or Japan."

John Davis, president of John J. Davis & Associates Inc., an IT executive search firm in New York, agrees that there is great demand for CIOs familiar with global business. "Large U.S.-based firms with international operations or presence," he says, "are looking for CIOs who understand how cultural and business differences in their customer zones impact IT strategies, how IT can improve productivity and the bottom line despite those differences."

Steven Marks, who joined law firm White & Case Inc. last year as its first CIO, says he was hired in part to develop an IT strategy that would link the New York firm's 28 offices in 23 countries. Marks says his new tasks require an understanding of cultural and language differences.

The globalization plan also requires Marks to stay up to date with the status of vendor relationships worldwide. "Globalized IT," he says, "is creating a new hybrid of complex skill sets for CIOs."

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