The Magic Software Blog

CIO Strategies for 2H 2009 - Get Closer to Business

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It's clear that CIO's are facing tough challenges as we move into the second half of 2009. One thing that's clear is that CIOs will need to broaden their focus in order to maintain IT efficiencies in an environment of tight IT budgets.

What's interesting from Dave Aron's Gartner analysis is that 2 of the points he raised involve CIO's having to get closer to the 'business' side of their company's operations. He mentions in particular the following key words:

1. 'Strategy' - especially in economic downtimes it's important that strategy is clearly defined and articulated.
2. 'Relationships' - CIOs need to forge a better understanding of what makes business planners and CEOs tick - so they can better complement the needs of formal governance.

In previous posts we've discussed in depth the advantage of metadata-driven application platforms and their implications for more closely aligning CIOs and business.

In our white paper we define the metadata concept like this:

"A ‘metadata engine' is a ready-made business application engine containing pre-written technical and administrative functions and services.  It enables you to bypass the intensive technical code-writing stage of application development and move quickly and efficiently to deployment."

So how does this metadata help answer points 1 and 2 above?

• It enables CIOs to focus more on business functionality and less on coding. This answers point 1 - 'strategy'
• It's simplicity allows business users to get more involved in the CIO's thought process. This answers point 2 - 'relationships'

Metadata driven application platforms also enable faster prototyping, more interactive development cycles (with more business feedback to ensure IT is meeting strategy), less code deficiencies, and a better exchange of information both within development teams and between development and business teams.