Create revenue, conserve cash, engage customers, enforce global standards, and other rules of the road for 2009—and beyond

How many of the responsibilities listed below are among your top priorities?

• Create new products.
  
• Create new revenue.
  
• Deepen the company’s engagement with customers.
  
• Conserve cash, liberate trapped cash, and understand implications of cash flow.
  
• Create and enforce global standards for processes and applications.
  
• Unlock new ways to find, deliver, and assess higher-value information.
  
• Reverse the 80/20 glut to make those first six possible.
  
• Create a massively transparent organization with all metrics focused on business value.

Don’t take my word for it; most of these action items come from a variety of experts and not just from some hyperbloviating columnist. Consider:
In December 2008, McKinsey released a report ‘IT’s Unmet Potential,’ that calls out the fact that most companies still spend 80 percent of their tech budgets on legacy systems. The report says CEOs are eager for their CIOs to be more assertive as “thought leaders” who enhance their companies’ competitiveness.

Gary Loveman, CEO of Harrah’s Entertainment, says he needs his CIO to help him conserve cash in a business that loves to consume massive amounts of capital. Loveman also wants his CIO to find ways to extend the revenue-creating potential of Harrah’s customer-loyalty program. And Loveman wants his CIO to keep hacking maintenance from 60 percent (used to be 80 percent) to 40 percent or less.
Management consultant Ram Charan says CEOs need their CIOs to help conserve cash in IT and all other departments. Charan says CIOs should reset their top 50 priorities to focus exclusively on those that can free up short-term cash flow.

At First National Bank of Omaha, president Rajive Johri has set an aggressive agenda for his CIO: Create a seamless set of customer experiences across technology platforms; help create products for existing and new customers; and take ownership in delighting customers via innovative applications of advanced technologies. (This information comes from our sibling site, Bank Systems & Technology: http://www.banktech.com)

What CEOs want is inspired leadership, customer-focused innovation, and a relentless focus on cash flow. Perhaps these two bromides summarize what’s wanted:
Demonstrate forceful leadership and take responsible ownership. CEOs want CIOs to be assertive and forward-looking, not reactive and inward-looking; and yes, CEOs want their CIOs to be thought leaders, but also action leaders with a whole lot of skin in the game.

Don’t align, and don’t whine. The concept of “alignment” was fine for another time but not for the fluid times we’re in today. If you stick with the alignment thing, you’re always going to be told what to do and how to do it by peers who see you as tactical. If that happens, don’t whine—it was your choice.
So you tell me: What do CEOs want from CIOs? Send me your thoughts and you’ll be eligible for a spectacular prize—either USD 1 million in cash or a swell InformationWeek tchotchke, whichever I’m able to lay my hands on more quickly.