CIO’s of law firms (and CFO’s, and CMO’s, and C[X]O’s) face a job not
conceptually distinct from that of their peers at similarly-sized corporations. That’s
why this 2004
"State of the CIO" survey is valuable reading. Sure,
law firms as private organizations aren’t subject to the rigorous (and
depressing) strictures of Sarbanes-Oxley, but aside from that the challenges
to a good CIO remain:
- effective communication;
- strategic thinking and planning capabilities; and
- understanding of, and alignment of IT with, business processes and
operations.
The last is surely the hardest, especially since in an AmLaw 200 firm
the gulf between the background of IT personnel and the drivers of "business
processes and operations"—Type A partners—is markedly
more difficult to bridge than between the IT department of a typical
Fortune 1000 and its executive suite. Even in the CIO article,
reporting on corporations, fewer CIO’s this year than last report to
the CEO and more to the CFO, a trend they believe will only accelerate. CIO’s
and CFO’s speak different native languages, and guess which one of the
two is not going to become bilingual?
Add to that the relentless pressure to pursue two conflicting goals
at once: Cost-cutting and innovation; and you have a full plate. [I
have long believed that cost-cutting and innovation go hand-in-hand,
but maybe that’s just me.]
The bright spot in this? Not a single CEO polled characterized
IT as a "cost center." I wonder if a poll of AmLaw
200 managing partners would score the same result. Maybe that’s
not such a bright spot after all.
