"Once the letter ‘C’ is part of your designation, you are part of management team (and not just IT team) — you have to make your technology hat secondary and management hat primary and look at opportunities and challenges from business point and not just technology point."

Vijay Sethi CIO, Hero MotoCorp

In the past, it used to be enough to be enough to be a technical expert. Today, you need to be a good manager and an advisor to the C-suite.

This view gets to the heart of the change in skillset that CIOs are finding: balancing their technology expertise with softer skills. Many CIOs directly acknowledge that the necessary skills are yet to be developed.

Apart from technological skills, both CIOs and C-suite executives ranked leadership as well as communication and influencing skills as the primary attributes needed for success.

Key attributes for CIO role

Speaking the language of business

A common shortcoming among today’s CIOs is the failure to talk in the language of business. “It’s boring for an executive to explain to a CIO how their business models work. Know that beforehand, or they won’t invite you to join in,” says Thomas Pirlein, CIO of Esprit, the global fashion brand.

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