What Makes a Successful CIO?

More Challenging Than Ever

Joe Guastella Principal and U.S. Insurance Industry Consulting Leader, Deloitte Consulting

The expectations continue to grow for the technology organization to be an enabler and a competitive differentiator. As such, the successful insurance carrier CIO requires an even stronger understanding of the business imperatives, must have an effective partnership with the business to understand its priorities, and needs to have a firm grasp on the ability of technology and the technology organization to deliver both breakthrough and incremental benefits to the organization.

Two items are of particular importance today. First, the increasing impact of the legacy system issue on the financial and operational performance of the organization is requiring deeper expertise in the areas of technology architectures that will enable more speed and flexibility in supporting new applications and changes to existing applications. Second, the ability to have the strong, trusted relationships and demonstrated leadership capabilities across the organization and outward to the extended enterprise, including service providers and outsourcing arrangements, is an increasing management challenge for both CIOs and their organizations.

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