CIOs are beginning to lose their control over the technological aspects of enterprises. The emergence of the cloud has been a significant contributor to this trend.

FREMONT, CA: A considerable number of enterprises are taking the management of technology beyond the IT department. Investing in technology has become a decentralized activity. Several business managers are now confident about procuring their own cloud-powered services. Unlike the past, CIOs are not always involved in such procurement. As the cloud finds applicability in day-to-day business, the role of critical leaders, such as the CIO, has become limited as compared to their traditional roles.

Before the emergence of the cloud, CIOs were the most critical Oz of the business technology arena. They selected their software, networking solutions, and hardware for all employees across the enterprise. This ranged from minor tasks such as an employee preferring a new computer to critically impactful tasks.

There is an increased focus on business-procured IT, where cloud-powered services are utilized by millennials to select their own functionalities.

However, experts confirm that this trend may not be replacing the role of CIOs entirely, but might require a change in the way CIOs approach the conventional management of technology.

The current CIOs have to empower the rest of the enterprise to comprehend and bring in a balance between the digital and analog concepts.

Also, an ideal CIO should be driving the ongoing business transformation process by leveraging their previous experience. However, in many enterprises, this fails to be the reality. It appears that nearly half of the enterprises are not officially involving CIOs' inputs in their business-IT decisions. More alignment is required on the part of CIOs with the rest of the executive team.

Post the emergence of cloud, the inflow of cloud-powered SaaS tools happened as a result of cloud computing. Employees had no longer required the approval of CIOs prior to installing innovative tools. Instead, the current employees are capable of subscribing to innovative services or online tools within a few seconds, and assistance from other team members wasn’t required.