Adam Hartung says CIOs are too focused on creating data about internal operations and need to augment that with external data about market conditions. Companies are awash in data. CIOs have done a great job of building a hardware and software infrastructure that produces data on just about every part of operations. But today this is merely table stakes. Just like we expect 100 percent IT uptime, today we also expect to never be without real-time information on our operations. However, now that everyone has this timely internal info, it’s no longer a competitive advantage. Good internal information is now a minimum requirement, insufficient for assuring success. Follow everything from CIO on Twitter @CIOonline. Yet internal data generation (and analysis of that data) is where the vast majority of IT resources are spent. CIOs are too often focused on creating and maintaining an infrastructure that generates internal information that has declining value in a fast-changing world. Competition today demands business leaders have a lot more information about their marketplaces, including information about customers’ use of technology, buying patterns and opinions, and about competitors’ changes in price, technology adoption, new products and distribution. Plus companies need information on regulations, global supply chains, commodity prices, economic growth, and so on. The list of external data critical for business decision-making is now longer than the list of important internal metrics. The “I” in CIO is not for infrastructure management; it’s for information. Leading CIOs know they need to spend a lot more management time and IT resources on making sure that they can identify the most important external information for company decision making, obtain that information, track it, and put it into the hands of fellow C-level executives to make the right decisions. Businesses today are fascinated by big data, yet external data brokers are often not part of the CIO’s network, and money for external data often is not in the CIO’s budget. This has to change because getting the full picture now requires augmenting internal data with external data to provide a better view of the environment in which the organization operates. Today’s CIOs can be strategic CEO advisers by integrating internal and external data in ways that make the analysis derived from the data more valuable than the collection of data itself. CIOs should inform the leadership team about more than just how the organization operates by describing how it operates within the external market context of changing customer behaviors and a fast-moving competitive landscape. Tomorrow’s best CIOs will create what-if scenarios and provide forecasts about what is likely to happen, not just report on the past. They will use external information to call attention to risks before operations are affected and introduce fresh ideas to help the organization fend off competition and adapt to market shifts based on both external trends and internal strengths. Ultimately, they will use trend data to guide their fellow executives toward making the right bets, at the right time, for longevity and greater success. Adam Hartung is CEO of Soparfilm Energy, a public speaker and an adviser on innovation. Follow everything from CIO.com on Twitter @CIOonline, Facebook, Google + and LinkedIn. Related content opinion Website spoofing: risks, threats, and mitigation strategies for CIOs In this article, we take a look at how CIOs can tackle website spoofing attacks and the best ways to prevent them. By Yash Mehta Dec 01, 2023 5 mins CIO Cyberattacks Security brandpost Sponsored by Catchpoint Systems Inc. Gain full visibility across the Internet Stack with IPM (Internet Performance Monitoring) Today’s IT systems have more points of failure than ever before. Internet Performance Monitoring provides visibility over external networks and services to mitigate outages. By Neal Weinberg Dec 01, 2023 3 mins IT Operations brandpost Sponsored by Zscaler How customers can save money during periods of economic uncertainty Now is the time to overcome the challenges of perimeter-based architectures and reduce costs with zero trust. By Zscaler Dec 01, 2023 4 mins Security feature LexisNexis rises to the generative AI challenge With generative AI, the legal information services giant faces its most formidable disruptor yet. That’s why CTO Jeff Reihl is embracing and enhancing the technology swiftly to keep in front of the competition. By Paula Rooney Dec 01, 2023 6 mins Generative AI Digital Transformation Cloud Computing Podcasts Videos Resources Events SUBSCRIBE TO OUR NEWSLETTER From our editors straight to your inbox Get started by entering your email address below. Please enter a valid email address Subscribe