CIO Vs CTO - How many understand the difference?

Information Management (IM) is a specialised function and needs focus. Managing the ever-growing complexity of information flow is one of the top challenges today. Scan-capture sub-systems for paper records, email archiving and metadata correlation techniques are indispensable elements in IM.

Chief Information Officer (CIO):

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CIO is the one responsible for IM. CIO has to ensure that all critical business information have been identified by policies and then effectively managed. CIO role has become critical for CEOs, who are ultimately responsible for failure to comply with laws.

CIO works along side IT, Legal and Audit teams to ensure security, safety and litigation preparedness of all information.

The CIO therefore is a business analyst with good IT understanding who formulates the strategic focus, direction and plans the IM policies for the enterprise.

Chief Technology Officer (CT) or IT Manager

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CTO or IT Manager on the other hand is hardware, software and network oriented job function. They are (also by education), responsible to provide 24x7 infrastructure uptime.

Often, IT Managers are made responsible for IM and the result has never been encouraging for the industry.