The Illusive Seat of ICT at the Executive Table

I’ve been contemplating why the Local Government #CIO (ICT Manager) has such a struggle with being allocated a seat at the executive table. Yet the executive has no problem approving business and ICT convergent solutions without involving the ICT function. In essence, this is an indication that #innovation has a seat at the executive table but not the ICT function.

The seat of innovation at the executive table causes challenges for the ICT function. For instance:

• Application systems are procured, but there are insufficient staff, skills, operating systems, licenses, and technology platforms to support them.
• Connectable devices (IoT) are procured to be placed at locations where no network connectivity is available.
• Duplicate application systems procured to fulfil the same function or automate the same processes over different business units, which leads to data duplication.
• Mobile devices that are incompatible with the incumbent application system and technology architecture.
• ·Application systems that do not add value to the business.

And the list goes on.

The strategic agenda of the municipal executive is informed by legislative requirements with five primary focus areas:

• Minimum service delivery.
• Financial sustainability.
• Environmental sustainability.
• Social development.
• Safety and security.

As the municipal executives traverse the complex maze of strategy (sometimes) rapid decision making and crisis management, their primary focus is on achieving the strategic agenda in the most effective and meaningful way. This opens the door for innovation to sit at the executive table. This implies innovation that are tabled any business lane that already has a seat at the executive table. In most local government cases, this excludes the head of ICT and entire ICT function. This function includes an enormous base of knowledge, experience, expertise, and value add.

If the ICT function is so crucial to business and ICT convergence, why then, does it not have a seat at the executive table? There are so many factors involved when it comes to responding to this, and it is complex. But first and foremost is that the value of the ICT manager and the ICT function is not visible or it does not add any related value. This can either mean executive ignorance, the limitations of the organisational cultural context, or that the value of the ICT function is not visible in innovation.

What then facilitates the positioning of the head of ICT to the executive table? Does this seat come into existence because the Corporate Governance of ICT Policy (2015) requires it? Or is it because the value of the ICT function becomes visible through functionally integrated municipal innovation?

Let us face it, innovation does not take place at the executive table, it is presented and approved at it. This raises the question: “Where is the ICT function when innovation takes place, and how visible is its value?”

This is where the special breed head of ICT as well as the competencies of ?the ICT function come in. Firstly, the head of ICT needs to build relationships with the business (line and staff functions), come to an understanding of the business areas, its challenges, and complexities, and allocate resources and skills to assist the business in its innovation efforts. Innovation is achieved by structurally and systematically articulating the business needs and conceptualising the related solution. This can only be achieved in a structured collaborative approach between the business and ICT.

Line and staff function executives and managers (the business innovators), on the other hand, require a cognitive understanding that the business enabling solution will eventually require software, operating systems, technology, and support to create value from its use. There is thus synergistic sense to involve the ICT function from the outset of innovative solution conceptualisation.

This innovative collaborative existence between the business and the ICT function is one of the key components of the visibility of ICT at the executive table. There is another crucial key component that no ICT manager should steer clear of. And that is answering the question, “Do you (head of ICT) know the business, its challenges, and its plans to overcome these, and what are you doing about it?” IN this regard, a simple read of the annual municipal Integrated Development Plan positions the ICT manager to come to a good understanding of the innovation initiatives that are either under way or will surface in the next 3 to 5 years. This positions the ICT manager to timeously facilitate collaboration in future business innovation initiatives. This makes the value add of the ICT function real to the business and visible to the executive.

There are executive tables that have a seat for the ICT manager. This is realised through executive understanding or appetite, or the ICT manager earning the seat at the table through innovative visibility.

The age old saying “The way to a man's heart is through his stomach”, comes to mind. The tastebuds and stomach are where value is created. In the case of Local Government, the heart is the executive table. The spot at the executive table is earned. And it is earned by how palatable the value of the ICT function is.