qiub’s mission is to address the strategic challenges of information system decision-makers. Although this mission was self-evident from the start, it made us think hard about the very nature of the IS, which allowed us to better grasp its challenges and understand what its decision-makers have to face.
What is an Information System?
We conceptualise the Information System as a set of human, technical and organisational resources (through processes) that make it possible to collect, process, distribute, store and protect information. Its role within an organisation is to carry the business processes, improve their performance and make decision-making easier for its leaders.
Although the concept of an “Information System” appeared in the early 1960s with the development of the first computer networks, its technical dimension can theoretically be detached from computing. In that sense, proto information systems have always existed within human organisations, without being called that.
The development of computing led to the advent of modern information systems, which in turn brought about the third industrial revolution. As their complexity grew rapidly, the human organisation of IS had to be strengthened and define a set of roles to support it.
IS decision-makers
The organisation of modern IS is built around three key decision-making functions, which qiub addresses in its consulting services: CIO, CTO and CISO.
CIOs
CIOs (Chief Information Officers) are heads of the information system whose role is to provide the business lines and the cross-functional departments with a high-performing IS, through business subsystems (industrial, banking, CRM, decision-support…) and subsystems for cross-functional functions (HRIS, procurement, logistics…).
Performance is measured in terms of time to market, fit of the IS with the company’s processes, user experience, security and cost. One of the CIOs’ main roles is application delivery, through the business-owner (MOA) and project-delivery (MOE) functions, which tend to reorganise around a product logic.
CTOs
CTOs (Chief Technical Officers) are technical directors whose role is to provide the infrastructure (servers, networks, databases, workstations…) that hosts the business and cross-functional subsystems and gives access to them, as well as the whole technical ecosystem that keeps them in operational and security condition (MCO/MCS).
The infrastructure provided by CTOs must meet the CIO’s needs by being reliable, competitive and modern to limit technology debt. It must also help limit risks by being resilient and secure.
Traditionally, the DSI function (the French “Directeur des Systèmes d’Information”) combined the CIO and CTO roles, before a trend towards separating them in large organisations. Within mid-sized companies (ETI), these functions are still very often combined.
CISOs
CISOs (Chief Information Security Officers) are responsible for managing the risks related to the information system, whether IT risks or cybersecurity risks. They establish a normative framework, a risk map and a treatment plan for these risks, which they validate with the risk owners. Their role is to bring these risks to light so that management takes the right level of decision.
A vision that serves our engagements
This vision of the IS and of its decision-making functions was forged by our field observations and our reflections. Beyond a mere theoretical exercise, they allowed us to build our convictions on how to lead large-scale transformations entrusted to us by our clients.
It is by always keeping in mind the multi-dimensional nature of the IS that we carry out our engagements, combining our technical expertise with a deep understanding of their organisations and of the people who make them up.
Photo by Joshua Sortino on Unsplash