February 19, 2013
Anyone paying attention to the technology space knows that the role of the CIO is changing for good. Instead of just procuring a new system and making sure it runs as expected, the CIO is expected to innovate and help drive the bottom line toward profitability.
Part of this change is driven by SaaS and cloud computing — the infrastructure that makes software-as-a-service possible.
Eric Berridge, the co-founder of Bluewolf Inc., a New York-based consulting firm, has seen this first hand. His firm helps customers install a range of SaaS apps from vendors ranging from Salesforce.com to Oracle. Traditionally, the CIO focused on building systems -- from ERP to email -- and making sure they remained viable. These men, and a few women, were compensated on their ability to hit go-live objectives and keep systems running once deployed. The bulk of the CIO’s budget was devoted to the care and feeding of systems already in place.
