Marketing Expertise Key Attribute Of Successful Public Sector CIOs

Experience in marketing and technology skills are the two most crucial attributes of public CIOs of the future, Ricoh UK says in their latest report, highlighting the key role marketing is going to play in the industry.

The technology expert says that ‘expertise in business critical processes’ is another important skill public sector CIOs should have in order to keep their organisations prospering.

Public sector leaders in the UK are overall satisfied with the qualities their CIOs possess. A survey amongst executive shows that nine in ten of them believe CIOs have the capacity to facilitate the transition of public service delivery into the digital era. The findings are quite encouraging, given the sector’s ambitions to ensure efficiency whilst fostering digital services for people.

The public sector is giving clear signs that it has come to grips with CIOs’ need to understand the communication needs of tomorrow’s citizens, Paul Braham of Ricoh UK comments. The government has already come up with its digital goals and is now seeking to facilitate access of both citizens and companies to public sector services from any part of the country. The government also wants to make sure that all public services comply with new digital guidelines by April 2014, he said.

Despite CIO’s increasing importance within public sector organisations, just a third of European businesses have taken adequate steps to ‘go digital’. This could be put down to the fact that only 9% of CIOs are capable of altering business critical processes, as identified by public sector executives.