Build a Regular CEO IT Update Package

Be prepared for regular meetings with your most important stakeholder.

Analyst Perspective

Improve alignment and excel at communicating with your most important stakeholder: the CEO.

In the last decade, chief information officers (CIOs) have witnessed a tremendous paradigm shift and begun to adopt a more transformational position, leading the digital strategy in their organizations. As a result of this change, their direct senior has shifted from chief financial or operations officer (CFO or COO) to the highest c-suite leader, the CEO, as CIOs become more involved with the external capabilities of their organizations.

Today, IT is no longer seen as a cost center but rather an enabler of business strategy, stimulating innovation and providing tools and infrastructure to take the business further. Given the position of technology in today's business world, it is unsurprising that almost half of CIOs globally now report directly to CEOs.

As a result, the way CIOs handle their reporting has evolved from a simple department update to an initiative-focused and future-oriented complete package. That’s why having a premade, easy-to-customize living document will ensure you stay prepared to deliver the best communication deck that covers your CEO’s expectations.

Cem Sezen

Research Specialist
Info-Tech Research Group

Executive Summary

Info-Tech Insight

Build your presentation to focus on understanding priorities, improving alignment and confidence with your CEO. As you improve alignment and confidence, your presentation focus areas should evolve to reflect the moving targets and priorities of the CEO and the organization.

Your Challenge

This research is designed to help CIOs who struggle to build and communicate a CEO update report.

• When it comes to understanding business goals, most CIOs and CXOs* think that there is room for improvement, indicating a discrepancy in understanding each other's expectations and perspectives.
• Limited understanding of the department's position regarding business goals and failure to assess the key metrics to track performance are the gatekeepers for producing and communicating successful reports.
• Selecting spot-on metrics to demonstrate the performance of the department plays a crucial role in the success of reports. Both CIOs and CXOs believe there is room for improvement for how IT success is measured.

Examples of CXO include CEO, COO, CFO, CTO

CIOs and CXOs agree there is room for improvement

About half of CXOs think some improvement is necessary for understanding business goals

Half of all CXOs think some improvement is necessary for measuring IT project success

Source: Info-Tech CEO-CIO Alignment Benchmark Report 2020-2023, n=339

Common obstacles

These barriers make this challenge difficult to address for many organizations:

• Poor communication between business and IT is the second-highest rated barrier to innovation for both CIOs and CXOs.
• Misaligned priorities and contrasting perspectives prevent healthy communication.
• Failing to ensure that IT initiatives are tightly aligned with the organization’s business strategy and goals can lead to loss of confidence.
• Limited meeting time accompanied by ad hoc and irregular meeting frequency results in inconsistent communication.
• Lack of skills and time to produce compelling and concise presentations force the CIO to rely on verbal reporting.

Poor communication is considered a barrier to innovation

Source: Info-Tech CEO-CIO Alignment Benchmark Report 2020-2023, n=339