Eva Degerman is not your typical CIO. Not only does she have the usual gamut of IT responsibilities, including setting strategy, heading up operations and managing change programmes at industrial automation supplier FlexLink AB in Sweden, but she is also director of human resources.

Across the city of Gothenburg at Volvo Car Corporation, Johan Tommervik is another CIO with a fuller than normal leadership portfolio. On top of IT, he is vice president with responsibility for driving "process and operational excellence" across the car maker's business.

This is not some manifestation of recession-hit enterprises forced to spread their executive teams ever more thinly. Rather, it is a recognition of the unique blend of technical, operational and business expertise that is building in the DNA of today's CIOs.

Tommervik (who, since we interviewed him, has moved to become group CIO of Gothenburg-based engineering firm SKF) is of the view that no executive is better placed than the CIO to develop the fullest appreciation of the nuances of business processes, and the specific challenges of an organisation's various functional domains. "The view the CIO has of business operations is unparalleled. There is no question," he says.

So it should be no surprise that an increasing number of CIOs are being handed wider roles within their organisations - from heading up procurement, facilities management and logistics to managing HR, marketing and shared business services.

Tommervik has set up teams of skilled process leaders who work closely with the functional business groups to identify inefficiencies in processes and then work to adjust or purge them from the system. When this calls for investment, who better than the CIO to decide how they should be prioritised in ways that drive the fullest business benefits?

"Other functional leaders in manufacturing or in distribution are not as well placed to decide," he says, "because they will not have the full cross-functional involvement that the CIO has. To me it is most natural, because of the neutrality of the CIO position. This is one area where the CIO can become a key advisor to the CEO. If we can improve the process by showing where we can remove unnecessary bureaucracy, or where to invest in the right technology, then we will improve the business."

Driving business change

Indeed, Degerman argues that an expanded remit is a necessity for any CIO focused on IT-enabled change. "Working as a CIO, you very quickly realise that you cannot drive real business change unless you are able to change the organisation and change the attitude of the employees," she says.

"Over time I have become more and more interested in the principles of change management in general, and decided I could make a better impact by working for HR and not only in IT."

It is no secret that the impact of IT on an organisation is enhanced when people are on board and fully engaged with a change programme. Conversely, even where huge investments are being made in IT, there will be little impact unless people change their behaviour. This is probably one of the most challenging aspects of enterprise IT, for which FlexLink's Degerman draws on her HR expertise in moderation, mediation and motivation.

Practically, in terms of day-to-day responsibilities, the double mandate of IT plus HR calls for dependable subordinates. Degerman relies on an operational IT manager working alongside an operations quality manager to deal with everyday issues. "If I want to achieve the results that the board is expecting, I think I would be less successful if I focused more on operational IT and looked at HR as being only a secondary role," she says.

Tim Cook of London-based head hunter Russell Reynolds confirms that the profession is starting to see more CIOs take on additional functional responsibility. "It does appear to be situational, though," he ventures, "something that an individual makes happen in a specific organisation. They are prepared to push for the extended role because they see it as a more efficient way of running the business."

Cook says he has seen this at Anglo American, the mining giant, where the remit of group CIO Mike Bowden extends across a shared service operation delivering HR, finance and IT services. Neil Cameron, CIO at consumer packaged goods company Unilever, takes broad responsibility for his organisation's supply chain, as well as driving global IT strategy.

At UK hotel and restaurant chain Whitbread, Ben Wishart extended his IT role to cover business change and logistics before moving up to become chief operating officer for the company's international business. Over at British Airways, Paul Coby is CIO and head of BA Services. And at Netherlands-based logistics company CEVA, Peter Dew heads both IT and HR.

Raising the CIO's profile

"These are all great examples of how a CIO can raise their profile in the business and create a development path which brings them broad operational responsibility to add value to the business in ways that are different to that of the traditional CIO role," says Cook.

His point is echoed by Craig Neeb, who works both as CIO and VP for multi-channel marketing at the US motor sports promotions company ISC. "The dual role gives me more visibility and better exposure to the business," he says. "And at the same time there's value for the business itself in having somebody who knows how to support strategic marketing objectives and develop the technology accordingly."

Neeb believes his marketing remit provides him with a keen understanding of how the various sales and marketing functions really operate, which allows him to have a bigger impact on the sales success. And he is not unique in commanding the dual roles of marketing and IT. Until recently, when he took over as CIO of United Airlines, Tom O'Toole was chief marketing officer and CIO at hotel chain Hyatt.

"Wearing the two hats of CIO and VP allows me to find new ways I can add strategic value across all our different marketing channels, both from a revenue perspective, but also from the angle of operational efficiency," Neeb says. "The value of being a CIO is that I know where the available technology is not being fully leveraged by the business. I know how the technology can be modified to better suit business needs."

Data warehousing is an obvious example of positive overlap. "Technology plays a key role in being able to leverage our customer data, to sift out nuggets of information, and to be able to measure the effectiveness of those messages."

In his capacity as VP, Neeb is responsible for driving delivery efficiency and leveraging the operations of the call centre, the interactive side of web, the radio division, print and the whole creative side. "Our goal is to show that we really know who we are communicating with, what their likes and interests are, how theylike to be communicated with, where they are, and what their preferences are," he says.

"Chief efficiency officer"

While market watchers such as Cook are cautious about reading too much into these cases, Dr Gabriel Andrade of the executive search firm Egon Zehnder in Munich says his market assessment has revealed a definite movement developing among top CIOs.

"The customary interpretation of the role is giving way to one that can best be described as a 'chief efficiency officer'," he suggests. When he surveyed 20 CIOs at major banks and insurers in Germany, Andrade says he found CIOs who were change-oriented and who were forging ahead with the redesign of organisational structures. "To this end, CIOs have to actively change both their leadership role and their traditional field of responsibility," he explains.

Among this new breed, he cites Frank Klaus Annuscheit of Commerzbank Group, who also acts as group manager of transaction banking; UBS CTO Peter Sany, who heads up the Swiss bank's integrated infrastructure unit; and Hermann-Josef Lamberti, at Deutsche Bank, who has global responsibility for HR, IT, operations, cost and infrastructure management, and building and facilities management, as well as purchasing.

So what makes for the ideal multi-function CIO? It's Andrade's view that a CIO has first to have complete budget responsibility, and that he or she is likely to be already heading up a highly centralised IT organisation.

They would also have some additional business responsibility for a core business unit or for business processes that are closely linked to IT and have a high level of profit/revenue relevance. It is also very likely, he adds, that they work in a sector where the business operating model is data intensive, and has an extremely high dependency on IT.

"Finance is taking the lead but it is only a matter of time before we see other CIOs in other sectors becoming chief efficiency officers," he says. "These people succeed because they are very business-oriented and understand how to marry technology to the business model. You just have to look at companies such as Daimler, BMW or Volkswagen to see evidence of that. It's the same in the airline sector, with companies such as BA and Lufthansa."

Freeing resources

Operating efficiency is always high on the CIO agenda. When Yasmin Jetha joined the Financial Times Group as CIO in January 2006 to head up its IT operations, the FT's CEO said her job was to "make the business become more efficient, in order to free resources for investment into new products".

Within two years she had been promoted to the post of COO, where she took overall responsibility for procurement and group purchasing for the newspaper's global strategy, streamlining business processes and ensuring further increases in productivity, all the while retaining her information officer duties.

"The CEO wanted someone who had experience of IT and business systems, but who could also influence and fully engage on every level with the business," she explains. "With my business experience and my knowledge of IT, I can provide a balanced view on how best to maximise profitability and operational effectiveness."

Jetha maintains that the skill most required of the CIO, as it is of the COO, is to be able to push through business change with a can-do mindset. "First and foremost it calls for self-confidence and belief. But ultimately it is all about being able to get to grips with the rationale of the business and fully understand the commercial imperatives of the industry."

Now CIO at health insurance provider Bupa, Jetha says, "Whatever the job title, I see it as being vital to develop a really wide perspective about the organisation relative to its competitors and, rather than thinking about IT for its own sake, think in terms of what IT can do for the business."

Photo: Corbis

See also our Case Study profiling Catherine Doran, CIO and director of corporate development at the UK's Network Rail.