If you thought that chief information officers in design and construction firms today just upgraded inefficient servers or made sure the e-mail system was working, youd be sadly mistaken. These gurus of corporate information technology management are at the heart of what drives and differentiates engineering and construction firms these dayscost competitiveness, collaboration, innovation and entrepreneurship. As such, more CIOs now are valued members of the executive management team or are jockeying for a boardroom seat next to the CEO. Even so, the day-to-day pressures of keeping disparate company units connected yet secure and meeting tougher cost and profit goals is a challenge even for the most technologically astute.
To determine how industry CIOs are faring, ENR invited 11 executives with that title or something equivalent for a two-hour roundtable March 31 on todays technology management issues. The group, which met in New York City, represents a cross section of companies in terms of revenue, geography, discipline and market diversity.