Some say the rise of the cloud and BYOD will spell the downfall of the CIO. But could these developments in fact strengthen the CIO’s hand? My latest feature for Tech Republic investigates:

Technology is increasingly being purchased and consumed by the business rather than by the IT department. It’s a trend that has led a number of experts to believe that the CIO will struggle to survive. They see the only answer for IT leaders is to take an operational view and to become more involved in line-of-business activities.

But isn’t it inherently naive to suggest that the CIO role is on the way out? Who will manage remaining enterprise IT assets and who will provide a strategic take on the technology and applications of the digital era? We ask five IT experts for their views on the future role of the CIO.

With more than a decade of IT and finance leadership experience at Carphone Warehouse, Matt Peers is now CIO of consultant Deloitte. And he is adamant that the suggestion that the CIO’s career could soon be over is flawed.

“Never has the role of CIO been more pervasive,” says Peers. “There’s nothing in business now that does not involve IT. But that central role is not about bits and bytes. People have talked for ages about being customer-friendly – and IT is now finally about enabling people to serve customers.”

To read the rest of the feature, please click here.