Vietnam targets to have 1,000 CIOs in 2010

Vietnam targets to have 1,000 CIOs in 2010

After over two months, the jury of the Indochina CIO (chief Information officer) Selecting Board in 2005 has selected ten outstanding CIOs. On May 29, 2005, the Vietnam Chamber of Commerce and Industry (VCCI) and the International Data Group (IDG) presented awards to the top ten CIOs in Indochina in Hanoi. However, regarding the definition of CIO, a seminar held after the award presenting ceremony saw many ideas about CIOs in agencies and organisations.

Role of information and CIOs

In the 1996-2000 period, Vietnam organised some seminars about CIOs but the results have yet to be as good as expected. Many people said that CIOs not only managed the information system but also made proposals on information development to leaders of organisations. Some ministries and agencies had planned to assign some senior officials to CIO posts but the officials did not have knowledge about information technology. At a conference one month ago, directors of information technology discussed about whether they were CIOs or not. The result of the conference showed that it depended on the awareness of each organisation but not any concrete conclusion about the issue.

Information is important at present as many enterprises consider it an important resource. Examples can be seen in business and production activities of enterprises as they manufacture and import goods on customers' demand. Consequently, they need information about orders and market forecasts. From this point of view, information is valued as a resource of an enterprise. Therefore, the role of CIOs is very important. However, acccording to Mr Tran Viet Hoan, head of Information Technology Department, Metro Cash & Carry Vietnam, with 40 per cent of those who are in charge of information technology having the power to make strategic decisions for organisations, management agencies have to discuss the role of these people. Also relating to the issue, Jordan Ryan, permanent representative of the UN to Vietnam, people were impressed by what information technology had given instead of political and economic value. Information technology should be considered as a factor creating socio-economic development.

About CIOs' role in Vietnam during its integration, Dr Hoang Quoc Lap, head of the administrative office of the National Steering Board of Information Technology, said that the role of information had yet to be highly appreciated in each organisation and CIOs in Vietnam were perceived as chiefs of information technology but not chiefs of information. Therefore, there is yet to be any solution to the expansion of the power and responsibility of CIOs in their organisations as expected. Therefore, more issues will be clarified as the development of CIOs in Vietnam should be accelerated.

How to develop Vietnamese CIOs?

At first, experts say that CIOs should be capable of leading and organising information technology applications in their organisations. Accordingly, CIOs should be masters in applying and developing technology with knowledge about business and skills of relation development, management and communication. At the same time, CIOs should be able to make proposals on organisational changes and have knowledge about as well as experience on international transactions. They must be capable of training information technology cadres. The problem is where CIOs are from.

The Government has set a target of training around 1,000 CIOs in the 2006-2010 period as Lap said. Many people shared the same idea about the necessity to develop criteria for CIOs and their training. Another issue is whether CIOs are in charge of information technology for organisations or they are senior officials in their organisations.

From this point of view, senior officials have their knowledge about their professions, should they gain more knowledge about information technology to become CIOs. The question is whether this work is difficult or not. If cadres in charge of information technology are promoted to become CIOs, the problem is whether they have capability of developing strategies or making bold decisions on information technology application within their organisations. There are many differing ideas relating to CIOs. Therefore, Dr Mai Anh, general secretary of the Vietnam Association of Information Technology, said that such organisations as VCCI and IDG should organise more seminars to collect inputs and comments to help State management agencies attain criteria for CIOs, suitable to specific conditions in Indochinese countries.

Following are inputs from the seminar 'CIOs – strategic leaders or data and system administrators':

A conversion on the role from senior technical experts to senior officers - Do Duc Cuong, deputy director of the Information and Technology Data Centre, the Ministry of Interior

CIOs are developed within a society of information and they join the leadership and management of society. Therefore, CIOs must be leaders. A conversion of their role from senior technical experts to officers means they must join in the governance of their organisations. For example, CIOs in State agencies and ministries must be leaders of these agencies and ministries. Directors of information and heads of information technology departments are simply leaders of agencies specialising in information technology. At present, we are building a society of information technology, perhaps we should consider senior experts and leaders of information technology agencies CIOs. In fact, information technology agencies do not join the leadership of the organisation. Instead, they act as support agencies for organisations. A leadership and strategy development role cannot be assigned to support agencies. Therefore, Vietnam and Indochinese countries in general should develop more precise definition of CIOs.

CIOs should be divided into three groups - Nguyen Minh Dan, head of the Department of Science and Technology, the Ministry of Post and Telematics

As far as I am concerned, CIOs can be divided into three groups. The first group consists of CIOs in State management agencies, who are leaders of ministries, agencies and localities. Through past experience, we have recognised that the success of each ministry, agency or locality is often linked to its leader. So, we are aware of the importance of CIOs in State management agencies. They are leaders, whose main task is to develop strategy on information technology development. The second group consists of CIOs in enterprises, who manage information technology and apply information technology to production and business activities of enterprises.  For such enterprises as FPT and Metro Cash & Carry Vietnam, the title of CIO is necessary and CIOs in these enterprises have proven that they are successful. Other enterprises should be aware of the formation and development of CIOs to improve the effectiveness of their production and business activities. The third group consists of CIOs in social organisations, such as education and health care. These organisations need those who guide and orientate the development of information technology effectively.

Management of information technology system is important - Ta Quang Tien, head of the Banking Information Technology Department, the State Bank of Vietnam

If we consider the information technology system an asset, or more concretely, consider information material the system needs management, especially in the banking service, which features concentration and unique management. I think that the management of information technology systems is more important than cash management to some extent. If information is lost, other parts of an organisation will be impacted.

It has taken us a long time to become aware of the necessity of information technology management. So far, people still view information technology as just a tool, including hardware, software, and their application. Therefore, people have not thought about their management yet. For this purpose, we should create a roadmap and ask questions about the necessity of the system management and strategies and plans, as well as human resources. For specific fields such as banking, apart from understanding of information technology, banking knowledge is necessary for suitable application of technology.

Providing information technology knowledge for leaders to have CIOs -  Bui Quang Ngoc, deputy general director of the FPT Company

It is difficult to carry out projects on information technology as many projects are more social than technological. This can be seen via projects in the taxation and customs services. It is unnecessary to talk about technology. However, the social aspects of projects are difficult as they must change the working way with requirements on retraining of cadres and issuing new regulations. These projects need qualified high ranking leaders.

Among ten criteria for a CIO, six belong to leadership and one for information technology knowledge. The question is where we should find resources for the training of CIOs and whether we should train information technology cadres into CIOs or provide information technology knowledge for leaders. Leadership is a natural talent while there are many people having information technology knowledge. I think that we will create CIOs by providing knowledge to leaders. With their leadership capability, they will know how to invite suitable experts to settle their problems. CIOs must be those who are capable of exploiting experts, so they must be leaders but not heads of departments or centres of information technology.

• Nguyen Thoa