Seven CIOs (Chief Information Officers) from Indochina were honoured at the second CIO Indochina Awards, presented by IDG Vietnam and relevant agencies and ministries in Hanoi. This was also an opportunity for people to find out who CIO is.
About a year ago, IDG co-operated with the Vietnam Chamber of Commerce and Industry to honour for the first time top ten CIOs from three Indochina countries. From then on, Vietnamese IT circle officially voiced about the necessity of the community to provide a right understanding and regulations on contributions, responsibility and power of CIOs in organisations and enterprises.
In fact, since 1996, Vietnam had organised some seminars discussing the role of CIO. At that time, however, people thought that CIOs were not only people to be in charge of developing information systems of organisations and enterprises but to make proposals to organisation and enterprise leaders to change system’s operation to gain an optimal effectiveness. Some ministries and agencies had talked of assigning high-ranking officials as CIOs but they then found that the people they wanted to assign as CIOs did not have knowledge about information and communication technology (ICT). As a result, there has yet to be any concrete conclusion on title and powers of CIOs.
Defining CIOs at a seminar on the role of CIOs in Vietnamese organisations, Nguyen Dinh Thuan, event director of IDG Vietnam, said in developed countries, CIO was a leader responsible for the whole ICT system and providing strategic ICT visions for development strategy of organisations and enterprises. CIOs are often members of executive boards of organisations and enterprises. Talking about the situation, most participants of the seminar shared the same idea that in a context of Vietnam and its development tendencies, it would take the country at least ten years to have CIOs in a broad meaning of the word.
Talking about the issue, Dang Dc Mai, head of the Statistics Department of the Ministry of Finance, said that in Vietnam, CIOs were different from State agencies to enterprises. He said that when enterprises were aware of an urgent need for ICT application, they would appoint someone as CIOs. However, it is a different story in State agencies, where ICT workers did not have any title and privilege. Mai said that it was necessary to clarify title of ICT workers.
In the award presentation ceremony for outstanding Indochina CIOs in 2005, Dr Hoang Quoc Lap, head of the office for the State Steering Board on ICT, said that the target of the Government was to train around 1,000 CIOs in the 2006-2010 period. However, so far, with the existing activities of State agencies, many people expressed their doubts about the feasibility of the target. Criteria for CIOs have not been agreed and the training method of CIOs have not been mentioned yet. Even a question whether CIOs are ICT leaders or high-ranking officials within organisations have not been answered yet.
It seems that relevant agencies paid attention to the CIO theme in only three months for election of the winners for CIO Indochina Awards. After three months, everything seems to return to quietness. Only such organisations as IDG continue to provide their help for the community to have a right awareness of the role of CIOs and their powers. However, their efforts would not be effective if relevant agencies continue to consider ICT as a useful tool but not clarify the power and role of CIOs to help them change activities of organisations and enterprises with their ICT visions.
CIO Indochina Awards
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Dao Minh Tuan, Director of Computer Center, Vietcombank
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Mdme Truong Thi Hai Duong, Director of Informatics & Statistics, General Department of Taxation
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Mr. Dinh Quang Nuong, General Manager, Operations & IT, Prudential Vietnam
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Mr. Nguyen Anh Nguyen, Director, Planning & IT, Unilever Vietnam
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Mr. Phan Vinh Quang, Director of ICT Center, VietsoPetro
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Mr. Le Vu Ky, Vice President, Asia Commercial Bank (ACB)
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Mr. Moa Chakrya, Deputy Director General, Telecom Cambodia
Vietnamese
