CIO Platform Nederland, made Great through Reliability
I started as a CIO at PostNL in late 2009, with the added consequence that I also became a member of the CIO Platform Nederland. I seized this opportunity with both hands to learn fast, build a network and frequently ask questions around all the challenges that come with the job of CIO.

Membership has brought me a lot, but also PostNL. We have visited other companies and organisations frequently and many members have joined us to learn in all kinds of areas. In 2014, I was asked to become chairman of the Platform, an honour to which I enthusiastically said yes.

Development of the CIO and IT
When I look back on this period, the past 20 years in relation to the CIO profession, there is a lot to say, but I will highlight a couple.

Between 2000 and 2010, the IT profession, and with it the figurehead, the CIO, was positioned within facilities. ‘It has to do it’ and ‘can it be cheaper?’. In contrast, studies by management firms and consulting companies talked about delivering value from IT. Within the corporates, IT was mainly concerned with the question ‘are we valued at all?’. In my early days as IT manager within smaller companies, I sometimes said ‘then we'll just turn it off’. Unfortunately, this did happen uncontrolled at times, but the necessity of ‘we need it’ was/became clear as a result. When it came to cybersecurity, people were still saying ‘not for us, right?’ and architecture was mainly regarded as a hobby horse of computer science graduates.

It is in these two areas in particular that I have witnessed a huge revolution and resurgence over the past 10 years. Architecture as a driver of sustainable renewal and flywheel of innovation. It seems too good to be true, and yet, at several companies this breakthrough has come. Projects (Epics) tailored by a future architecture vision through which every project contributes to innovation and, besides delivering business value, also contributes to continuity value, scalability, security and availability.

And then security. One of the most important topics within CIO Platform Nederland. How do you do it, where is governance, how do you ensure adequate security at reasonable cost? In recent years, the threat and realisation of hacks has increased enormously, and we are not at the end yet. The influence of AI and autonomous agents is realising itself in practice. Here, bots will engage with bots with all kinds of attack and defence techniques that are going to become inimitable. To address this is a huge challenge. I still see companies organising cybersecurity apart from IT. For me a no-go, the CIO should also be responsible for cyber. Then it becomes well embedded in all technology. Of course guarded by good guardrails from audit and the escalation chain from CISO along CIO as assurance for the BoD.

Incidentally, it was also the time when every self-respecting company started to immerse itself, or had to, in lean start-up, MVP thinking. Disruption as a phenomenon, misunderstood by the majority. I think many of us have been attacked (‘disrupted’) on some part of the business model, where the disruptor at once had a group of 20 people sitting on a business feature of yours, where you yourself had a single application manager. As one example, the search function on Google, which was a side job of IT, after which new companies beat you at finding your competition. Catch-ups that, in the meantime, the larger companies have made with great success.

In that case, it helps if you can exchange with your colleagues within the association, discuss tactics to bring your executives along, build your case, and invite each other to board meetings to share experience stories.

Gold, for the price of attention
When I started at the association as president, we were dipping towards a 100 members. The value of the platform was no longer fully seen by members (or by their boards), and noises about CDO and CTO emergence were frequent. Moreover, the rumour mill that the CIO was becoming a redundant function was also regular. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Even now this is a discussion within several companies, that IT can be incorporated into the business, making central IT redundant. I don't believe in that at all. Unfortunately, it is true, but for a solid control of IT and of business functionality realisation, you need a lot of knowledge. So much that it is not just something ‘additional’. Understanding services to processes to applications to data and then to systems is complex. Perceiving their connection and placing the right interventions on people, process and technology to achieve better service is not a given. It requires insight, good people and experience.

Developments at the moment are happening at breakneck speed. We know the hype-cycle experiences, and today's AI hype is already coming in the setting of productive models making their way into business one step at a time. The next wave of robotisation is already impatiently waiting at the door, and the hopes of quantum - but containing fears for cyber - are rising. This will only demand more from the IT profession (or technology or digital - just which business-speak confusion you find yourself in), and also from the CIO / CDO / CTO.

And that practice is more stubborn can be seen in many companies when it comes to data maturity. No clever data, no innovation. This prediction is from about 2018 I think, but still this component is poorly developed at many companies. This weakness becomes an Achilles' heel, you don't have to do anything to make this happen, it will happen to you automatically.

The CIO Platform Nederland provides a listening and reflective ear for all such challenges, discussions and considerations. The bureau is invaluable as a central point of organisation and connecting all CIOs and their people, the unburdening is great, creating space for reflection and contemplation. For this, once again, my thanks to that stable engine of the platform. And in this I would then like to specifically thank Ronald Verbeek and also Foppe Vogd, who have put their heart and soul into this wonderful community.

The platform's membership is currently around 140, and the membership list of companies and government entities, is a list to be very proud of. The independence of IT suppliers, and being fundamental in this, occasionally leads to questions, but is a key-asset for the association to share knowledge with each other in confidence. And, especially in these times when the questions around dependency need to be re-contextualised. I notice in my current consultancy role, many questions around ‘where do we do what’, ‘with whom’, ‘what safeguards do we have’, ‘do we have an alternative?’. Rightful questions that I estimate are on the minds of many members of CIO Platform Nederland.

CIO Platform Nederland 20 years, a pleasure to have been a member, to have contributed, and good luck in the next 20 years!

Kind regards,

Marcel Krom
Chairman CIO Platform Nederland 2014 - 2018