Every week, I share the most interesting and useful tech articles that I’ve found over the past week. This week’s top articles focus on the growing importance of the CIO position, Shadow IT, and more. I hope you find them useful:

Why the CIO’s Time to Lead Is Now
Gartner estimates that 80 percent of IT resources are currently consumed with supporting and scaling existing systems, leaving a very small pool of resources to invest in the new, innovative capabilities that will drive the business forward. In a time when a CIO must drive innovation, what are their options? Here’s one option that solves a number of different problems: Adopt a company-wide application development platform.

6 tips to help CIOs manage Shadow IT
What can CIOs and other IT leaders do to identify and manage Shadow IT — software and hardware not directly under the control of IT — and mitigate the potential risks? In my opinion, it boils down to giving users the tools they need, so they’re not tempted to look outside of the IT department in the first place.

Why CIOs Need Data And Analytics To Make Mobile A Success
When businesses fully realize the business impact of mobile, it has the potential to be the biggest transformative event for companies since the arrival of the Internet. But, be careful. Mobile isn’t a magic potion, and there are plenty of traps to avoid if you’re getting into it for the first time. Here’s an article that highlights just a few of the risks to watch for.

A road map to software-defined infrastructure
Many organizations develop business applications using processes that are time-consuming and labor-intensive. To become effective in this new, data-driven world, organizations must move to the next generation of automation, one that understands the requirements of business applications and responds to those requirements in real time.