Vendor-agnostic IT best practice certifications are in demand from prospective CIOs in their MBA programmes, a lecturer at Charles Sturt University says.

Speaking to iTnews exclusively to launch a new MBA of Computing at the University, adjunct senior lecturer, Martin Hale, said industry certifications like ITIL, ISO20K and COBIT are growing at the expense of traditional vendor-owned technical certifications like the Microsoft certified systems engineer (MCSE).

By learning these types of IT best practices, governance and project management concepts within their MBAs, prospective CIOs and senior executives gain the skills to work better at a strategic level with the chief executive, not just with the CFO, according to Hale.

“Less than half of CIOs report to the CEO – they report to the CFO, which suggests that IT is still seen as a cost area,” explains Hale.

“Anecdotally, CIOs don’t often go on to become CEOs because they don’t have the right background to talk strategy with them.

“Our new MBA provides a way for CIOs to set up a move into [that type of] strategy role,” says Hale.

The new MBA of Computing at Charles Sturt University covers core subject areas on strategy, marketing, and finance, all from an IT perspective. It also incorporates best practice certification for ITIL, ISO20000, and COBIT, as well as the beginnings of project management.

It will be officially launched at the ITSMf conference in Canberra later this month.

Hale says that ISO20K awareness will provide CIOs with the tools they need to institute a quality framework for IT that has a whole-of-business impact.

“[The IT department has] ITIL, but once you put a quality framework over the top it becomes applicable to the business and not just to IT service management,” adds Hale.