CIOs: you've got Â'C's' to the left of you, Â'O's' to the right of you. Ride into the valley of CXOland.

The CIO's World is Changing Again — Case One.

When John Dwyer joined Microsoft 10 years ago, the Microsoft world was a different place to the one where he works today. Most particularly, says the South Pacific regional director of information technology, the IT organisation was relatively fragmented. Issues like data standards, information and physical security and knowledge management tended to happen at a subsidiary, or at best a regional level, and everything operated differently depending on where you were in the world.

Now there's a chief security officer with global responsibility; database administrators at regional and global level who effectively team to perform the functions of chief data officer; and others who cooperate to do the job of organisational chief knowledge officer. Microsoft is but one of numbers of other organisations leading the charge to adopt a host of new titles for people with IT-related functions. The last couple of years have seen the flavours of IT-related chiefs slowly expanding.

In the US, more CIOs are finding management ranks being expanded to encompass people with exclusive responsibility for knowledge, customers, data, privacy, security, operations or technology. You name the function and someone somewhere probably has it in his or her title.

It's the job of the Dwyers of this world to find ways to work with these people for maximum effectiveness.

Part of this Dwyer's role has become working with such people in his role of broker for regional IT services and as the conduit between the businesses in Australia and New Zealand and IT on a global scale. He says growing numbers of larger organisations are adopting a similar approach to doing business.