William R. Synnott

William R. "Bill" Synnott (December 29, 1929 – November 13, 2010) was an American organizational theorist, Vice President of Bank of Boston, author, consultant and lecturer, known for his work in the field of computer technology in business in the 1980s.

Early life Born in Fall River, Massachusetts, to William and Marie (Labrie) Synnott in 1929, Synnott obtained his BA from Boston University, his MA from the Stonier Graduate School of Banking at Rutgers University, and his MBA at Harvard Business School in the 1950s.

Career Synnott came into prominence in the 1980s when he was head of Management Information Systems at the Bank of Boston, now BankBoston, where he coined the term chief information officer (CIO). In 1994 he retired at the Bank of Boston as vice president, and continued to work as consultant and lecturer, especially in Asia. At the Hong Kong Polytechnic University he developed their first MBA program.

Chief Information Officer In the 1981 book "Information resource management" Synnott and Gruber (1981) coined the term chief information officer (CIO), and this concept became a popular management topic in the early 1980s. They had described the CIO as the "senior executive responsible for establishing corporate information policy, standards, and management control over all corporate information resources."

In their vision the CIO was "a senior-level executive responsible for overseeing network and data processing operations, and crafting an information systems strategy that would help a corporation achieve its business objectives through the innovative use of technology."

Furthermore, "by presenting frameworks for planning and strategic systems models, the book teaches readers to search for and identify 'weapon' opportunities and shows how companies in the service industries can use information technology as a revenue generator. Unlike any other text on the subject, it describes what information resource architecture is all about and lends a clearer understanding of what the new chief information officer role entails. Essentially, the book offers a framework for thinking that will help managers search for technological opportunities within their area and then win with that technology."

In this context Synnott also spoke about the role of data architecture and communication architecture. He explained, that:

"... data architecture and communication architecture are shown as horizontal bars because these are corporate-wide information resource components. They serve all business units. The four vertical resource components are business specific. The resources can be divided according to the business units they serve. That us, data and communication might be centralizes resources, whereas human resources (professional systems staffs), computers, user-computing, and systems could all be decentralized resources to one degree or another."

Selected publications Synnott, William R., and William H. Gruber. Information resource management: opportunities and strategies for the 1980s. John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 1981. Synnott, William R. The information weapon: winning customers and markets with technology. John Wiley & Sons Inc, 1987.

Articles, a selection: Synnott, W. R. "Total customer relationship." MIS Quarterly(1978): 15–24. Synnott, William R. "Changing roles for information managers." Computerworld 15.38 (1981): 19–28. Synnott, William R. "The information weapon." Winning Customers and Markets with Technology (1987). Synnott, William R. "The emerging chief information officer." Information Management Review 3.1 (1987): 21–35.