TRENDING
The survey found that CIOs are spending
more time on the business executive
elements of their jobs compared with
three years ago. In fact, CIOs from top
performing organisations are spending
up to four days more on executive
leadership. The more mature an
enterprise’s digital business is, the more
likely the CIO will report to the CEO.
Santhosh Rao, Principal Research
Analyst, Gartner
and cybersecurity. Investing in these give
technologies enables you to create new
business models, new delivery models
and new revenue opportunities.”
“CIOs are on the road from digital
experimentation to digital scaling,” said
Rowsell-Jones. “However, a wall exists
between those early digital experiments
and pilots, and those that have achieved
digital scale. Perhaps the biggest brick
in that wall is organisational culture.
CIOs need to identify the cultural
behaviours that currently exist and what
the future state vision is. In doing so,
they must recognise existing cultural
strengths and position cultural change
as ‘the next chapter,’ rather than a
massive overhaul, to respect employees’
contributions and invite them to come
along on the journey.”
Define the role –
focus attention beyond IT
At least 84% of top CIOs surveyed
have responsibility for areas of the
business outside traditional IT. The
most common are innovation and
transformation. When asked about
their success criteria, top CIOs report
they are already close to the ideal split
where more focus of their performance
metrics is on business outcomes rather
than IT delivery. Based on the top
CIOs’ responses, the ideal balance is
56% of metrics related to business
outcomes, such as revenue growth,
business margins and influencing
business strategy, and 44% related to
IT delivery.
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INTELLIGENTCIO
Rao believes that shadow IT is also
going to increasingly change the job
role of the CIO, “A lot of IT-related work
is being independently carried out by
the business unit, without the CIO being
aware. This means the modern CIO has
to act as a service broker. They have to
ensure control, how do put back that
control to the CIO? Work with the BUs
and understand what they need and
get into an enterprise agreement with
the vendors. Let the BUs understand
the service broker will help you design,
maintain and manage that environment.”
In a change from previous surveys,
respondents were asked to name the
top differentiating technologies (in
previous years they were asked about
investment levels). Business intelligence
(BI) and analytics still retain the top
spot on the list, with top performers
most likely to consider them strategic.
“This new focus represents an
opportunity for the CIO to become more
deeply involved in this differentiating
technology,” said Rowsell-Jones. “Data
and insight drive the creation, delivery
“Leaders are
rapidly scaling
their digital
businesses, making
the remainder of
this year and 2018
a defining moment
for CIOs who don’t
want to be left
behind.”
and life cycle of digital products and
services. Flow of information in the
context of user interactions leads to
better engagement and value creation
for all parties. Analytics connect the CIO
and the IT organisation to far-flung
parts of the organisation where they
can cultivate new relationships.”
Implement the new role
79% of CIOs report that digital business
is making their IT organisations more
‘change ready’, which suggests that
now is a good time to implement
change to the IT organisations, and, in
turn, should make the transition to the
new job of the CIO easier.
The first part of the new job of the CIO
is to build the required bench strength
to scale the enterprise’s digital business
through support for the digital ecosystem.
This means hiring new resources to put
in place the right digital team structures.
Some CIOs favour a separate digital team
while others make digitalisation part
of the day job of IT and the enterprise.
However, 71% of the top performers
have a separate digital team to help them
scale their digitalisation efforts.
Rao predicts that the following new job
roles will emerge in response to digital
transformation; Chief Digital Officer,
Algorithm Designers, API Product
Managers and Digital Risk Managers.
“Right now, CIOs have their plate full,
they have to play dual roles – that of
both the CIO and the Chief Digital
Officer. This is not sustainable. The CIO
needs to appoint someone from within
or outside the business to fulfil these
new skill sets,” said Rao.
“The effects of digitalisation are
profound. The impact on the job of
CIO and on the IT organisation itself
should not be underestimated,” said
Rowsell-Jones. “In this new world, CIO
success is not based on what they build,
but the services that they integrate.
The IT organisation will move from
manufacturer to buyer, and the CIO
will become an expert orchestrator of
services. The real finding though is that
this is happening now, today. CIOs must
start scaling their digital business and
changing their own jobs with it now.” n
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