The New Digital Agendas for CEOs and CIOs

At this week'due south Gartner Symposium, several analysts shared results from surveys of CEOs and CIOs on their agendas for the year ahead. Not surprisingly, digital transformation was high on everyone's listing, though in many discussions information technology seemed that most of the digital transformation has so far focused on simple endeavors, with more complicated efforts still to come.

"Everyone is doing digital business, the question is how deep," said Gartner Fellow Marker Raskino, who shared the results of the firm'south annual survey of CEOs in his presentation.

Nearly of the time when people talk virtually digital business organisation they actually but produce a dressed up e-commerce program, and aren't nonetheless thinking about how the business itself volition be irresolute, he said.

In this twelvemonth'south survey, 58 per centum of CEOs listed growth as a top priority, which isn't a surprise. At 31 percent, IT-related priorities came in second place this twelvemonth, which Raskino said was a big change, recalling that IT-related priorities came in eleventh-place in this survey just a few years agone. This is a high position for It on the survey but reflects that CEOs now know they need to do more than with engineering science.

Raskino said that many firms accept added "principal digital officers," just added that these individuals are brought in equally change agents and don't typically final long. Others have made "tech-quisitions"—or buying companies for their technical acumen—just in most cases, the goal is to increase growth and revenues.

In general, Raskino said that too many people don't know what digital means for their businesses, and that many are notwithstanding fighting "yesterday's battle" over e-commerce. "Information technology'south about production and service innovation—not near how we sell, only what we sell," he said.

Every bit examples, he discussed Ikea acquiring TaskRabbit and Aviva offering home insurance with nada questions, because the data already exists.

To make digital transformation happen, Raskino suggested CIOs and other IT concern leaders accept a number of concrete steps. These include shifting key performance indicators to measure the changeover to digital, looking for more creative digital concern ideas, and providing a wider variety of digital business funding sources. He told the audience not to assume that they need to make big digital changes within their existing budgets, and said that "disruption is what rainy day reserves were made for."

Raskino said the move to digital business concern is leading to a motion to "re-internalize IT"—building upwards in-house applied science capabilities rather than outsourcing—and said it is crucial for CIOs to assistance change the mindset of their executive colleagues. Finally, he suggested CIOs look for ways to use technology to leapfrog the competition, either through new business models or revolutionary means of achieving productivity growth. All of this requires amend communication with CEOs, and he closed with a listing of activeness steps that CIOs and CEOs could take.

The CIO Agenda

Looking at the situation from the CIO perspective, Gartner Vice President and Enquiry Director Andy Rowsell-Jones asked the attendees, "if your enterprise was looking to make full your job today, would they hire you?" He explained that the nature of the CIO's task has inverse from the role of a commitment executive (responsible for delivering IT) to that of It business concern executive (responsible for understanding how It impacts the business).

Rowsell-Jones shared the results of a Gartner study which surveyed 3,160 CIO respondents, and talked about how top performers across industries are generating more digital revenue and accept more digital processes than competitors. He noted that 95 per centum of CIOs surveyed expect digitalization to change their jobs, and urged the CIOs in attendance to call up of pre-empting disruption as their new job in this changing world.

To pre-empt disruption, he said CIOs in 2022 demand to augment digital processes; link concern and digital value; preclude technology disruption; and pre-empt cybersecurity threats. It seems like a tall order.

Rowsell-Jones said in that location is a wall between initiating tests of digital business concern (which he chosen "digital dabbling") and scaling a digital business into something that is assisting. The biggest barrier is company civilization, but non usually the culture inside It. "Nosotros're finally not the problem," he joked. To become past this, he said CIOs must "master change," "embrace growth," and "atomic number 82 similar a business executive."

Often this means CIOs must accept on new roles inside the organization, such as assuming responsibility for digital transformation or innovation.

Rowsell-Jones said 93 percent of superlative-performing Information technology organizations are ready for alter, and suggested that transformation is all-time handled by contained multidisciplinary digital teams, which he said CIOs should help create.

In addition, he said the motion to digital volition generate new IT roles, such every bit user experience designers, phonation interaction designers, and model designers.