“CIO Master” Book Preview Conclusion: Running IT as Digital Transformer ~ Future of CIO

Tuesday, April 5, 2016

“CIO Master” Book Preview Conclusion: Running IT as Digital Transformer

10:51 PM Pearl Zhu No comments

Digital transformation effort needs to start with the mind shift, culture innovating, process tuning, and capability building.

It is a thorny journey for IT to transform from a back-office function and cost center to a digital champion and value creator. The CIO must be a partner in every aspect of the business. The supporting IT budgets must reflect business priorities and urgency. IT organization has more and more to overcome to running at digital speed. People tend to have a high expectation of digital flow, very little patience with technology issues. Not only does IT need to speed up to adapt to change, it also needs to proactively drive business changes and run as a high-speed digital transformer.

IT as a “digital brain” of the business: IT is the foundation of data, information, and modern knowledge. The fact is that IT is more like the “nervous system” of the business, a highly mature digital IT, like the brain of its organization, can process data and information to help the business make effective decisions at the long-term strategic level, as well as make tactical level decisions for the daily business operation. IT is the information steward of the organization, and a huge part of the responsibility of IT is about the identification and knowledge advancement for the enterprise and people. Information Management is not for its own sake, but to ensure the right people getting the right information at the right time to make the right decisions.

IT as a business innovation catalyst: The digital mantra for forward-looking IT organization is to do more with innovation. Innovation management is about transforming new ideas to achieve their business value. Innovation follows basic rules which are adapted depending on the one company’s situation and ambition. IT can drive all sorts of innovation, proactively pushing ideas on how to leverage technologies to drive business growth, increasing business productivity, digitizing talent management, building business competency and improving customer satisfaction. Hence, CIOs need to have business insight, not just through IT lenses, but via global business lenses. Then, they can practice that knowledge to start innovating at the organizational level and across the business ecosystem.

IT as a customer champion: Digital is the age of people, and building a customer-centric business is at the executive’s top agenda in every forward-looking organization. As such, CIOs should envision a systematic approach to identifying business operation requirements for IT services by engaging executive decision-making processes and scenarios, IT needs to understand both internal customers, as well as end customers and the level of customer satisfaction, will naturally increase CIOs’ power and influence. But their concerns are not about power or control, but about the capability to define, create, deliver and claim values, to support the critical business result.

Digital transformation represents a break with the past, with a high level of impact and complexity. Digital transformation effort needs to start with the mind shift, culture innovating, process tuning, and capability building. Regardless of what you call it: alignment, enablement, collaboration, integration, harmony, etc., it’s important to identify opportunities for enhancing IT-business relationship and improving IT maturity. CIOs need to be transformative leaders to advocate for their organization, to bridge the gaps, build the culture of innovation, engage employees and delight customers with the ultimate goal to reach digital vision and expand organizational maturity.

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