Due to the changing nature of technology, and abundance of information, IT has to be reinvented to the growth engine of the business, and Information Technology should be seen by any business as a “digital transformer.” The IT leadership role also continues to be reimagined, refined, refreshed and reenergized. What is the best scenario for digital CIOs to amplify leadership influence and improve IT management effectiveness and efficiency?
Conceptual understanding of business: Digital CIOs are first, the business executive, then IT managers. Thus, it is extremely important that CIOs who want to, and can work at the strategic board level, have the conceptual understanding of the business, also understand how the emergent technologies affect each area of the enterprise. The CIO by himself/herself should understand technology enough to ensure he/she has a keen sense of judgment on the priorities for capital investment. Be a trusted IT savvy business advisor to other C-suite executives and stakeholders regarding IT issues, concerns, and considerations. They need to get the message outside of their own circles so that they can make a leadership influence on organizational, industrial or even national scope and beyond. Businesses can empower their CIOs to voice and contribute more at the strategic level. CIOs can truly communicate to BoDs and executive peers effectively based on their in-depth understanding of the holistic business ecosystem, not just via the IT lens, but via the business lens. IT leaders have to speak business terms by area, not the technology. So when they ask what time it is, you don't have to explain how the watch works. With these in place, the CIOs can transform from a technology manager intoa business leader, and from a tactical manager to a strategy adviser.
Strategic Planning: CIOs need to make an objective evaluation on how IT can directly contribute to the organization's strategic direction and the top line growth. Because technology is often the disruptive force of digital innovation, as well as the crucial component of building the business capability. The business strategy lifecycle has progressively shortened for many business models. This is a process of digital evolution. IT leaders must have strategic vision and insight into how information technology can better catalyze and enable the organization's ability to achieve strategic objectives; making the IT department a profit center is what the real challenge in most of the organizations, because it requires re-thinking how the things are doing here, as well as reinvent the corporate processes and creating that changed sense of maintenance and support to services provisioning of many different kinds, such as consolidation and even insourcing at a cost - putting on wheels a new profit center. CIOs need to make strategic planning proactively and also be able to implement the well-defined business goals proactively and lead IT in reaching high-level performance and leverage IT to maximize the full digital potential of the company.
The stepwise IT management approach: The digital IT organization is no longer an isolated function, but an innovation hub of the company. CIOs need to lead the IT organization so that every level of the organization has great working relationships with the IT teams. And IT leaders need to take the stepwise IT management approach for making continuous deliveries and improving the overall business responsiveness, flexibility, performance, and maturity. CIOs must understand technology to at least a level that he/she is able to direct when needed. What many leaders often fail at when constructing transformation is the need to design and orchestrate real transformative change at the individual, relational, and systemic levels simultaneously. To accomplish the IT focus, CIOs must surround themselves with highly competent leaders, managers, project managers, and technology specialists capable of managing and executing the organization's IT operations, programs, and projects. They should be able to properly plan and manage a healthy IT portfolio to ensure the business alignment with strategic objectives within budgetary and resource constraints.
The business requires that IT helps to diagnose the root cause of the business issues, and IT can provide solutions to real-life business problems as well. This can only be achieved by constant engagement and both sides seeing the other as a "partner" rather than an adversary. The ultimate success of IT should be evaluated on how IT is able to deliver innovative products/services or supply a differentiated business solution that contributes to both top line business growth and the bottom line success of the organization. The ultimate success of IT leaders should assess whether they can make amplified leadership influence and how they can follow digital principles and practice the multidisciplinary IT management effortlessly. Digital CIOs are "Chief Insight Officer, Chief Innovation Officer, and Chief Imagination Officer."
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