Friday, August 4, 2017

The Monthly Digital CIO Spotlight: The Digital CIO’s Digital Practices Aug. 2017

Digital CIOs have to build their credibility as a trusted business adviser via setting the right priority and make continuous delivery.

Modern CIOs have many personas and face great challenges. It is not sufficient to only keep the light on. Regardless of which industry or the nature of the organization you are in, being a digital leader will need to master the art of creating unique, differentiating value from piles of commoditized technologies. What are the digital CIO’s next digital practices for leading changes and drive digital transformation effortlessly? Here is the monthly spotlight of the CIO.      
                      
   The Digital CIO’s Digital Practices


  • The Modern CIOs’ Digital Mantra: Go Deeper to Lead Forward Organizations large or small are stepping into the deep, deep digital new normal with the overwhelming growth of information, continuous technological disruptions, as well as the VUCA” digital characteristics. The pace of changes in IT would force more CIOs to shift into transformation-oriented digital leadership roles because IT plays a significant role in driving the digital transformation of the company. Contemporary CIOs need to have multiple personas, explore the breadth and depth of the role and go deeper in order to lead forward.

  • The “Upward” Digital CIOs: Can you Move Up from “Working in IT” to “Working on IT”? The traditional role of CIOs is to manage information, IT systems, and cost, often within the IT as the support function. Thus, IT is perceived as a cost center to “keep the lights on” only. Many of today’s C-suites are unaware of what is technologically possible now or in the future, and how to leverage IT to unleash the full potential of the digital organization. Hence, to improve IT leadership effectiveness and maturity, today’s digital CIOs should move “upward,” from working within IT, only focus on transactional business activities and improve the bottom line efficiency, to working on IT, expand its impact across the business boundary and lead the digital transformation of the company proactively.

  • The Digital CIO’s Five Priorities in Daily Grinding? Being a contemporary CIO is a tough job facing unprecedented complexity and numerous dilemmas, due to change nature of technology and exponential growth of information, CIOs seem to be always in the hot seat, with the pressure to reinvent IT to adapt to changes with rapidly increasing speed. Since so many CIOs have been perceived as tactical IT managers, rather than visionary business leaders,  and business still thinks IT as a service desk, rather than a strategic partner. The forward-looking CIOs have to build their credibility as a trusted business adviser via setting the right priority in the key areas which need daily focus and manage the time and resource effectively. Here are five priorities in CIOs' daily grinding.



  • Three Aspects of IT Communication: Traditional IT organizations are often running in a functional silo to speak the technical jargon business couldn’t understand; now with IT consumerization and other digital technology trends, IT is at crossroad to either move up the maturity ladder, to become a value generator and business partner, or continue to be considered as support function or cost center. As IT leader, how can CIOs and IT managers convey the vision and deliver the clear messages of IT being a value enhancer and profit enabler?



  • CIO’s Daily Responsibility? Modern CIOs play different roles in their organizations, they are both business strategist and IT manager; process innovator and governance champion; customer advocate and talent master; Overall speaking, the CIO is a leadership role who shall practice visionary leadership and steer their organizations in the right direction and makes positive influence; the CIO is a strategic role who needs to oversee the company’s information landscapes and make effective technology-oriented decisions. But more specifically, what’s the CIO’s daily responsibility?

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