What ‘re Crucial Elements to Run Paramount Digital IT

Being outside-in and people-centric is the mantra to run a paramount digital IT organization. 

Information is growing exponentially and change is inevitable, IT makes the influence on almost every aspect of business nowadays. CIOs have to deal with constant ambiguity, increasing complexity, rapid change, and unprecedented uncertainty. Many IT organizations are at an inflection point to lead organizational level digitalization. So, what are crucial elements to run “paramount” digital IT organization?

Insight is paramount: Many IT organizations still get stuck at the lower level of maturity because they are too busy on fixing the symptoms, or taking care of immediate problems, without spending enough effort on digging into the root cause of intricacies or thinking of the long-term strategy. To run a high performance and high mature digital IT, Insight is paramount. Trying to fix symptoms, not the real problem, will perhaps cause more issues later on. CIOs need to become far, far more people focused and business literate. They are in the unique position to manage the most invaluable business asset - information, as well as oversee the underlying functions and processes of the business, that is a great advantage to capture business insight. Insight is paramount because how you figure out a solution to any problem depends on your perspective on that problem. Every problem has numerous angles to take into consideration. it boils down to how you view the problem from different outlooks; from above (executives’ strategic view) or from below (frontline’s tactical view); from inside-out (operation lens) or from outside-in (customer lens). In addition, Information Technology is the linchpin to glue the digital organization which is a working switch of the expanding digital ecosystem. When looking at business/organizations, the most powerful aspect of these processes involves tapping the organization's ecosystem (people-centricity) for the collective perspectives/insights of those who make and know intimately their parts of the system. With business insight, IT applying its business sense can help businesses analyze information unearth unknown benefit, as it is often difficult for non-technical people to understand the incredibly broad scope of solutions that technology can provide to business problems, so IT leaders need to work closely with business partners from a long-term perspective, to fix the root causes, not just symptoms.

Innovation is paramount: Many IT organizations are at the crossroad, to either become the strategic business partner or turn to be irrelevant. Thus, innovation is paramount. The opportunity for the CIO to add a lot of value in the C-Suite is helping C-Level leaders understand the possibilities of how new technologies or abundant information can enhance the creation or improvement of products/services/ solutions. IT cannot be seen as an innovation engine unless IT management clearly understands what their organization does for a living and how IT can build business competency. To run an innovative IT organization, the more difficult challenge is not just launching successful teams, but maintaining their motivation and focus. CIOs who are only putting stress on "having the knowledge" not on "building the new knowledge" or “connecting unusual dots,” to spark innovation might be in danger just to preserve the organization and thus create huge constraints for the possible innovation. In the ever-changing digital dynamic, innovation is paramount, worth persistent effort and wise investment. IT needs to build a culture of innovation, and talented IT professionals should be empowered to use the creative side of their thinking for discovering new ways of doing things that allow for innovation to happen.

Multidimensional digitalization is paramount: Digitalization is not a single dimensional technological expansion, but a multifaceted management discipline. IT leaders need to shift the old thinking (leads to a burden of support for operations) to the digital thinking whereas the true potential is in liberating new products, services, and business models. The challenge is how to accelerate business performance and maximize the full potential of the digital business. IT management has to work both in IT and on IT, the true value is created at the intersection of many management disciplines. Digital IT has to be configured in a way to understand the business profoundly and set the architecture to deliver the tailored business and market need proactively. With the exponential growth of information and emerging digital technologies as the force behind continuous disruption, forward-looking organizations across industrial sectors are on the way for managing digital paradigm shift. IT applications and its dynamics are totally different from previous age, beside automation, information availability, IT applications blended with current digital trends can deliver significant benefit to the business, such as business optimization, adaptability, real-time customer experience, innovative products/services. Digitalization becomes the very fabric of high performing business, it is paramount because leading digital businesses take the structured approach to expand digital to all important dimensions with a set of well-defined digital principles, the strong business disciplines and a series of digital best practices. Digital IT acts as an ‘orchestrator,’ to conduct an ongoing, information-mature, and customer-centric digital organizations.

Organizations rely more and more on technology and the IT department has more and more to overcome. IT management is multifaceted; being outside-in and people-centric is the mantra to run a paramount digital IT organization. IT leaders should be good at the perception of technology trend, business solution or alternative talent development & recruiting practices to ensure they have all important business elements mixed into differentiated business competency.

Posted in: Digital Master,Digitalization,IT Transformation