Taking the wheel: Four ways CIOs can enable successful digital transformation

Worldwide IT spending is set to grow by 5%, hitting $4.5 trillion across the course of 2022. And according to Gartner, we’re seeing more long-term strategic digital transformation projects.

This shift places the CIO in the driving seat within many enterprises, as they will have an increasingly important role to play in ensuring success over the next few years. Many boards now expect CIOs to act as an extended member of the executive team, rather than simply running the IT landscape or ’keeping the lights on’, as they have been over the last few years.

So, now they play a key role in strategic organisational growth, what skills do CIOs have to master to truly drive the business forward? Here are four key skills that should be at the top of their list.

1. Deep understanding of emerging technologies

Firstly, it is imperative for CIOs to understand and harness the latest technological developments. As Gartner says, CIOs are leading the charge towards digital business, so being ahead of the curve with tech like AI and blockchain has never been more of a priority. CIOs are expected to be able to identify use cases for increasingly advanced capabilities, such as microservices architecture and hyper-personalisation.

This means the days of CIOs simply needing to be good program managers are over: they need a level of technical insight to act as technology and engineering managers.

2. Alignment to product-based organisation design

Increasing numbers of modern CIOs are no longer looking at their organisation as a small group of large teams organised around specific applications – instead they’re redesigning their organisations as a larger group of smaller teams, working towards a wider objective. This is to some degree influenced by the big players like Facebook, Amazon, Google and Apple, whose business strategies have promoted the setup of product-based organisation design.

In practice, each small product team will own a business feature or capability end-to-end, with their own product managers. By moving to an Agile process or framework, smaller teams can drive value to the end consumers (both internal and external) of the capability. The best performing CIOs drive this change both in their business facing teams as well as in core IT teams like infrastructure and end-user computing.

The key to success during the adaptation process is to develop an effective communication strategy that reaches everybody, from junior engineers to non-technical leaders, measuring progress and gain feedback on strategy and objectives.

3. Servant leadership

For a CIO to succeed, they must listen to all feedback, share responsibility, put the needs of employees first and nurture talent. This is crucial during the definition phase of a transformation, so a CIO needs to be prescriptive in nature, finding ways to encourage the whole team to work towards overarching business goals.

They also need to accept that not everyone will be happy with the changes resulting from their decisions, and allow teams to autonomously find the best way to reach defined business goals.

For this model to succeed, CIOs should consider working with a neutral or outside party as an advisor on occasion. This will help to move away from pre-existing legacy practices.

4. Political acumen

CIOs must have enough insight to break down any barriers that remain between IT teams and other departments within the organisation. Now technology plays such a significant role in driving business goals, the friction that previously existed has started to subside.

Arguably, this change is being driven by the modern CEO. Much like the CIO, their role has evolved to one that prioritises business aligned digital transformation and thereby ensuring CIOs are equal to their business counterparts. This may be unchartered territory for some CIOs, so it’s worth being aware that they now have a foot firmly planted in both camps – and need to bring IT together with other functions such as HR and finance.

Grasping the opportunity

As a key driver for strategic digital transformation, it’s clear that the CIO role is now integral to the future success of a business – so it’s time to grab the wheel. With CIOs expected to act as an additional member of the board, it’s no longer enough to simply run the IT landscape with legacy technology or processes if they want to enhance organisational growth.

By mastering these four key skills, they can be confident in their ability to ensure the organisation digitally transforms in a way that meets overarching objectives – driving success in the years and decades to come.