4 ways CIOs turn digital transformation into business transformation

The modern CIO role has morphed into one that is equal parts technologist, business strategist and transformational change agent.

Today’s CIOs are just as likely to be spearheading the technology and data strategy for a new line of business as they are mapping out an enterprise road map for cloud migration. As technology evolves from being an enabler of the business to the lifeblood of the business, the modern CIO is no longer limited to taking orders and implementing somebody else’s playbook. Many CIOs have risen to the level of trusted partner for business transformation, driving the organizational changes and championing the technology and data initiatives designed to secure success in the digital era.

The recent focus on remote work and digitally driven customer and employee experience resulting from the global pandemic underscored the importance of the CIO’s evolving and expanding role.

The expectation is that CIOs have a very business value-driven approach to the way they execute their job and speak the language of the business. More institutions are putting senior IT executives onto the board as a steering mechanism for the C-suite. That has given the CIO a different voice at that level, but it also raises a different set of shareholder expectations of the role technology has to play in transformation.

Fostering business alignment

Key to the mission of the modern CIO is ensuring that technology-driven innovations are in sync with key business goals — not just an exercise in adopting the latest advances in artificial intelligence (AI) or multi-cloud simply because they are generating buzz. With many IT budgets down slightly or in a holding pattern since the pandemic (63% of organizations in the State of the CIO survey cited flat or reduced budgets in 2020), CIOs are again being asked to transform more with constrained resources, highlighting the need to partner with business units to cherry-pick projects with the greatest potential to drive growth and new revenue.

To do so effectively, CIOs need to fully immerse themselves in the business, staying current on core strategy. And they must continue to communicate the value of technology-enabled innovation through a common business lexicon, not in technical terms.

Partnering with business units with cash to spend puts IT in the position of no longer being a service provider, but rather a partner that has responsibility to help the business grow.

Cultivating an agile and adaptive IT ops model

The rapid shift to remote work and the need to create new experiences and channels in response to COVID-19 illustrated just how fast IT needs to move to succeed in today’s digital era. To deliver technology at speed, the modern CIO needs to enable new ways of working, including agile development practices and a services management model that modernizes and automates IT.

In addition, CIOs need to reorient the IT organization to emphasize customer requirements, prioritize work streams, create minimally viable solutions and promote an environment where it’s okay to fail fast. To raise the stakes further, the IT organization needs to transition to more of a product mindset, informed by data-driven insights. And that shift must happen at scale.

“Technology used to support the business, but now technology might be the business,” Alicia Johnson says. “The CIO needs to lay out that future vision, which is vital to the success of the role.”