CIO role changing from delivery to biz executive

Vantage point: Insights from cutting-edge research

Digitalisation and technological innovation are changing the nature of the job of the chief information officer (CIO). Leaders are rapidly scaling their digital businesses, making the remainder of this year and 2018 a defining moment for CIOs who don’t want to be left behind. Gartner, Inc.’s annual global survey of CIOs showed that their role is transitioning from delivery executive to business executive, from controlling cost and engineering processes, to driving revenue and exploiting data. Gartner analysts presented the survey findings last week. The 2018 Gartner CIO Agenda Survey gathered data from 3,160 respondents in 98 countries and all major industries, representing approximately $13 trillion in revenue/public sector budgets and $277 billion in IT spending. The respondents were categorised as top, typical and trailing performers in digitalisation.

The survey results show that 95 per cent CIOs expect their jobs to change or be remixed due to digitalisation. While world-class IT delivery management is a given, it will take up less and less of the CIO’s time. Respondents believe the two biggest transformations in the CIO role will be becoming a change leader, followed by assuming increased and broader responsibilities and capabilities. Inevitably, the job of CIO will extend beyond the traditional delivery roles to other areas of the business, such as innovation management and talent development.

“The CIO’s role must grow and develop as digital business spreads, and disruptive technologies, including intelligent machines and advanced analytics, reach the masses,” said Andy Rowsell-Jones, vice-president and distinguished analyst at Gartner. “While delivery is still a part of the job, much greater emphasis is being placed on attaining a far broader set of business objectives.” A majority of CIOs say that technology trends, specifically cybersecurity and artificial intelligence, will significantly change how they do their jobs in the near future.

Firms with great strategies often fall short on execution

A new report released by The Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU), commissioned by the Brightline Initiative, finds that most companies struggle to bridge the gap between strategy development and its day-to-day implementation. A global multi-sector survey of 500 senior executives from companies with annual revenue of $1 billion or more, conducted by the EIU, reveals that on average companies fail to meet 20 per cent of their strategic objectives because of poor implementation. “A strategy might look good on a PowerPoint slide but it is only as good as its execution,” says Peter Toth, global head of strategy at Rio Tinto, a UK-headquartered global mining company and a report interviewee. “That’s where the rubber hits the road.”

The research identifies a small cadre of companies — classified as leaders — that report faring best at achieving their strategic objectives. Some best practices of this elite group include:

Getting intelligence to those who can do something about it. More than half of leaders say their organisation provides effective feedback to allow those implementing strategy to take into account information from the evolving competitor landscape (compared with 35 per cent of other respondents). Fifty per cent of leaders say they collect and effectively distribute information on changing customer needs (against 34 per cent from others).

Balancing responsiveness and long-term vision. Leaders move quickly to adjust strategy and implementation to exploit changing opportunities and risks. At the same time they keep an end goal in sight, to avoid being knocked off track by overreacting to short-term developments.

Viewing strategy design and delivery as a continuum. At leaders, interaction between those implementing strategy and those responsible for designing it leads to an ongoing evolution of the strategy itself as well as to programme delivery approaches that are most effective for putting it into practice.