They’re business thought leaders
Ten years ago, it was acceptable to just say, “We want to become paperless, develop a database, and save floorspace,” to kick off a digital project. Efforts like this spirited the first round of digital projects, but now expectations from the business are greater. How much revenue will the new project generate? How much will it reduce corporate operating expenses? If the project reduces time to decision, will it make a difference as to how well we satisfy our customers, how quickly we bring new product to market, or how quickly we respond to new market, regulatory, or environmental conditions?
Project by project, the CIO is expected to bring hard-hitting, “breakthrough” business strategies to the table that digitalization can address. Cultivating business-centric IT and becoming a thought leader — not just for technology but the business as a whole — is a key step to ensuring projects not only receive buy-in but succeed.
They educate
The job of the digital CIO is to raise awareness of critical business needs that can be remedied with digital technology, and to then explain in plain English how the technology works and why it can deliver business value. This includes describing in straightforward language the infrastructure — network, storage, processing, and so on — that supports the project, and why infrastructure investments are needed.
