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CEOs, CIOs and digital businesses

Joanne Carew
By Joanne Carew, ITWeb Cape-based contributor.
Cape Town, 29 Sept 2015
CIOs must treat digital as a long-term conversation, says Gartner fellow Mark Raskino.
CIOs must treat digital as a long-term conversation, says Gartner fellow Mark Raskino.

Digital businesses blur the lines between virtual and physical worlds.

The CEOs who will be highly successful must make digital a business priority and should be willing to regularly collaborate with their CIOs.

This is according to Mark Raskino, VP and Gartner fellow in the Executive Leadership and Innovation group of Gartner Research. Raskino was speaking during the afternoon session on the first day of Gartner Symposium/ITxpo 2015, taking place at the Cape Town International Convention Centre.

As the introduction to his address, he cited how various CEOs from industries spanning financial and food and beverages are creating interesting intersections between the physical and digital world. He described Starbucks' introduction of digital tools into all aspects of its business and the digitisation of its coffee cups as an example of how digital strategies are changing products, services and industries.

"CIOs should be expecting and requesting more involvement from their CEOs," he said, continuing that this involvement should occur in the most difficult scenario the CIO has to handle to make technology work for their business.

For Raskino, if C-level execs and business leaders fail to act as a team and work to realise deeper digital change, they will collapse. "This is why CIOs are getting the support they might not have gotten just a few years ago," he said, noting that in digital businesses, the CIO has become a leader, not a follower.

A quarter of CEOs name a technology issue in their top three business priorities, said Raskino. While this may not seem like a sizable figure, he pointed out that technology has never typically been considered a "business priority", which is why this number is so significant. "If you want to do something big with technology in your existing business or industry, now would be a good time to make that call because it is possible that you may never see this level of CEO interest in your career ever again."

He stressed the importance of determining what percentage of business growth is expected from digital products and services as these forecasts can be used to better justify digital investments to other business executives. This is interesting when one considers the findings of a multi-industry survey detailed that CEOs expect digital revenue to double in coming years.

Raskino suggested we may already have reached the peak of digital interest. If this is the case, he believes this is not the time to shrug your shoulders and walk away. In fact, it is the perfect time for businesses to make the bold changes to revolutionise how their products and industries work.

With this in mind, he outlined how CEOs should be thinking about long-range planning and implementing strategies for change. "CIOs must treat digital as a long-term conversation and must not just be pulled towards the short-term."

Real leaders should be adept at telling stories, Raskino said. And CIOs need to be able to showcase the successes of companies or business leaders who are using technology to find success in order to illustrate how they can do the same thing to realise similar results.

"There is so much change set to happen and it is the responsibility of the CIO to drive that change."

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