"The digital world is upon us. Every company is a technology company and every budget is an IT budget. By 2020, every company will be digitalised... and operating within the digital industrial economy."
These were the words of Peter Sondergaard, Gartner's global head of research, at the opening of the annual Gartner Symposium, in Cape Town, this morning.
Giving some insight into the changing role of the IT organisation, Sondergaard noted the IT department is no longer the "traditional back-office that manages the information technology".
It is rather an organisation that leads the digital strategy, coordinates all technology across the business, and focuses on defining the business technology architecture, enterprise information architecture, enterprise cyber security and risks, digital leadership skills and industrialised IT ecosystem.
Sondergaard explains that the global economic crisis of 2009 had created a whole new view on business. "What we have over the last four years called the nexus of forces - social, mobile, information and cloud - has now become integrated with the Internet of everything."
Consumer IT and organisational IT has merged to create the digital industrial economy, he notes, which will be the norm in 2020.
This presents both opportunities and threats for enterprises, says Sondergaard. While the digital industrial economy presents opportunities to all industries from media to mining, barriers of entry have never been lower. "In a digital world, competition is only a few seconds away," he says. "The cost of technology is no longer a barrier. Industrialisation of technology has arrived in the form of cloud computing.
"Infrastructure capability is already out there for you to use."
Changing roles
The transition into a digitised world will mean a change in traditional IT roles, notes John Mahoney, Gartner VP and analyst. He points out that while the role of chief digital officer (CDO) is now essential in the transitional period, it will no longer serve a purpose by 2020. Instead, the roles of digital business unit leader and digital marketing and media leader will be more important.
Sondergaard concurs that CDOs will have fulfilled their role by 2020, because the CDO has no budget, no organisation and does not form part of corporate governance.
"All leaders will be digital officers in 2020. Digital time is moving fast. Digital leadership skills become an integral part of management skills," he says.
According to Gartner, 70% of companies today have a chief marketing technologist and 80% of them report to marketing. Meanwhile, Gartner research shows that CEOs across the globe are asking more from technology and see it as their most important strategic asset. More than 50% of CEOs are asking for better delivery from IT, while only 10% of CIOs think they have an execution problem, says the firm.
Mahoney emphasises that digital leaders cannot rely on traditional and outdated leadership structures. These structures are too slow, too internal and too hierarchic, he says. Instead, digital leaders need to take an organisation where it was not going before. "Digital leaders should create and explain the digital vision for your enterprise. Find, assemble and connect all the capabilities of technology and people that you need to get there. And finally, execute the changes you need using the capabilities to get to where you want to be."
Digital leaders cannot rely on old practices, safe relationships, legacy technologies and known vendors, says Mahoney. Instead, leaders need to be fearless and look for unconventional ideas and business practices.
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