A recent Gartner report shows more than 10% of government organisations will have appointed a chief data officer and over 20% a chief digital officer by 2014, but SA is unlikely to follow suit, say analysts.
According to the Gartner report, the development and implementation of digital government strategies is putting the government CIO role under pressure by leading to the creation of new roles. "Digital government strategies issued in several jurisdictions during the past 12 months, as well as the continued momentum of open government, are bringing new leadership roles to the fore," says Andrea Di Maio, managing VP at Gartner. "In government, as well as other industries, roles like chief data officer or chief digital officer are emerging in response to the increasing importance of enterprise digital assets."
The newly created roles are likely to coexist with more traditional ones, like CIO and chief technology officer (CTO) in the short term, necessitating a close working relationship between new and existing roles, he says. In the long term, however, Gartner predicts the overlapping roles and the lack of a sufficiently clear distinction about responsibilities on information management will inevitably lead to the rebalancing of responsibilities.
It is highly unlikely the South African government will appoint a chief digital officer or chief data officer by 2014, says Ovum analyst, Richard Hurst. He notes that while these positions will be "nice to have", SA has more pressing ICT issues to address, such as government's overall ICT strategy, IT in education and skills challenges.
"A CIO heads up the entire IT strategy, while a chief data officer will be focusing on managing the huge amounts of data organisations now have to deal with. A chief digital officer will have very much the same responsibilities as the CIO. So it is worth thinking about, but not really necessary," he says.
IDC analyst Spiwe Chireka agrees that SA will not be following this global trend. "Looking at where we are in SA right now, we do not have as extensive e-government and digital channels as you would find elsewhere in the world. So I do not expect SA to follow this trend.
"SA in general tends to lag begin with the rest of the world, so maybe we will see this [trend] in the long term. But not within the next 12 months."
She notes that aspects such as government's broadband policy will mean a push of more e-governance in the future, which could see new IT roles brought about by around 2018.
Hurst points out that a lack of skills locally will mean it will be difficult to fill these positions. The position of government CIO has been vacant for more than two years, and the Department of Public Service and Administration (DPSA) is yet to appoint someone to the post.
DPSA spokesperson Ndivhuwo Wa Ha Mabaya previously explained the department advertised the post, but was compelled to embark on an additional headhunting process as the minister was not happy with the quality of candidates.
"This just goes to show the challenge we have in this region to find the appropriate skills," says Hurst. "It is a real challenge to get the right level of staff to fill high-level positions such as this one."
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