How CIOs Can Play an Influential Role to Drive Digital Transformation?

Today, business leaders or executives consider digital transformation as inevitable. And CEOs (Chief Executive Officer) are the ones who are eager to lead the change within their industries. But, to disrupt the whole thing in the organization, they need to surround themselves with people who adopt a pioneer mindset. Thus, with this belief that digital transformation is inevitable, CIOs (Chief Information Officer) have the opportunity to influence the executive members in whole new ways.

Digital transformation has been the main source to deploy, control and manage all the technological breakthroughs in the business process. However, more frequently changing technologies and a more tech savvy user base are the biggest challenge for most enterprises. So, it is the CIO's role that is accountable for the organization's direction towards digital transformation.

According to industry reports, nearly 40 percent of the CIOs are responsible for digital transformation in the organization, while just 27 percent of the CEOs come into the list.

Pioneering the Way into Transformation

Any transformation these days relies heavily on digital landscape and CEOs expect CIOs to play a prime role when it comes to pioneering business transformations. CIOs have a cluster of technological knowledge that helps them lead digital transformation in a company. But they also need to employ ideas by presenting wisely formed strategies.

They effectively implement ideas that distinguish them from their adversaries and force industry changes simultaneously. However, they also face a continuous challenge to make use of the latest technologies that make them keep on inventing new IT innovations in order to make the entire business process agile.

CIOs carry major responsibility to drive technological change in the organization. And those who are not willing to take the challenge to transform their business processes always bring a risk of becoming an ordinary player in their industry.

So, CIOs always need to be receptive to new ideas from their team members, inspire innovative thinking, initiate discussions with the team, and perceive how the idea can help drive innovation for digitization.

Engaging C-Suite Executives for Internal Culture Change

The internal culture will change only by adopting new ways of thinking, embracing new processes and going a step beyond brainstorming and challenging the status quo. In this regard, working closely with C-suite executive members assists in nurturing innovative mindsets throughout the enterprise.

There has been a growing awareness in recent times among CIOs and other C-level executives that changing tools and operating models does not solely bring cultural change. It will only come when CIOs adopt and adapt their role to lead the digital transformation. They need to change their behavior and have conversations and share their ideas with executives and their peers.

Going Beyond the Fundamental Truths

Looking at how fast consumer behavior is changing and how their expectations are growing rapidly, CIOs need out-of-the-box thinking about fundamental truths. They must encourage their team to dispute fundamental truth statements like 'Customers need our Products and Services' and stir and challenge the team to find out solutions for the opposite state of the fundamental truths.

Moreover, positioning the mind of customers in a distinct scenario, ideas will also have a diverse nature. So, CIOs here assist their organizations by making effective strategies and creating a roadmap that can deliver these challenges.

It is also significant to consider that digital transformation shouldn't be limited to any particular department or any defined group. To effectively drive digital transformation, it requires a robust strategy, which covers each and every scenario inside the organization.