- Reports of the death of the CIO are greatly exaggerated, paraphrasing the great mind of Mark Twain. Yet, to stay relevant, CIOs need to reinvent themselves and drive transformational change. It is no longer enough to just guarantee that systems are up and running and ensure that tech failures do not result in organizations making the headlines.
- Perceptions of CIOs’ effectiveness depend on the lens we apply to the analysis. Many boards put CIOs under enormous pressure to deliver cost savings. At the same time, many technology leaders are being coerced into transformation projects without buying into them. Yet, we know that most digital transformations are failing. It is important to ensure a career path for employees in the post-cloud world to reduce the fear of obsolescence.
- We see a shift in how successful organizations think about technology: The key is close collaboration between business and IT. An effective CIO needs to be able to explain IT’s value to the board while collaborating with business unit leaders. Innovative CIOs educate the board members on technology but always tie it back to business impact and value.
- If you want to make that business transformation and move to the cloud, you have to tie it back to business impact. The most successful CIOs can speak to the technologists in their organization and to the business, get buy-in from both, and listen to their stakeholders.
- To support organizations on their transformation journey, HFS is driving the research agenda for IT services aligned with its Autonomous Enterprise framework. The goal of an autonomous enterprise is to allow us humans to remove ourselves from some parts of the system so that we can continuously improve the ecosystem as a whole.
- Thus, we will focus on cloud-enabled operating and business model transformation. We need a better understanding of the enabling technologies and change agents driving the transformation. Similarly, we need better articulation of how we operationalize cloud-native transformation. Our key focus is the innovation agenda, including data, apps, and ecosystems. We must also get our heads around how we can assure transformation outcomes, whether by progressing digital trust or extending quality assurance to a broader notion of business assurance.
- This, then, is our CIO Mandate. With it, we strive to provide thought leadership and convey the best practices from our community. We stand ready to hear, learn from, and share your experiences.
Explore the HFS Pulse Dashboard
Take a look at the breadth of data in our Pulse Dashboard, which showcases data about current and future demand trends for technology and business services and related emerging technologies. See more here.
