4 Strategies for CIOs to Accelerate Digital Transformation

Start with building operational awareness and empowering your end users.

As companies strive to improve efficiency and increase innovation and customer engagement, digital transformation is becoming imperative. In response, CIOs are leaving nothing to chance, overhauling virtually every facet of their companies. In 2018, IDC forecasted a worldwide investment in digital transformation technologies of $1.1 trillion.

Yet while most CIOs are feeling the pressure to drive their company’s transformation, many lack a plan for doing so. Historically, CIOs oversaw the computer systems and other components of their company’s IT infrastructure. Today, they’re expected to not only maintain it but also to help transform how their company operates, using cloud-based apps, services and other technologies that are still in the relatively early stages of development and adoption.

Meanwhile, factors such as the continued growth of data and expansion of the mobile workforce are culminating to make the job of CIO one of the most demanding, dynamic and essential of the modern enterprise.

Digital transformation might sound like a daunting challenge, but it doesn’t have to be. Using the following strategies, CIOs can more effectively accelerate their organization’s digital transformation.

1. Increase your operational intelligence. As CIO, what’s happening outside your company is just as critical as what’s inside — where your company is excelling in the market, as well as meeting — or missing — performance benchmarks. Without awareness of both, business decisions tend to be reactionary and short-sighted. Using cloud-based collaboration tools, you can monitor your projects’ status in real-time, ensuring you understand your organization’s readiness to respond to change. And using a real-time dashboard you can consolidate performance data from across the company, enabling you to quickly assess performance and pinpoint areas for improvement.
2. Embrace your expanded role. Today’s CIOs must be equally at home in the boardroom and the server room. Not only are you responsible for managing your company’s IT environment, you’re also in charge of helping identify new business opportunities, and designing the technological solutions that make them possible. With this in mind, make it a point to learn more about the day-to-day challenges facing leaders in other parts of the business. Look for ways to help them implement solutions and find new avenues for growth.
3. Uncover emerging trends. Today’s trends are tomorrow’s reality, and the sooner you take action, the greater the chance of continued growth and efficiency. With tools such as data analytics, you can dissect structured and unstructured data sets, and more quickly anticipate trends such as shifts in the supply chain or customer purchasing patterns. With the insights you glean, you can develop a response plan that’s informed and effective. Equinix, a California-based data center services provider, deployed an AI-powered prediction model that notifies sales reps whenever customers might be likely to suspend their service agreement. According to the Wall Street Journal, Equinix’s AI solution based its predictions on roughly 70 factors, all of which contribute to a customer ending their relationship. Having this added layer of intelligence has enabled Equinix’s sales reps to use their time more effectively in meeting the needs of the company’s 9,000+ customers, and the accuracy of the solution’s predictions increased in the first few months from around 50% to nearly 90%.
4. Embrace the role of chief enabler. As CIO, you always keep your end user in mind. More and more employees have come to depend on the ease-of-use of cloud-based tools that they can access from virtually anywhere. Collaboration tools are another popular tool of choice as people become more accustomed to working together in virtual teams.Giving your employees the tools they prefer will them to be more effective and get more done. And choosing a collaboration tool with capabilities such as easy-to-use automation features will streamline workflows, cutting out repetitive, productivity-killing emails and meetings — leading to accelerated business processes.

As CIO, your ultimate responsibility is to help your company innovate more quickly, respond to market shifts more rapidly and drive business operations to their fullest. With the proper tools, sound guidance and a listening ear, employees can maximize their impact on the bottom line and the company can improve its ability to compete.