In this week's edition of news for CIOs and IT pros, we bring you sound advice for communicating the value of IT as a driver of digital transformation.
Enterprisers News: July 13-17, 2015
Advice for the evolving CIO
Communications is a skill often left to the marketing team. But as IT works to build trust and a reputation of innovation with the entire enterprise, it's becoming apparent that communications is the missing link preventing many IT organizations from truly demonstrating their value. Beth Stackpole explores this idea in depth in her article for CIO, in which she highlights examples of dedicated IT communications specialists in action.
Ian Cox, a well respected advisor and mentor to CIOs and author of The CIO Leader, knows all too well the challenges CIOs face in communicating their value to the enterprise. With that in mind, he penned an open letter to CEOs, encouraging them to view their CIOs as leaders in digital transformation.
More advice for CIOs: CIOs Share Rapid App Development Strategies
Tackling digital transformation
As Ben Rossi points out in his Information Age article this week, “87% of companies feel that digital transformation is a competitive opportunity” - the primary reason being that consumers are embracing digital, multiplatform experiences at an increasing pace. In order to move quickly enough and succeed in this hyper connected world, businesses must remove the walls between business and IT.
Companies are approaching this challenge in various ways – one key strategy being the hire of a Chief Digital Officer to head up digital change. Nicole Laskowski reflects on this trend in her latest article for TechTarget's SearchCIO. In it, she highlights the three types of CDOs (Digital GMs, Digital Disruptors, and Digital Evangelists), and how the CDO role complements the role of the CIO.
CIOs in the news
Jenny Stadigs interviewed Systembolaget CIO Mattias Forsberg this week about IT's role in the business. Mattius says that it's a mistake to see IT as simply a service provider because CIOs will miss out on the opportunity to collaborate and cooperate with business leaders toward common goals. Read the full interview in ComputerWeekly.
Re/Code's Arik Hesseldahl highlights the impressive and inspirational career of Martin Chavez, CIO of Goldman Sachs, who heads up a technology “army” of over 10,000 engineers and prefers open source over building or buying. Chavez is the latest addition in the lineup of speakers for the upcoming Code/Enterprise Series.
But wait, there's more
Information Age - How organizations can embrace the CIO as cloud enabler, not cloud gatekeeper
ZDNet - Big data's big problem: How to make it work in the real world
CIO Magazine - CIOs must embrace consumer cloud tools or risk losing control
