New considerations for CIOs leading digital transformations

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This week, Matson Navigation CIO Peter Weis shed some light on one of the hardest parts of leading transformation in his organization. Weis said: “For me, the most difficult and gut-wrenching part of leading our transformation was not the technology involved. It was making and acting on those tough decisions about who was not going to succeed.”

Feeling inspired, this week’s news roundup for IT leaders includes several other considerations for CIOs undergoing their own digital transformations. These and more articles below.

Digital transformation by the numbers

Tom Sullivan recaps recent projections from IDC that the market for digital transformation is on its way to hitting $20 trillion, representing 20 percent of global GDP. Sullivan writes, “IDC determined that fewer than 5 percent of companies, spanning 14 vertical industries including healthcare, have made a full digital transformation. What’s more, 67 percent are in the early stages.” See more of his recap in Healthcare IT News here.

Barriers to digital transformation

Writing for Network World, Ben Kepes references a PointSource study, which highlights some of the challenges standing in the way of organizations’ transformation efforts. The survey of 300 decision makers across marketing, IT, and operations “found that internal processes and IT architectures are a significant barrier to organizational change. But it’s not just technology that is proving difficult – their direction, experience and culture all have a part to play.” Kepes’ take: “Change is hard. And simply looking at change from a technology perspective totally misses the point. Organizations need to look across the four different aspects of organizational change to really put in place a platform for change.”

Important cross-industry themes

Joseph Pascaretta, VP of operations for H&L Digital, spoke with executives across New York, Los Angeles, Dallas, and London about their digital transformations and heard three common themes spanning a cross-section of industries. He dives into each of these themes, which include leadership and culture, agility and responsiveness, and data ubiquity and use, and takeaways from his conversations with executives in an article in Diginomica this week.

More articles for CIOs

The strategic CIO's first day: In search of IT operational excellence [TechTarget]

Career prospects in technology: How far can you really go? [ZDNet]

Google created an AI that can learn almost as fast as a human [Futurism]

Carla Rudder is a community manager and program manager for The Enterprisers Project. She enjoys bringing new authors into the community and helping them craft articles that showcase their voice and deliver novel, actionable insights for readers.