Ensconced in the notion of “digital business” that holds customer experience, there’s a rapid shift in focus. This goes from internally focused systems and initiatives to externally focused initiatives to support new products, services, and experiences.
The very role of the CIO is shifting in digital business
The Gartner 2018 CIO survey makes the point “The 2018 CIO Survey plainly reveals that the job of the CIO is changing.” As digitalization and innovation put more emphasis on the information rather than the technology in “IT,” the CIO’s role is transforming from delivery executive to business executive.
From controlling costs and re-engineering processes to driving revenue and exploiting data, “This new-found focus of driving revenue happens at the edge.” Cost savings while necessary when overemphasized is a naval gazing exercise that alone is a trap. The right balance of driving revenue and saving money is a must and right now for those for whom the pendulum is not pressing on the revenue side, they are missing out.
Just doing the same thing cheaper will not win Markets. Innovation and great customer experiences are external. Innovation is essential not only to drive revenue but to drive a stake in the ground for existing markets served and carving out new markets that did not exist prior.
Disrupt or be disrupted. Who would have thought Jeff Bezos, Warren Buffett, and Jamie Dimon—the CEOs of Amazon, Berkshire Hathaway, and JP Morgan would come together to disrupt healthcare. No company can rest on its laurels.
Key technologies
Let’s touch on a couple of key technologies to support innovation… for the purpose of engagement.
- First, API-led everything when it comes to integration. See some of the points made in my blog on the Ovum Decision Matrix for Middle Ware as a Service. APIs are an enabler to innovation and with that, an API strategy and API Management and security are essential to innovation. Again, integration is for the purpose of engagement.
- Second, have a strong strategy around Mobility and beyond. Mobility is the face of the digital. Read a recent blog here on APIFriends.
- Third, analytics is essential to exploit data—back to the Gartner 2018 CIO survey, “BI/analytics is in the No. 1 technology spot for 2018,” supported by the thesis already quoted “digitalization and innovation put more emphasis on the information rather than the technology in “IT,” the CIO’s role is transforming from delivery executive to business executive—from controlling costs and re-engineering processes to driving revenue and exploiting data.
- Fourth, embrace the ecosystem. Don’t go at it alone when it comes to innovation. Your ecosystem may or may not be Jeff Bezos, Warren Buffett, and Jamie Dimon, but you have an ecosystem your products and services touch and can co-create with an ecosystem to disrupt. I highly recommend David Nour’s book “co-create.”
- The IDC research on the trend of Customer Experience Networks visualizes the current state of how respondents indicate whether their customer-facing and customer information processes and systems are internally organization focused versus external customer-focused as a normal distribution curve. According to the research “IDC expects this curve to skew towards the right (externally facing) as digital transformation becomes more embedded in an enterprise culture.” The research further shows that leading Organizations lead with innovation in customer experience by leveraging other organizations to co-create success.
Finally, check out the IDC research, our eBook on co-create and co-innovate.
