The CIO’s Rising Star in the Postdigital Era
As enterprises adapt to an increasingly digital world, CIOs will likely become key players in the effort to infuse information into the business environment.
Some predict the slow demise of the CIO—as if IT will become a utility, managed as a distributed function across the business.¹ We predict the opposite. CIOs will likely not only become omnipresent on executive committees, but also become trusted advisors to CEOs as they navigate an increasingly digital business environment.
Business in the future will likely be conducted as a combination of discrete services—command and control giving way to service levels and outcomes. In this model, outside-in architecture becomes the norm, mandating a platform mentality when building new capabilities.² Integration and orchestration of services are more than technical challenges—they may become the basis for market offerings. Social graphs trump organizational structures, computing becomes pervasive and ubiquitous, event-driven thinking replaces process-driven thinking, and experiences may be valued more than fixed processes and predefined standards.
The CIO of the future may look a lot like a venture capitalist—maintaining principles for what makes a solid investment, defining the boundaries upon which deals will be conducted, and driving funding, staffing, and strategic support based on often-changing needs and the emerging value of individual initiatives. Though innovation investments may dominate the portfolio, there will still be a need for care and feeding of the existing operating environment.
Postdigital catalysts are not likely to commoditize operations and maintenance, but rather use them as a feedback loop to guide consistent improvements and more disruptive efforts. How people interact, how business is conducted, and even how the lights are kept on can provide insights.
Finally, completing the shift to postdigital mirrors the shift from a product to an information economy. Much like the CFO manages the capital position of the organization and the chief human resource officer manages talent, the CIO will likely be responsible for information assets in many forms. This is especially important with the merging of the physical and the digital world, and with the shift to open arbitrage of business IT services. CIOs have captured the most critical element of the future in their title. The CIO of the future will likely serve as the evangelist, translator, and arbiter of information—not only an important corporate asset, but also the currency upon which dynamic new offerings can be constructed.
¹ Peter Kretzman, IT Consumerization, the Cloud and the Alleged Death of the CIO, March 2012
² Additional information available in Deloitte’s “Tech Trends 2012: Elevate IT for digital business”, Chap. 10
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