CIO as the Bridge to Success

Moreover, product creation is in itself increasingly laced with software development and cloud deployments—both of which are familiar to the IT organization and alluring to its domain aspirations. So, the question is posed: what is the IT organization’s involvement in the product domain? Typically, product managers are protective of their turf. And indeed, the product management mandate—to strategically craft a product/service with the correct return on customer value—is both sacred to this function and distinct from that of the enabling IT organization. If the IT organization hopes to extend its influence into the product domain of digitalization, this may be best achieved through the continuing ownership and sponsorship of product managers and strategists. So, rather than assert his/her product stakeholder role, the CIO might focus on bus ops and sharpen the IT role as business consultant.

Unlocking the Potential of IT Evolution

Innovative IT management should be promoting a number of Business Innovation Trends (BITs), such as Blockchain Security, Internet of Things, Adaptive Manufacturing, Artificial Intelligence, Virtual Reality, and Predictive Analytics. In particular, Blockchain technology holds amazing promise for “unlocking” and enabling the potential of all these other technologies to proceed toward business value, without undue risk. Meanwhile, the existential challenges of the business world demand these, transformative technologies—sooner, rather than later. Where it may seem that internal and external business customers are not yet asking for BIT technologies, IT isn’t listening closely enough. Sometimes, IT will need to “challenge the customer” to generate these demands. Sometimes, the technology will be embedded in more highly functional vendor products. Oftentimes, IT will need to support platform experimentation. This “exploratory mode” is the highest and most-privileged form of IT business consultation. The enlightened CIO strives to equip the business with the latest knowledge and tools for success.

IT as the Highly Flexible Management Organization

IT is undergoing an ever-sharpening focus on both effectiveness and efficiency. IT’s “effectiveness focus” leverages metrics and industry knowledge to ensure business process change through the infusion of IT. Executive customer satisfaction (toward IT) is increasingly measured. Best practices are shared more profusely across industry, as well as among business units and departments within the same company. Exploratory activities are encouraged and incubated within—and not against—the IT governance model. IT’s “efficiency focus” leverages benchmarks and a re-division of labor within IT—to pooled, cost-effective service delivery versus business partnership and analyses. IT must be careful with the efficiency focus, because any commoditization of IT work can have adverse effects, such as sub-optimization of arbitrary technology groupings, such as infrastructure, CRM, or “ERP.” Rather, new digitalization, innovation, privacy and security challenges upend long-standing architectures. IT methodology must also be called into question. Much is being written about the “innovation value chain.” The IT organization must assist internal customers in applying BITs to their operation by advancing new ideas into proposals, prototypes, and feasibility studies. It must evolve to a highly flexible management organization that can simultaneously, not schizophrenically (internally combatively), manage an effective-and-efficient focus across all areas of IT.