Digital Transformation Has the Potential to Lionize CIOs — or Render Them Obsolete

Digital transformation is, for many enterprises, a weighty and expansive undertaking. It’s often driven by the need to remain competitive in a landscape that requires increasingly faster and better-performing technology. The end user’s satisfaction is closely aligned with a company’s ability to deliver mobile-friendly, personalized, high-performance technology, and CIOs’ job performance ratings go hand-in-hand with these metrics.

When digital transformation doesn’t deliver the cost savings, performance, and other benefits that were promised, CIOs often find themselves under fire. In many instances, digital transformation is such a long-term process that there are waves of alternating satisfaction levels among executives and end-users. Much of digital transformation is trial-and-error, and CIOs must be ready to navigate the ups and downs that come with planned failures.

The Opportunity to Lead

The factors that place CIOs in the hot seat also give them the opportunity to shape the corporate narrative surrounding digital transformation. The problem is not necessarily whether each implementation of a cloud solution or network infrastructure change was seamless or whether the anticipated cost savings were realized. It is also whether the enterprise has embraced digital transformation and chooses to play the role of a disruptor in their given industry.

A few years ago, companies were just beginning to embrace the idea of a digital transformation. Today, the concept of digitalization has overtaken the goals of most major enterprises. Corporations recognize that in order to remain competitive, their customers’ and other end users’ experiences must be a top priority.

The availability of subscription-based cloud software has put technology into the hands of startups that were previously only accessible to large enterprises with big IT budgets. If CIOs can take the helm of directing their enterprises’ digital transformation, they can outpace these smaller companies and remain competitive.

Many CIOs are discovering what happens when they don’t take the lead in digital conversations in their companies. Enterprises are increasingly hiring a chief digital officer (CDO), which often places the CIO role back in the position of keeping the maintenance end of IT going and putting out fires instead of innovating.

CIOs are caught in a delicate balancing act of innovating while still maintaining high levels of performance and speed, without any interruption to business processes. While this presents a significant challenge, CIOs should embrace it as an opportunity to lead their corporations into a disruptive role where they are dictating the path of not just their company, but also their broader industry.

Guide CIOs into their most effective and transformational role by partnering with Infinium Communications. Located in Northern California, Infinium Communications services businesses of all sizes across the globe. Contact our consultants about helping CIOs navigate digital transformation with the right technology and the right partners.

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