Strategies for Preemptive Disruption to Stay Ahead of Adversaries
In the rapidly evolving business landscape, digital transformation has become a necessity rather than an option. Phil Turner, VP EMEA at Okta, highlights the changing role of CIOs and IT teams within an organisation, presenting an opportunity to empower employees, partners, and customers.
However, major bottlenecks in digital transformation include poor communication between IT and business teams, legacy integration, and a lack of talent. To address these challenges, effective strategies are needed.
Improving Communication between IT and Business Teams
A cross-functional governance model with strong executive sponsorship can align IT and business objectives, ensuring coordinated execution across departments. Business leaders should visibly participate in digital initiatives, communicating clear reasons for change and modeling new behaviours to build trust and reduce resistance. A shared vision and common goals can connect leadership, operations, and frontline employees, facilitating better collaboration and reducing duplication or conflicting initiatives.
Legacy System Integration
Adopting a phased modernization approach, starting with less risky, high-value legacy systems, is crucial. API layers can connect legacy with modern applications, minimising risk and disruption. Specialized technology talent, experienced in both legacy and modern systems, can effectively manage integration complexities.
Talent Development
Addressing skill gaps through robust training programs is essential. Upskilling and hiring in critical areas such as cloud computing, AI, cybersecurity, and data analytics can mitigate the expertise shortage. Providing clear communication about the benefits of change and how it supports employee growth can reduce resistance related to fears of job loss or skill inadequacy.
The confluence of social, mobile, analytics, and cloud technologies drives digital transformation. Modern technologies like software-defined networking (SDN) can create sophisticated platforms that are application-aware, able to prioritise traffic dynamically based on business rules, and self-healing.
Companies need networks that are fit for purpose and able to dynamically reallocate capacity based on business rules with minimal manual intervention. Under the ITaaS model, Adobe's product team was able to deliver solutions in 90-day sprints, compared to the previous nine-month basis. Adobe's IT team, positioning themselves as a partner to the business by being agile, helped the company evolve from a software product company into a services business.
For CIOs, digital transformation is a make-or-break moment to establish themselves as drivers of business growth rather than cost centres. Companies with successful digital transformation strategies benefit from double the revenue growth of mainstream organisations. Digital transformation requires structural change, which should be led by IT leadership, with CIOs transitioning from technology enablers to business enablers.
In the UK, 56% of organisations are executing digital transformation initiatives as a coordinated strategic program. The most popular ongoing projects include workforce efficiency, product and service development, and operations and delivery. There needs to be a discussion about recovery position and recovery time for critical applications in the event of unexpected issues.
A study by Genpact found that large companies are wasting approximately £258 billion annually on digital and analytic business transformations, with more than two-thirds of projects failing to meet expectations. Overcoming these barriers focusing on communication between IT and business teams, legacy integration, and talent development can enable organisations to implement change more effectively and sustainably.
Gerri Martin-Flickinger, former CIO of Adobe, is a prime example of a CIO who successfully navigated digital transformation, helping the company evolve from a software product company into a services business. As digital transformation continues to reshape the business environment, the role of CIOs and IT teams becomes increasingly crucial in driving growth, innovation, and success.
- To promote better collaboration and reduce conflicting initiatives, business leaders should participate in digital initiatives, communicate clear reasons for change, and model new behaviors, while aligning IT and business objectives through a cross-functional governance model with strong executive sponsorship.
- Overcoming barriers such as communication breakdowns, legacy integration challenges, and talent development gaps can enable organizations to implement digital transformation more effectively and sustainably, as demonstrated by the success of companies like Adobe that have successfully navigated digital transformation thanks to their CIOs' leadership.
