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CEOs will turn to CTO or CIO before marketers to lead digital transformation

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By Jennifer Faull, Deputy Editor

May 6, 2015 | 4 min read

The chief marketing officer (CMO) is not valued as much as the chief technology officer (CTO) or chief information officer (CIO) in leading digital transformation of a business, according to a study by SapientNitro.

All 50 chief executives of major European brands interviewed for the research said they were the leaders of digital transformation but 47 per cent said they would turn to a CIO or CTO to lead the charge alongside them. Only 26 per cent nominated a CMO.

However, not all have been able to implement a strategy. Whist 64 per cent of CEOs want to start digital transformation this year only 22 per cent have a plan of how to go about it.

SapientNitro measured the size of the European digital business transformation market at €67bn ($74.6bn), which combines software and digital services, digital advertising expenditure, agency and production fees.

Nigel Vaz, senior vice president and European managing director at SapientNitro, said the cautionary tales of firms such as Blockbuster and Kodak who didn’t modernise their companies in time seemed to be at the back of the minds of those questioned for the survey.

“The bottom line is; corporations have to harness the power of technology or risk becoming victim to it,” he said

The research identified three main stages in digital business transformation. Firstly, the ideation phase before having a boardroom discussion and strategy debate and finally creating a tangible and formal business document articulating the scope of the challenge and the resources and timescales required to execute.

It revealed that less than half (44 per cent) of CEOs planning a digital business transformation project have a ‘strategic intent’ while 34 per cent are having ‘boardroom discussions. Only 22 per cent have signalled their intent to act by creating a formal business document.

SapientNitro had seven key recommendations for business leaders.

  1. Begin board-level discussions as a matter of urgency – the effectiveness of digital business transformation strategies will become a key underlying survival and success factor for large organisations to 2020 and beyond.
  2. Digital business transformation bigger than marketing or IT – the CEO, the CIO / CTO and the CMO should be the key leaders jointly
  3. Be clear on objectives - the CIO / CTO is closer to technology and can drive organisational change, the CMO should focus the business and customer requirements gathering process
  4. Collaboration and communication is vital – a more formal approach is to develop a joint performance charter and that commits both parties to budget and resource.
  5. Customer experience should brand promise and technology together – at an organisational level, it is crucial to develop and embrace hybrid skill sets.
  6. CMOs need to be more aggressive – step up to the plate and provide tangible digital business transformation project scoping contributions.
  7. A defined and active recruitment and learning development process, aimed at counter-balancing any bias toward risk aversion among the employee base, will equip organisations with a talent profile better geared towards an entrepreneur mentality and the capability to do things differently, faster and more disruptively.
CIO SapientNitro CTO

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