Stepping up: The CIO as digital leader

Digital technologies impact nearly every organization, regardless of industry, market, or geography. Two-thirds (67 percent) of the 1,217 CIOs who participated in Deloitte’s 2016–2017 Global CIO Survey say that digital is the technology area that will have the most impact on their businesses in the next two years.

Some organizations are disrupting through digital, while others are being disrupted. Three times as many participants in the 2017 MIT Sloan Management Review/Deloitte Digital Business Global Executive Study—which surveys more than 3,500 participants—say they are using digital to “do business in fundamentally new and different ways” rather than to simply “do what we’ve always done, but faster and cheaper.” Each organization’s response to digital disruption will be unique to their business strategy.

CIOs’ technology experience can position them to lead digital change if they can also contribute to business strategy development, leverage ecosystems, create talent and culture models that disrupt the status quo, and use technology to change long-standing revenue models and operational structures across business functions. Yet CIOs are not always the only digital leaders in an organization—complex environments can require them to support or partner with others.