Having the right people on hand is just one of many hurdles a CIO has to overcome in the race to innovation. CIOs often face cultural challenges associated with convincing organizational leaders and their teams to embrace digital transformation, particularly since it typically involves making changes to their workstyles and traditional business processes. And, because digital transformation is now a business imperative, CIOs who want to help drive their company’s digital agenda must be able to articulate the business benefits to stakeholders.
This starts with clearly communicating the vision for the company’s digital transformation objectives across various roles and organizational teams, says Mark Overton, CIO at HKS, Inc., a global architectural firm.
“The CIO needs to make sure that everyone understands what the end goal is and their role in making these changes,” says Overton. “You have to break that fear down with continuous communication.”
Once the company’s digital vision has been shared with all stakeholders, Overton recommends finding influential sponsors within the business who are eager to embrace the challenges of digital transformation and support the vision. Enterprise-wide buy-in can be further strengthened by partnering with key business stakeholders and investing in small scale, digitally-enabled proof-of-concept initiatives.
For more insights and advice, including best-practices examples from Care.com, how data-driven decision-making can help you get a jump on the competition, and an infographic on the personality traits of successful CIOs, download The Innovative CIO—the Catalyst to Driving Digital Transformation.