Our global study on digital acceleration shows that today’s IT leaders face a big challenge on how to effectively manage the skills and talent of their teams—especially when business needs are changing so rapidly.
The role of the CIO has been turbocharged by the COVID-19 pandemic. Once seen as back-office IT custodians, mainly responsible for overseeing technology and systems for internal stakeholders, CIOs today have responsibilities that go far beyond past needs. IT leadership is now critical to a company’s agility, sustainable digital transformation, and business success.
To meet all these responsibilities, CIOs need people. But one of the biggest challenges faced by today’s IT leaders is how to effectively manage the skills and talent of their teams—especially when business needs are changing so rapidly. Our global survey of 1,150 senior business executives, “Closing the Acceleration Gap: Toward Sustainable Digital Transformation,” shows nearly 4 in 10 (38%) say a lack of relevant workforce skills is their biggest barrier to achieving their transformation goals.
With data sources proliferating, there is a growing need for IT leaders to loosen their grip on data and hand some access over to other business heads.
And according to Charles Ewen, CIO and director of technology at the Met Office, the UK’s national weather service, the necessary skills within the IT function are becoming increasingly diverse. “Often, part of application development these days will involve an element of data science, as well as UX [user experience] specialists, social scientists, and hardcore scientists,” he says. “That’s the kind of people who will go and engage with the customer, try to discover what they want, and then go ahead and build it.”
The fuel that powers these teams is high-quality data—accurate, consistent, and trustworthy—which supports decision-making and connectivity between people, processes, and systems.
But high-quality data is only one piece of the puzzle. With data sources rapidly expanding, there is a growing need for IT leaders to loosen their grip on data and hand some access over to other business heads. Giving the right people the right data at the right time enables them to test out assumptions, identify trends, and drive business performance—and it can all happen more quickly. It also allows the IT function to channel more of its energy into strategic innovation and transformation projects.
Our research shows that efforts to make this transformation happen are already underway. More than a third of IT leaders (35%) are focusing on removing reliance on IT as data gatekeepers, with the aim of democratizing decision-making and empowering their teams to become more strategic partners for the wider business.
As this shift continues, the CIO-CHRO relationship will be critical to this reshaping of IT teams’ skills. CIOs are looking at their teams’ composition and forging new relationships across their organizations. Those new relationships will start at the top.
Download the full report “Closing the Acceleration Gap: Toward Sustainable Digital Transformation” for more findings from the office of the CFO, CIO, and CHRO.
Finance, IT, and HR leaders around the globe talk with guest host Megan Wright of Longitude, a Financial Times company, about Workday’s latest research, “Closing the Acceleration Gap: Toward Sustainable Digital Transformation,” and the most pressing business issues they face, in the Workday Podcast.
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