According to one industry insider, "A lot of CDO (Chief Digital Officer)-type roles are borne out of frustration of CEOs who know they need to be doing something but don't have an executive they feel can drive that kind of change forward."
Ian Cox, a former Chief Information Officer (CIO) and author of Disrupt IT: A New Model for IT in the Digital Age says that clinging to an old-school approach to IT is helping pave the way for a new C-level executive -- the chief digital officer (CDO).
Those who sell to CIOs have long needed to assess where individual CIO customers sit on the continuum from Operational CIO (keeping the lights on) to Transformational CIO (Driving new business models and innovation). Pitching "bleeding edge" technologies to an operationally-focused CIO for example, may not be effective.
Cox says that today's CIOs must evolve--or cede some control over technology strategy to someone in more of a CDO role. He asserts that "In the digital age, the CIO is a far more social animal. They're spending more time outside of the IT function working with stakeholders across their business, but also with the stakeholders outside of the business -- so customers, partners, suppliers."
This is important context for those selling technology to the C-suite. To learn more, read the full article and see a sample of the kind of insight we provide into enterprise CIOs and their counterparts.
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