The Digital C-Suite

A new study argues that the C-Suite must step up to the digital plate — now.

Michael Fitzgerald Reading Time: 3 min 

Topics

CIO Suite
Companies won’t get the value out of technology if they’re not getting the business outcome, says Timothy C. McCabe, senior vp and CIO at Delphi Automotive PLC. “For that, you have to have a group of leaders that act as a team.” 

New technologies continue to vex top management, according to a new study from the CIO Executive Council. The study, “The Future-State C-Suite: A Leadership Framework for Business Transformation in the Digital Environment,” finds that traditional siloed management structures impede business’s ability to get things done in the digital era. Only 14% of respondents in a mix of CIOs and other C-level executives said that they were highly satisfied with the performance of what the CIO Executive Council calls the C-Suite for shaping digital strategy and making digital decisions. Almost half [45%] said they were somewhat or highly dissatisfied.

The CIO Forum identifies the main issue as one of governance: it found that “nearly as many C-level officers make their digital decisions in silos as make them collaboratively.” That leads to a situation where digital decision making “lacks clarity” and vision.

To overcome this, the Council has put forth the idea of a Future-State C-Suite — a management framework that demands all members of the C-Suite have some ownership over digital strategy and collaborate on implementing it.

The framework matters because of the pace of technological change, says Mitch Golub, CEO of Cars.com and a participant in the study. Golub said that even as an established digital company, Cars.com is finding that both its business and technology models are “not fully developed.”

“As a business, we are having so many first-time challenges and new business initiatives thrown at us on a regular basis,” he said. “There’s not a lot of places to turn to in the market for expertise, not a lot of models where you can say ‘oh, they’re doing this.’”

Golub said Cars.com replaced five senior executives in the past two years, because they were not able or willing to keep pace with business needs brought about by technological change.

The CIO Council recommended in its report that companies establish a “digital pathfinder” role, setting up an executive, most likely the CIO or CTO, as the person who helps guide the company’s executives as new technologies come into play.

Golub said Cars.c

Topics

About the Author

Michael Fitzgerald is a contributing editor at MIT Sloan Management Review.

Tags:

More Like This

Add a comment

You must to post a comment.

First time here? Sign up for a free account: Comment on articles and get access to many more articles.

Comment (1)
THAMSANQA MWELI
As usual the article cites very relevant general and industry specific points. Health care industry in particular is fragmented with various service providers such as administrators, healthcare professionals and insurers serving different interests. A collaboration and “digital pathfinder” in healthcare will go a long way in breaking these silos. The team of industry leaders in the healthcare value-chain will improve communication, provide the framework to deploy the technology and even define metrics systems to measure business outcomes. Finally, It is encouraging to find that healthcare shares similar challenges with other industries in the digital pursuit.