CIO's Role in Implementing Digital

Transformation
REVANTH PERIYASAMYAUGUST 4, 2021

The Chief Information Officer (CIO) is responsible for the organization’s

move towards digital transformation. A CIO has to take initiative and
decide what approach the firm is going to take to achieve digital
transformation. It is a challenging task because, given current
circumstances, technology is changing at a fast pace and customers expect
more from companies.

A CIO has to keep innovating and rethinking ideas that they have already
implemented and find new ways to achieve the organization’s digital
transformation goals. A CIO’s role in the process includes

 Collaboration on digital strategies

 Lead organization change

 Drive agile practices

 Carry pilots and experiments with innovative technologies

What are the Key Roles of CIOs in Implementing Digital Transformation?

Today, CEOs look to the CIOs to drive digital transformation and

create revenue-generating ideas for the business. Roles of CIOs in
implementing successful digital transformation include the
following:

 Working on the bigger picture

 Driving foolproof transformation

 Handling change resistance

 Innovating on training methods

 Fortifying network security

Working on the bigger picture

Adjusting the timeline and budget while implementing digital

transformation has been CIOs’ major area of concern. To prevent long-term
projects from becoming stagnant, they need to be reset quite a few times.
Dividing the projects into parts has helped deliver better value than if it
was taken up all at once.

Another area that can hinder CIOs from initiating digital transformation is
finding a way to leverage the enterprise’s existing resources better. IT
teams play a major role in present-day businesses since organizations are
trying to leverage their data assets to become more customer-centric,
agile, and competitive by making data-driven decisions, faster.
Driving foolproof transformation

CIOs must understand why customers buy their products or subscribe to

their service. They must learn what other alternatives are available to the
customer and how they can deliver the best quality. They must make use
of AI to automate redundant tasks, analyze usage of the enterprise’s tech
stack, and find inefficacy in their practices to quickly address them.

Companies are starting to implement new tech at a rapid rate in order to

empower their workforce and keep them prepared for any drastic change
to the industry. In this fast-paced environment, companies either adapt to
the digital change or eventually, perish.

Since CIOs are responsible for adopting new digital systems at the
organization, they must stay on their toes to look out for the latest digital
innovations in the industry. They must make sure the Digital
Transformation efforts are fool-proof by experimenting new technologies
that seem beneficial, gathering feedback, and providing assistance at any
time of need.
Handling change resistance

A challenging part of implementing digital transformation is handling

employee’s push back towards the change. Employee resistance can cause
disruptions in your digital transformation process and can also affect the
established process.
According to Forbes, 70% of change programs fail outright, largely due to
employees change resistance. Sometimes, if a majority of the workforce is
not ready for the change, then maybe it’s the change model that needs
fixing. Leaders must carefully handle employee resistance to make their
transformation efforts successful.

Communication is key. You must educate the employees about the

benefits of the change. Motivate them by showing them the value they
provide to the organization.
Innovating training methods

Training the workforce to be digitally updated is the kind of investment

that requires a lot of expertise. Digital transformation will bring along its
own set of technical challenges. You will need the right personnel job and
the right training methods to stay ahead of the game.

Getting new technologies to gain competitive advantage can be expensive

and can sometimes backfire if not planned and executed well. The business
fundamentals have to align with the features that the new tech provides.
Once a tool is chosen, employees have to be trained on how to use it.
Traditional training methods have quickly become outdated and
ineffective, especially for a remote workforce.

According to Christian Velitchkov, COO and Co-founder of twiz,

 “Training is no longer limited to face-to-face meetings. Digital Adoption
Platforms can help here. With the right DAP, the time taken by users to be
eloquent in new tech decreases, and morale increases.”
Fortifying network security

A CIO's key challenge includes transforming the perception of security

from an IT issue to a business issue. Business executives think that
security-related issues only concern the IT department.

This mindset needs to change so that people take ownership of the risks
that they create and they take ownership of the business’ security. CIO
needs to ensure that the security base of your company is strong enough.

While implementing digital transformation, a CIO's primary competency is

to coordinate and oversee IT systems. CIOs face many challenges such as
ensuring that all legacy systems are integrated into one data warehouse
and reducing costs by leveraging cloud computing for infrastructure and
application services.

The solution has always been to collaborate across functional boundaries

and increasing transparency while providing abundant resources. This is
made possible with the partnership between business leaders, strategists,
vendors, and employees in the company.
CIOs can leverage the latest technologies like Digital Adoption Platforms
that can help their digital transformation dreams come true. A DAP like
Apty enables your employees to get trained in applications that they use
and helps in seamless adoption of the entire tech stack.

Apty can provide the best onboarding and training experience to your
remote workforce with its in-app guidance features. CIOs can consider
Apty to get the best possible outcome from their employees and achieve
successful digital transformation.