The new guy in town
Just a few years ago IT was on the rise. When technology became so fundamental and even critical to operate the enterprise, the IT department was instrumental for the organization to cut costs and drive productivity up. A decade later, this is still the situation however there’s a new player in the arena. It is called “Digital”, and it is here to stay.
Which gap?
I remember in the early days of our firm how organizations perceived their digital presence. A given corporate would hold a single digital experience. Actually, there was no “Digital”, it was merely called “our website”.
Although anyone maintaining a corporate website knows it is not a walk in the park, the non-technical marketing guys usually dealt with it working along with an external digital agency. IT could not care less about this neglectable, low-level, non-sophisticated computer system. It was a remote niche which had nothing to do with the mission-critical systems of the organization.
Well, things have changed. Corporates today hold a few dozens and sometime hundreds of “websites”. Actually, the meaning of “websites” has changed altogether. Since the evolution of advanced js frameworks and the serverless concept it is hard to tell anymore whether a digital experience is merely a “website” (representing information only) or an “application” (allowing the user to perform some business actions).
Whatever you call the digital experience the organization holds nowadays, it is massive, it usually integrates to the organization most “intimate” IT systems and it MUST be secured. Obviously IT cannot oversee digital anymore.
Customers increasingly expect modern and valuable digital experiences (as it has become the new bon ton). Thus, even corporates not fully there yet in terms of scope and complexity, have no choice but to enroll in a digital transformation plan which undoubtedly requires significant IT contribution if not ownership.
Bridging the gap
Especially interesting is to learn how enterprises deal with this evolvement organizationally. Well, at first the organization management is dazzled by the inflation of digital operations they already own. The development and especially the maintenance costs are sky rocketing (which is how the discussion starts) and usually there is no solid foundation for the plethora of digital experiences (IT was not there). Bottom line — it’s a total chaos.
Then management may ask the CIO to step in and adopt the digital operation OR they will hire a Chief Digital Officer — a relatively new Cxx label out there.
If the latter is the case then a jurisdiction question arises between the CIO and the CDO (e.g. security) otherwise, IT has to go through paradigm shift in order to master the digital universe.
Either way its highly challenging since IT and Digital are so different in nature.
Why?
Because IT is used to save costs for the organization. It is used to move slowly but surely and keep all the organization’s critical-mission systems up and running flawlessly. But on the other hand of the spectrum there is a “brave-new-world” emerging — The Digital. It is less about saving money. Rather it is about making more money. And then it must move fast. In the digital world there is no time for laggers. You snooze, you lose.
However, our experience shows it is possible to uphold a valuable and cost-effective digital operation. The key is to have on board (either internally or by consuming external resources) the necessary bridging skills. As a CIO it is essential to bring in professionals experienced with both worlds thinking — process driven, organized and thorough IT thinking hand in hand with agile, UX driven, marketing oriented digital thinking.
At large digital transformation program is another important mean to cope successfully with this change. The Digital Transformation Initiative and other information sources share their insights and forecasts to support organizations in all sectors moving forward with digital transformation planning.
At the past year we were leading a “classic” IT digitalization project for a large scale organization. It involved implementation of rich data model, heavy weight integrations and complex workflows (IT) while enabling data flow through all digital channels by understanding the consumer perspective (Digital). An exceptionally interesting and challenging project which its goals accomplishment was possible because of the on-board skills mixtures — IT and Digital.
Conclusion
Businesses can not afford the Digital-IT alienation anymore. It is too big of a deal.
“inside-bubble” business software solutions becoming rare. Digital transformation is everywhere. Software engineers, development managers, System and business analysts — all have some mileage to go. Growing digital transformation knowledge and understanding becomes essential.
It is no longer possible to refer to digital as the step child of IT. More and more it is becoming a driving force changing the IT systems, hence there needs to be enough experience and skills inside the organization to understand both school of thoughts and have them reconciled in a harmonious manner.
