Can the CIO also be the CDO?

This is perhaps less a question of ability, but of the understanding of the role: the CDO needs another mindset.

New agile business models and service processes are often diametrically opposed to the expectations of the company's IT, which is transformed into a product IT with the digital transformation. The CIO is trimmed for stability, risk minimization, security and predictability. Even if the new business models are all based on technology, the approach and testing of these business models is associated with a great deal of pioneering. The use and testing of new technologies, often by young suppliers, the strong (end) customer centrifuge, agile development processes influenced by permanent customer feedback not only question existing IT delivery models, but also require a much higher risk-solving - a major cause of emerging conflicts on management level.

Not a few see an interim board at the CDO, which is no longer needed after successful transformation. The question is only: When is digital transformation completed - especially for manufacturing companies? A valid aspect, the phase of the Industry 4.0 has just begun and its effects are not even in the approach.

In principle, any company whose DNA does not come from a digital business model, regardless of which industry it belongs to, how many employees it occupies, and which products and services it sells, must undergo a comprehensive digital transformation.

Since this transformation affects all processes, organizational areas and business models, it must be driven and coordinated in top management. Accordingly, the CDO is responsible for all - really all - digitization initiatives of a company. This role, however, also includes explosives, since the CDO has to call into question the existing disruptive business models - otherwise the competition will take over. On the other hand, he must actively prepare and take all changes, even indirectly, through the digital transformations. Thus, he is not only a driver, but also a mediator and a visionary - even at board level.

We help the Chief Digital Officer not only to identify and establish new business models, but also to defend and expand the existing business. Large potential is still the digitalization of existing products / services and the development of new customer channels, as well as a large number of internal company-critical processes.