Leading in the digital world, where next?

This year’s Gartner Symposium keynote kicked off with a startling prediction: by 2020 every enterprise will be digital. The internet of ‘everything’ will see 30 billion things connected by 2020, meaning that digital is becoming embedded in everything we do, bringing the virtual and physical worlds together.

Combined with big data, the internet of things will create a digital explosion. Leveraging this data will require new skills from IT leaders and their departments.

The internet of everything will break business processes and models – with more business being carried out “in the moment”. A successful digital strategy will need to address three aspects: digitalising business processes (developing better products); pursuing digital business models (new ways of doing business with emerging new players) and competing for business moments (transient opportunities exploited dynamically).

Cyber-security will continue to be an area of concern, both inside organisations and for society at large. Security budgets for both private and public organisations will focus on rapid detection and response – with big data being used to predict risks rather than respond to event. Future systems will need privacy by design.

Digitalisation will open the doors to new technologies and associated revenue streams and value. But it will also create major challenges for organisations as entire industries become reshaped. In Gartner’s view, enterprises embracing digitalisation are the ones who will lead the digital world.

But will CIOs embrace this change? The most significant challenge for CIOs identified was to take the role of a information and technology leader, embracing innovation with a focus on enabling a digital future. Within this new innovative digital world, Gartner reckons only 20% of the new CIO’s effort should be spent on running IT, a trend we are already seeing with leading organisations today.

As part of this transition, we’ll see IT job titles tripling in the coming years, and the role of the Chief Digital Officer become more widespread. The CDO however is going to a transitional, change mandated role and will help the organisation survive and thrive in this new digitally-enhanced world.

What does that mean for CIOs? We are at the dawn of a new era and the quality of their leadership will determine the future of our very industry.