IDC's New Research to Help CIOs Adjust Speed

International Data Corporation (IDC) predicts that in 2016, CIOs will face their biggest crisis in leadership as they struggle to adjust to the speed and needs demanded by digitally empowered business transformation.

To help today's senior IT professionals in this effort, IDC on Wednesday distributed Leading in 3D: Creating a Culture of Continuous Transformation at the CIO Summit 2016 Middle East: Leading Your Organization's Digital Transformation.

To complement this executive brief, IDC has published a IDC MaturityScape Benchmark report, IDC MaturityScape Benchmark: Leading in 3D in the United States (Doc #US40995716).

The study presents the results of IDC's 2015 Leading in 3D MaturityScape Benchmark Survey and serves as a supplement to IDC MaturityScape: Leading in 3D (Doc #US40933616).

Leading in 3D: Creating a Culture of Continuous Transformation

The biggest question facing today's CIO is how to drive innovation with the business while driving operational excellence with existing IT systems.

IDC believes a closer collaboration between IT innovation and IT operations is essential to success.

However, a great divide has surfaced: business innovation initiatives are taking place separately from and without connection to the infrastructure, systems, processes, and people currently fulfilling the enterprise's existing mission.

This two-pronged, siloed approach breeds sub-optimal performance within the entire IT organization. Instead, IDC asserts that every CIO must take actions to ensure the IT organization is an effective partner in the digital transformation of the business.

To help CIOs in partnering with, and further educating, the business, IDC has introduced the Leading in 3D Framework which focuses on the following dimensions: Innovate — Partner with the business to create digital innovations; Integrate — Transition new technologies into stable business services; Incorporate — Evolve existing technology platforms continuously by infusing new skills, techniques, and culture.

IDC predicts that through 2018, two-thirds of CIOs will have embraced Leading in 3D. According to Meredith Whalen, Senior Vice President, IT Executive and Industry Research, "Successful CIOs of the future will be judged by their ability to manage all three of the connected disciplines – innovate, integrate, incorporate – on a continuous basis while anticipating the next wave of digital transformation. IT leadership will need to forge a lasting collaboration with business partners to drive the transformation engine – from old to new, from unstable to stable, and from experimental to operational. We believe that while CIOs face their biggest crisis in leadership, on the other side awaits an IT organization that is primed for the innovative and adaptive world of the digital economy."

IDC MaturityScape Benchmark: Leading in 3D in the United States

Written as a complement to IDC MaturityScape: Leading in 3D, this MaturityScape benchmark report will enable organizations to work with IDC to assess their maturity level in supporting digital transformation (DX) against industry benchmarks and foster the leading in 3D maturity needed to compete in the era of 3rd Platform-driven DX.

IDC believes that today, CIOs have the opportunity to lead in DX and, at the same time, elevate their role from an order taker to an innovation partner. But they must take a hard look at themselves and assess their ability to partner in DX innovation, to optimize integration, and to incorporate change.

According to this report, the path to being a DX leader requires the management of a continuous transition. It is essential for technology leaders to meet the new business need to innovate while delivering predictability, reliability, and operational excellence. The new research enables information and technology leaders to identify four key disciplines of leadership in need of improvement to support DX: Digital vision — as a critical driver of the leadership mission; Innovation — as a partner to the business in fostering IT-enabled innovation; Integration — as the owner of the agile processes that transition new platforms to become stable business services that are the key to DX success; Incorporation — as a reliable and secure service provider for the established suite of IT-based products and services.

As part of the new survey, information and technology leaders were asked to self-assess their approach to digital vision, innovation, integration, and incorporation in the context of their overall ability to support DX. Based on this result, IDC segmented organizations into two categories: Survivors — Organizations where DX leadership, in aggregate, did not meet expectations or did not create any new opportunities; Thrivers — Organizations where DX leadership, in aggregate, exceeded expectations and created competitive advantage.

According to the survey's results: 52% of "digital thrivers" aggressively use emerging technologies to create new businesses; 52% of "digital thrivers" have a focus on growing digital revenue exponentially; 43% of "digital thrivers" have a three to five year information roadmap designed to disrupt one's industry; 53% of IT organizations that are "thriving" are highly responsive and collaborate in real time across the enterprise; 58% of IT organizations that are "thriving" have an IT culture that excels at experimentation in every part of the business; 51% of IT organizations that are "thriving" have a hyper focus on user experience as a differentiator from competitors.

"IT organizations have an important role to play in digital transformation. The challenge many face is the need to overhaul IT culture, service management, vendor management and operations in order to be an effective partner in digital transformation," said Whalen. "While there is a significant amount of change that must take place in a short period of time, those IT organizations that can master this will find themselves in a virtuous cycle of innovation. Such IT organizations will be able to drive the initiatives that shape future business models and create best-in-industry digital products and services."

IDC found the majority of organizations surveyed have yet to establish the capabilities to lead enterprise-wide DX initiatives and are still at the opportunistic and repeatable stages.

IDC asserts the ability to lead enterprise DX requires making choices about whether the business can or should adapt to a rapidly changing digitally enabled ecosystem. Information and technology leaders need to create a digital vision for their company and champion a strategic approach to digital transformation to effectively compete.

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