“Strategic collaboration between the CEO and the CIO makes it simpler to indicate that digital transformation isn’t only a apply that impacts solely the IT operate, however a brand new means of doing issues that impacts the entire enterprise,” Ardolino says.

Roberto Puccinelli, director of the ICT Workplace at Italy’s Nationwide Useful resource Council (CNR), confirms the significance of dialogue with the board in help of digital transformation efforts.

“The ICT workplace follows the top-down indications of the corporate’s technique, however the IT workplace, in flip, responds to the indications of the initiatives wanted, each on the infrastructure and abilities ranges,” says Puccinelli, who oversees the design, implementation, and administration of data programs, communication, and processing infrastructure, in addition to coordination of CNR’s nationwide community. “The dialogue with the board and with human sources is fruitful, and the managers are receptive, which tremendously facilitates the digital technique.”

Flip IT language to enterprise language

“To a sure extent, the CIO should grasp the problems of all of the enterprise items”, says Daniele Bacchi, CEO of Reverse, a headhunting and recruiting agency, and a former CIO himself. “Managers communicate their very own language and don’t at all times make an effort to know the language of IT. It’s then as much as the CIO to sound much less like a technical guru and extra just like the finance, advertising and marketing, and payroll folks, making it clear that each exercise takes place on the IT infrastructure. Software program is invisible. We have to give attention to interfaces.”

Information is among the most necessary levers the CIO can use to have an efficient dialogue with the CEO. Graded’s Ardolino says that when he presents a mission to high administration, he begins with a descriptive overview after which combines KPIs that may measure the estimated optimistic impression in numerous enterprise areas, for instance discount in man hours or the advantages of knowledge retrieval.

“There are points the place regulatory obligations resembling compliance make it simpler to speak the necessity for a know-how answer and get funding from the board,” says CNR’s Puccinelli. “However we even have our personal inner knowledge that objectively measures wants and outcomes, and helps us talk with high administration.” Actually, CNR has had a knowledge warehouse for 15 years, which gathers info from inner administration programs to carry out analyses and information methods.