The future of the Chief Information Officer (CIO) within enterprises undergoing digital disruption has been a hot discussion topic for several years.  Some of the questions that regularly surface and get debated in these discussions—both pro and con—include:

• As cloud and outsourcing continue to grow at a fast clip, and fewer in-house resources are needed for infrastructure and application development, will the CIO role disappear, diminish or even die out?
• As CMOs become more involved in creating great customer experiences, will marketing eclipse IT or even divert resources that would have gone into IT in the past? Will CIOs hasten this by refusing or resisting working with their peer CMOs, as digital marketing gains in prominence and importance?
• As companies’ products become more dependent upon technology, to the point that high tech becomes embedded and pervasive throughout products, will the CIO’s role morph into something much bigger and more engineering oriented, like a Chief Technology Officer (CTO) on steroids?
• Will the CTO or Chief Business Technology Officer (CBTO) become new names for a smaller but more strategic CIO role, where the senior-most IT executive sets technology policies for the organization (like Bring Your Own Technology (BYOT)) and is much more involved in strategic decision making?
• Is there an expanded role for the CIO, as companies turn to the CIO for strong project management, risk management and budgetary control as the enterprise embarks on large, transformational customer experience projects?
• As companies become increasingly data dependent, is there a modified or expanded role for CIOs in data architecture and data management? According to Wikipedia, the CDO is “a corporate officer responsible for enterprisewide governance and utilization of information as an asset, via data processing, analysis, data mining, information trading and other means. CDOs have various reporting lines including to the Chief Technology Officer (CTO), Chief Information Officer (CIO), Chief Executive Officer (CEO), Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) or the Chief Strategy Officer (CSO).”
• Is there a new role for CIOs as Business Architects to align the technology and business capabilities of the organization with business strategy and planning?

These tough questions are difficult to answer with any certainty. In reality, a plethora of companies are moving in different directions and IT leadership needs will vary greatly depending upon the courses those companies take. It’s feasible that all or many of the scenarios described above will be relevant to some companies.

A Chief Data Officer Takes The Helm At A Large Publishing Company

I learned about one such company today when I had a chance to talk briefly with a Chief Data Officer (CDO).  Six months ago he started as his employer’s first CDO, working for a large, well-known publishing company in New York City. Interestingly, he has an extensive background in defense intelligence, as well as a strong focus on data architecture, big data, analytics and information management.  Over lunch I got a little more insight into where this CDO fits in the organization and how his group works with IT:

• The chief IT executive—known as the Chief Technology Officer (CTO)—is responsible for everything that constitutes the corporate technology “box.” The CTO reports to the COO and has a largely operational focus and mandate.
• The Chief Data Officer (CDO) focuses on everything that “goes into the box.”  That includes all data bases, content stores, data management, content management, collaboration and social—essentially all structured and unstructured information.  (The CDO was quick to correct me that all information is either structured or semi-structured and that there is no such thing as unstructured information. Also note that the Chief Data Officer is not the same role as a Chief Digital Officer.) The CDO reports to the CEO, who has very deep experience in analytics and data.
• Although it is still early days, the CTO/CDO working relationship is highly effective and deeply collaborative.  Without a strong working relationship, the current division of labor would not succeed. One alternative to the current structure is that this CTO and CDO could report to a CIO, but so far the organization believes there’s been no need to introduce another layer.

Without a doubt, change is coming as digital disruption bears down on more companies.  How the C-suite’s roles unfold will depend on many factors, including industry, corporate history, personalities, corporate preferences, customers, partners, and strategy. For more information see  Customer Experience Leadership Trends, 2015-2018.

And stay tuned.