1 | Born to be digital

Born to be digitalHow leading CIOs are preparing for a digital transformation

Self-assessment

2 | Born to be digital

Please note, this exercise is indicative in purpose only. Individual corporate priorities will vary from business to business.

Are you born to be digital? Self-assessment for the leading CIOAre you equipped to be a digital-ready CIO? With those leading the way sharing six distinctive traits, the following assessment gives you the ability to benchmark yourself against the core characteristics of today’s leading CIOs.

Once you have completed the assessment and worked out your score, you will find a series of pointers on how CIOs can prepare for a digital world, stand out from their peers, and position themselves to grow into this evolving role. But ultimately, the deciding factor will be whether you have the courage to act on your ambitions and push to become a digital-ready CIO.

3 | Born to be digital

I don’t currently have a plan, but will look to see where other business units adopt digital and where it can gain most traction.

I recognize the importance of it, and am developing a plan and/or roadmap for how digital can be embedded into our existing business functions.

I have an in-depth plan for how digital can transform our business, across all major business functions, with a specific implementation roadmap linked to it.

How detailed and specific is your vision for how digital technology will transform your organization?

1pt

5pts

Q1

3pts

Click to input score

4 | Born to be digital

I have limited involvement in innovating at a business-model level.

I am highly engaged at innovating at a business-model level and in terms of new products and services, often leading our internal discussions on this.

1pt

5pts

Q2

I recognize the importance of being engaged in innovating at a business-model level, and am taking steps to become more involved.

How involved are you in the innovation process?

Click to input score

3pts

5 | Born to be digital

I have little to no direct input in terms of driving growth within the business.

New technologies I help implement directly support growth, but I act primarily in a support role to key business unit stakeholders.

I proactively look for new technologies that might enable growth in the business — while simultaneously fostering close relationships with the front of the business to assess their needs.

What is your input in actually driving growth within the business?

1pt 5pts

Q3

3pts

Click to input score

6 | Born to be digital

I am confidently communicating my vision for the future, in a language that my C-suite peers are comfortable with, and using a variety of channels to spread this message.

Q4

I recognize the importance of communicating my vision for the future, and I am taking steps to improve the delivery and/or language used.

How do you seek to ensure that your vision as CIO is communicated and understood throughout your organization?

1pt 5pts3pts

I have yet to convince those in my organization about my vision for the future, and find this very demanding.

Click to input score

7 | Born to be digital

More than 50% of my time.

10%-50% of my time.

Less than 10% of my time.

How much time do you spend on operations and infrastructure in your daily routine?

1pt

5pts

Q5

3pts

Click to input score

8 | Born to be digital

I think IT has to be managed for the downside, to mitigate any risks, rather than the upside.

I experiment with emerging technologies when budget and time pressures allow.

I carve out time to make sure we prudently experiment with emerging technologies — despite the possibility of failure — to ensure we don’t miss anything transformative.

What is your approach to risk-taking?Q6

1pt

5pts

3pts

Click to input score

9 | Born to be digital

Your score:

You are only just beginning your journey to becoming a digital-ready CIO. To accelerate your progress, consider taking the following steps:

Congratulations, you can count yourself among the digital-ready CIOs! Your peers at this level constantly push themselves to improve further, so don’t stop learning. Consider the following as you prepare to seize the opportunities presented by digital:

You are making good progress toward becoming a digital-ready CIO. Having mastered some of the core characteristics, you can broaden your thinking on key issues by being mindful of the following:

• Don’t let operational IT overwhelm you. Leading CIOs must ensure that operational issues are a side dish, not the main meal, in what they serve up to the rest of the business.

• Prioritize innovation wherever possible, at both a process and a business model level. To truly deliver on the wide-ranging new opportunities to deliver more efficient processes that digital presents, you’ll need a firm grasp of the corporate business and operating model.

• Build close relationships with the front of the business. Digital holds the promise of making IT a genuine source of growth, but requires close relationships across the front office — starting with the CMO and extending to the end customers.

• Be willing to take risks. Embracing new technology involves a leap of faith. Don’t get caught up in the downside risks, but focus on the potential to transform the business.

• Give a detailed vision for how technology can transform the business — and a plan to implement the transformation. Pushing the digital transformation agenda forward requires a compelling and credible vision, and understanding the necessary steps to achieve it.

• Be willing to move around, both across functions and companies. Many leading CIOs rarely spend their entire careers in one place, but hop around to gain exposure to different experiences and approaches.

• Prioritize innovation wherever possible, at both a process and a business model level. These two aspects are fundamental to driving digital transformation. Those who push hardest and use innovation to change and develop their business are the ones most likely to be building a truly digital business.

• Be a spellbinding storyteller. It is human nature to be swept up by a compelling storyline and the possibilities it contains. The best CIOs are able to provide a narrative about IT that the rest of the business can buy into.

• Design and deliver on your vision for a technology-driven business transformation. Leading CIOs require a powerful sense of how and where digital can transform product development, or sales and marketing, and how it can open up new lines of revenue. You will require intimate knowledge of the business’s architecture to achieve this.

• Improve your CV. Consider ways to develop a more powerful contacts book. Many leading CIOs take non-executive directorships or join external committees or think tanks to develop a more wide-ranging skillset. Others do MBAs to widen their educational backgrounds.

Less than

10pts20–30

pts10–20 pts

Born to be digital: How leading CIOs are preparing for a digital transformation, EY, 2014 Details of the survey demographic and methodology, along with additional findings and insights, are available in the full version of this executive briefing.

Further reading

How to use cybersecurity to generate business value, EY, 2014 One of the biggest cybersecurity issues CIOs face is how they can use it to develop their roles and increase their influence.

How to take control of your digital development, EY, 2014 As advancing digital technologies rapidly transform the world of business, it is important for CIOs to think carefully about how they themselves are developing in the role.

How to become a successful big data CIO, EY, 2014 CIOs must stop and take stock of the fundamentals to avoid the legal sanctions and reputational damage of a big data incident.

5 insights for executives: Why digital governance matters, EY, 2014 In a digital world, new approaches to governance are vital for minimizing risks and maximizing performance.

Ready for takeoff, EY, 2014 Based on point of views from EY’s global analytics leaders and sector experts the report focuses on how companies can generate value from data by looking into the challenges and steps to take to get most out of the data.

Learn moreFor more information on the wider EY CIO program, visit ey.com/cio and read our blog: cioblog.ey.com.

Follow us on twitter @EY_Advisory.

Digital business know-how Digital is transforming the world we live and work in. Changing the possibilities. Affecting every individual, organization, business and government. Will you seize the opportunity? Or be left behind? Want to know more about EY’s digital business know-how? Visit us at

www.ey.com/digitalbusiness.

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