By aligning important enterprise capabilities and specializing in prospects’ real-time wants, expertise leaders might be greatest geared up to grab future alternatives.
As expertise weaves its method into each enterprise perform, the roles of each the expertise group and the expertise chief have modified. Within the case of the expertise chief, this position has shifted from focusing totally on expertise operations to turning into a vital enterprise enabler with a seat on the C-level desk, the place pivotal choices are made and stable income development is generated.
It’s clear that prospects and development are the “raison d’être” of firms, and that development is an much more necessary focus throughout unsure financial occasions. What will not be as clear is that expertise is an integral part — the facility, if you’ll — of each firm’s development engine. The important thing to reaching technology-powered development is alignment — sincere and open collaboration inside the expertise group and between expertise leaders and their advertising and marketing, gross sales, product and buyer expertise counterparts.
Leap to:
How can expertise leaders energy their group’s development agenda?
Finally, with regards to powering development inside their organizations, expertise leaders can obtain this aim in 5 key methods. They’ll:
Allow development by working safe, rock-solid operations and customer-facing methods.
A enterprise’s advertising and marketing, gross sales, product, digital and repair platforms span the client journey. These buyer options — those who energy buyer self-service and those who empower staff — are important on a regular basis instruments that ought to work so properly that they disappear into the background for patrons and staff. Job one for CIOs and different expertise leaders is working these platforms flawlessly whereas decreasing prices. In doing so, they’ll earn a acknowledged place on the development desk.
Create development by collaborating to supply and scale new merchandise and market channels.
Creating development is all people’s accountability. As a result of CIOs and the IT group have the broadest span of management and visibility throughout the enterprise, processes and information methods, they’re in the very best place to see the large image and assist on this regard.
Some development might be powered by new applied sciences; CIOs and different expertise leaders can reveal how rising applied sciences create particular development alternatives. As a substitute of pitching random acts of metaverse or blockchain, which require radical adjustments in life or commerce to matter, expertise leaders can iterate on new applied sciences and infuse concepts from these into their very own merchandise. For instance, they’ll present how laptop imaginative and prescient accelerates checkout, how generative AI carries human expression into digital merchandise, or how edge computing creates higher equipment replenishment companies.
Amplify development by optimizing every little thing by insights, automation and synthetic intelligence.
Outcomes of every kind can all the time be improved — AI is simply the latest software within the enchancment toolkit, becoming a member of analytics, automation and software program. Personalization at scale is an efficient instance of amplifying development. Expertise leaders ought to collaborate with advertising and marketing colleagues and mine databases to seek out higher buy alerts that enhance presents and outreach. They’ll additionally automate processes to streamline onboarding and enhance income recognition. Placing buyer and product insights into staff’ fingers and making them consultants will result in buyer engagement success.
Activate partnerships to scale their potential to rework and develop.
No expertise chief and no firm will do that alone. They are going to work with expertise and repair suppliers to construct and function the brand new capabilities, together with these powered by generative AI. The expertise group can develop its expertise and capability, scale its firm’s potential to develop and empower enterprise colleagues with co-innovation partnerships that focus suppliers’ consideration on profitable enterprise outcomes.
Harness AI to rewrite the calculus of development.
AI is a sport changer as a result of it builds on the applied sciences that got here earlier than — software program, cloud, IoT and extra — to create new development alternatives. Though it’s tempting to treat AI as only a higher software within the analytics toolbox, the flexibility to study, motive, make inferences, draw conclusions, make suggestions and generate content material is what elevates AI as the following main driver of each vector of technology-powered development.
How can expertise leaders themselves obtain recognition as a pillar of development?
CIOs and different expertise executives have the first accountability to insert expertise squarely into their group’s development dialog. No different govt has the complete visibility and alternative to advance technology-driven development and gauge what friends and rivals are doing with expertise. To raise their place and grow to be the go-to expertise govt, they need to construct on their group’s present place, determine their priorities and talk the enterprise worth of expertise to their agency.
Leaders can even take three steps instantly to determine IT and themselves as pillars of development. These embody elevating their group’s development consciousness and tying it extra deeply into enterprise efficiency; establishing expertise’s position in development for the following 12 months; and speaking what they’re doing to drive development each at the moment and sooner or later.
This text was written by Ted Schadler, vice chairman and principal analyst at Forrester. As a member of Forrester’s Expertise Govt analysis crew, Ted’s analysis and steerage experience give attention to expertise technique, the position of service suppliers as co-innovation companions, the CIO’s position within the development agenda, and digital expertise and commerce companies. Co-author of the books “The Cellular Thoughts Shift: Engineer Your Enterprise to Win within the Cellular Second” (Groundswell Press) and “Empowered: Unleash Your Staff, Energize Your Prospects, and Rework Your Enterprise” (Harvard Enterprise Assessment Press), Ted has a grasp’s diploma in administration from the MIT Sloan College of Administration, an MS in laptop science from the College of Maryland and a BA with honors in physics from Swarthmore Faculty.
To listen to extra from Ted Schadler on the expertise chief’s position in powering development, take a look at his keynote at Forrester’s upcoming Expertise & Innovation North America Discussion board, September 10–12, 2023, in Austin, Texas.
