CDO and CIO: Partners in Digital Transformation
Kevin Bandy, SVP and Chief Digital Officer, Cisco
We recently hosted the largest Cisco Live! ever, with more than 28,000 attendees on hand in Las Vegas. The theme was digital transformation. We focused on how Cisco’s latest innovations and acquisitions help customers use the network to reimagine how work gets done. The rules of business are being re-written from the network out, touching everything companies do.
To meet the demands of the digital era, Cisco is transforming from a company that primarily sold hardware products to one that allows customers to choose how they consume the breadth of our integrated offerings. This transformation requires alignment across the business, including sales, finance, service, engineering, and operations in all regions.
As I met with leaders from Cisco’s largest customers, I was asked a question I get routinely: Who owns digital transformation, the CIO or the CDO? IT does the technical work from the network architecture to the applications, so should the CIO own it? Or, should the CIO focus on the enabling digital technologies, leaving “transformation” to the CDO?
My experience tells me the answer isn’t the CIO or the CDO – it’s both working in unison toward a common digitization goal. I truly believe the partnership I have with our CIO, Guillermo Diaz, is a model that can benefit other organizations.
As CDO, I listen to the market to understand how Cisco needs to evolve its business to meet the changing demands of our customers. Partnering with executive leadership across the company, I am fundamentally reengineering our business processes, policies, and nearly every aspect of our business to execute in a timely manner. Guillermo, as our CIO, decides the best way to adapt Cisco’s enterprise IT architecture, technology strategy, and IT services to support the new business strategy. Neither Guillermo nor I can drive digital transformation alone.
This partnership simplifies what could be a very messy and complicated process, allowing Cisco to move quickly and stay ahead of market demands and capitalize on emerging opportunities. I encourage other companies to follow our lead.
How is your company organized to achieve your digital transformation goals? Let me know your thoughts.
Keywords: CIO, IT, CDO, chief digital officer, Cisco Digitization Office, digital, digitization, transformation, digital transformation, network, business process, Cisco Live!
Simple blog post but helps everyone understand the synergy between Business & IT. Thanks for posting this.
Very focused blog regarding the changing corporate structure involved in digitization. Well done.
A 2015 IBM survey showed that in IT, as many as 15 functional roles – other than the CIO – may influence technology investment decisions. Chief digital officers and chief data officers were only present in 30% of large enterprises and 25% of IT functions. IBM found that where these roles have emerged, collaboration is critical to role incidence and influence on decision making.
A 2015 IBM survey showed that in IT, as many as 15 functional roles – other than the CIO – may influence technology investment decisions. Chief digital officers and chief data officers were only present in 30% of large enterprises and 25% of IT functions. IBM found that where these roles have emerged, collaboration is critical to role incidence and influence on decision making.
…There’s no doubt that the digital transformation constitutes a learning process to be successful to achieve the appropriate goals. Agree with the article content. Thank you for sharing it.
There is definately a lot to find out about this issue.
I like all the points you made. http://Bing.Co.uk/