Major Study Reveals Capabilities And Responsibilities Of The Highest-Performing CIOs

ServiceNow commissioned a study by Oxford Economics, polling 516 CIO from 12 countries and 24 industries in an attempt to decipher the capabilities and responsibilities of the highest-performing CIOs. The goal was to understand the expanding set of responsibilities of CIOs and what they must juggle to build a best-in-class organization that creates value. I had a chance to catch up with ServiceNow's CIO Chris Bedi to get his read on the analysis, lessons for other CIOs, and how he intends to leverage these insights with his own IT operation. 

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Peter High: ServiceNow commissioned this major CIO study by Oxford EconomicsWhat was your company’s goal in commissioning the study?

Chris Bedi: ServiceNow set out to answer the question: what is a CIOs job in today where business results are highly dependent on technology?

For a while now, the job description has been about more than just technology. But the impact of technology on the company’s top and bottom line has increased dramatically over the last few years. Our study found that nearly two-thirds of CIOs (63 percent) say that business and leadership skills are more important than technology skills. The reality is that the business strategy and the technology strategy are no longer separate things. For example, ServiceNow’s leadership team listed out each of our priorities and 73 percent of the initiatives were dependent on new technology capabilities. I expect the impact of and pressure on the CIO role to only increase.

High: There were three factors that were determined to separate top-performing CIOs from their lesser peers. The first was that they build C-suite influence, especially with CEOs and CHROs. It is not a surprise that influence flows from the CEO, but it is interesting that the CHRO is a source of influence. Please explain this finding.

Bedi: The highest performing CIOs collaborate with the C-suite to drive better business results. IT is one of the few departments that has a bird’s eye view of everything going on in the organization. You are in a position to spot both opportunity and dysfunction. What I’ve learned at ServiceNow is that my role is to partner with the CEO on where he or she needs to break through barriers internally to drive change and transform the customer experience and internal operations. Leveraging the CEO didn’t naturally to me at first and I imagine it doesn’t come naturally to a lot of other CIOs.

Similarly, when I first started working with ServiceNow’s CHRO, Pat Wadors, we spoke different languages. I measured success on speed and productivity, while Pat was focused on building beautiful experiences. Over time, I realized productivity and experience are two sides of the same coin. The right experience can accelerate adoption, accelerate the behaviors that you’re trying to incent, and accelerate the economic outcomes that you’re trying to achieve.

C-suite leaders want to understand how technology is contributing value to the business. That’s where value metrics come in. For example, by creating a strong digital foundation for our employees, we have boosted our employee satisfaction score for new hire onboarding to 86 percent. Another 89 percent of our employees are satisfied with their digital experiences in general. Finally, we realized $15 million in productivity gains by digitizing key employee experiences in order to streamline workflows across functions like HR, IT, Legal and Finance. This was strategic for the company, because it freed our employees to focus on initiatives that will allow ServiceNow to scale over time.

With all this in mind, it’s no surprise that CIOs are collaborating with their C-suite peers more. More than three-quarters (77 percent) of the CIOs in our survey partner with the CHRO to set talent strategies and 69 percent say that responsibilities include collaborating with the CEO on setting organizational roadmaps.

What this tells us is that CIOs are emerging as employee experience leaders and drivers of change.

High: The second factor is that the best CIOs focus externally on customers. This makes sense, as they can provide better value if they are focused both on the internal operation as well as on customers. What other conclusions do you draw from this insight?

Bedi: For every company, a customer’s success is their success. Technology can be a powerful tool to create customer value and experiences which drive brand loyalty and retention. Every customer experience and customer-facing process is powered by a technology platform where CIO-led improvements can have a direct impact. The data shows that CIOs who lead organizations with the most workflow digitization are more successful at increasing operational efficiency and speed-to-market, developing new products and services, and attracting new customers than the CIOs whose companies are the least digitized.

Most organizations will use a customer net promoter score [NPS] survey or deploy similar tool to understand customer satisfaction. My experience is that no matter what the customer feedback, there is always something IT can do to improve the customer experience. It might be using machine learning to surface analytics for our people to help them better serve the customer or developing new experiences that build brand loyalty.

High: The third factor is that these CIOs are further along at digitizing workflows across their organization. It would seem obvious that better CIOs are both more progressive and are making more progress. What deeper meaning do you draw from this insight?

Bedi: As CIOs are further along at digitizing workflows, they can spend less time thinking about yesterday’s problems and more time focused on tomorrow’s challenges. The first priority will always be to make sure the technology infrastructure runs seamlessly and securely. Automating routine processes frees up employees to focus on strategic tasks that create value for the company

When you become brilliant at the basics, time and resources are freed up to focus on the digital makeover of the organization. Digitizing internal business operations can boost speed and productivity and create the necessary fuel for machine learning algorithms. By leveraging advanced automation and machine learning, companies can also improve decision-making speed and effectiveness.

High: Only 20 percent of CIOs are mastering these traits. How much of this success can be attributed to these CIOs’ own traits and leadership capabilities, and how much of it is the environment they find themselves in?

Bedi: Ultimately, becoming a best-in-class CIO is a leadership challenge. The core metrics we used to assess CIO maturity in our survey each involve leadership principles. For example, successful CIOs re-evaluate business processes for opportunities to apply digital processes, partner with other departments or business units, and measure outcomes against defined goals with the intent to adjust strategies.

It’s worth noting that each company’s environment is different: some companies have a long tenure, a rich heritage, hundreds of thousands of employees, and a ton of technology complexity. Others are young, nimble digital natives with a remote workforce of millennials. The vast majority are somewhere in between. Regardless of one’s starting point, the job of the CIO is to leverage technology to drive the business strategy forward and I believe the same principles apply.

High: How have you used these findings to influence your own leadership style?

Bedi: These findings reinforce my belief that, as business leaders, our focus has to be on value creation. This means driving productivity, shifting resources to innovation, increasing the speed at which our companies operate, and leveraging advanced analytics to create great experiences. Workflow digitization can drive efficiency and productivity, as well as create data that drives better decision-making. In today’s marketplace for both customers and employees, there is a “minimum viable experience” that is acceptable—but you want to go beyond that. Focusing on the technology and architecture isn’t enough. A human-centered approach to technology delivers better results.

Peter High is President of Metis Strategy, a business and IT advisory firm. His latest book is Implementing World Class IT Strategy. He is also the author of World Class IT: Why Businesses Succeed When IT Triumphs. Peter moderates the Technovation podcast series. He speaks at conferences around the world. Follow him on Twitter .

Source: Forbes.com

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