CTOs, It's time to kick start your digital transformation plans.

Successful digital transformation is an organization-wide effort, and the Chief Technology Officer needs to drive it.

As a CTO, how many times have you heard the same complaints from your IT personnel? Those other departments over-rely on them only for  “tech support and troubleshooting”. Or when it comes to implementing new solutions or systems, they keep hitting a brick wall in trying to get staff from other departments on board with the idea.

If you’re cringing in your chair right now, know that you are not alone. CTOs the world over have to deal with all sorts of technical issues in the workplace. What you need to do as a CTO is step up and take charge.

Delaying digital transformation when you’re faced with silos in your organization isn’t the answer to your problems.

As a CTO, you are just as accountable for business decisions made that impact your organization, as the other C-suites. This includes the mammoth task of digitally transforming the organization. You need to be able to relate the digital transformation to key business outcomes and revenues and communicate that to the other C-suites, as well as the entire workforce.

If you can convince the CEO and CFO that digital transformation is going to boost revenues, win more customers and stave away the competition, you’re halfway there.

In other words, you’re the “digital evangelist” that drives change and gets everyone working together for a common goal: successful digital transformation. Not only do you need to stay up-to-date on the latest digital trends, but you also need to communicate them to the rest of the organization.

Yes, the answer to breaking down silos in your organization is communication. You need a communication plan for digital transformation that requires collaboration between all departments, especially the silo-ed ones. This will reduce friction in implementing the digital transformation strategy itself and get the buy-in from all stakeholders in the organization.

Another thing that you must do as the CTO is to ensure that data and information are not blocked within traditional silos, but be accessible throughout the organization. It is your job here to bring strategic thinking to the fore, including implementing innovation management throughout the organization.

It can be harder to implement all these if you don’t even know where your organization lies on its data-driven journey, which is a crucial part of digital transformation.

For example, the DDO™ Model can shed light on which department has more data-savvy professionals and identify the staff in other departments who need retraining, thereby ensuring that other departments are not paralyzed during the digital transformation process.

Under this model, we developed a Data-Driven Organization framework that assesses an organization’s maturity level based on 6 key dimensions that are fundamental to DDO change:

An extension of the Model is CADS AI Skills Intelligence Platform™, our AI-driven platform that helps organizations gain visibility and clarity on where to go next, what to invest in, and who to upskill (or hire) to accelerate digital transformation.

Transitioning from a traditional business to a data-driven organization is like getting an elephant to fly. CADS AI Skills Intelligence Platform™ can assist organizations in accelerating transformation based on the areas outlined below:

Our whitepaper “Talents, not technology will make or break your digital transformation”, provides real-life examples of organizations that broke down silos successfully using the DDO™ Model and the CADS AI Skills Intelligence Platform™ platform, to become data-driven organizations and achieve real business outcomes.

You’ll learn about how a major ASEAN financial institution transformed the mindsets and attitudes of its employees by creating a transparent and creative work environment. You’ll also read about how a major oil and gas company upskilled its employees, making for a happier and healthier workplace, with improved job relevance and talent retention.

#CTO #businesstransformation #leadership #dataanalytics #datadriven