What is leadership? This is one of the questions that regularly comes to mind for thousands of professionals around the world when they have to face challenges and rely on a team to achieve their goals. There are perhaps as many definitions of leadership as there are authors inspired to define it, but for our purposes today, Canadian economist John Kenneth Galbraith's definition is quite apt: "All great leaders have had one characteristic in common: the willingness to unequivocally confront the greatest anxiety of their people in their time. This, and not much else, is the essence of leadership." Is this definition useful for today's corporate leaders? If we focus on those responsible for decisions relating to digital transformation, it may be more than correct: all companies seem to be gripped by anxiety about the new times, and a large and "select" group of executives seems called upon to steer the ships toward success.
This brings us to the CIO survey conducted by Harvey Nash and KPMG, which reaches its 21st edition in 2019. In addition to more than two decades of experience interpreting the data, the survey's scope is impressive: 3,600 responses fromChief Information Officers (CIOs) and other technology executives in 108 countries, a figure that leads them to boast that it is "the world's largest IT leadership survey."
As such, this research provides direct information on the priorities, strategies, and careers of leading technology leaders around the world, and raises pertinent questions about contrasting phenomena. For example, given the evidence of IT budget increases at a faster rate than at any other time in the last 15 years, the survey raises questions such as the purpose of these increases, or questions relating to managing the balance between disruptive technologies and the associated risks. A case study of the latter issue would be Artificial Intelligence: it offers great opportunities, but creates friction in terms of cybersecurity, privacy, and data regulation.
With the latest data in hand, the firms responsible for the study maintain that digital leaders differentiate themselves from the rest with tangible results in almost all cases: better time to market, better customer experience, better employee experience, and greater operational efficiency. Let's put it more definitively: higher revenue growth and greater profitability. This success is determined by the willingness to "put technology in the hands of value creators," as well as "clearly recognizing the power of data and having a relentless focus on speed and agility."
Another finding from the recent survey is that almost half (44%) of organizations expect to change their product and/or service offering, or their fundamental business model, over the next three years. That is the law of the "economy of disruption." What is valid today is useful for the present, but not for the immediate future. Survival thus becomes a symptom of companies' real ability to adapt quickly to changes in the market and the environment. The ability to be "liquid" and flow with technological evolution, with increasingly affordable acquisition ratios in SaaS models or with codes that replicate and simplify complex solutions.
These changes are also determined by the estimate that at least 20% of professional roles will be replaced by artificial intelligence and automation, although the majority (69%) of respondents believe that new job roles will emerge to compensate for those lost. Automation is not new in industrial society, as it has been present since its early days as a cause of many labor and social conflicts. What is new is the ability of machines to learn complex and elaborate mechanisms in a field that was previously off-limits to them.
As for IT leadership management, this is reinforced by the trend toward spending geared toward business decisions, which fosters a greater ability to identify opportunities and act accordingly. This is true for nearly two-thirds (63%) of the organizations surveyed. However, this situation also causes imbalances where the IT team is not involved, as it increases risks related to privacy and security. In other words, decisions in this area must be linked to business decisions, but they require the cooperation of managers and their teams to function properly.
On the other hand, IT leaders continue to struggle to find professionals who fit the profiles they require. "The skills shortage is at an all-time high," say the authors of the report, "with 67% struggling to find the right talent." The three most scarce skills are those related to the analysis of large amounts of data (Big Data and Analytics), the detection of risks and establishment of protocols to prevent cyberattacks (cybersecurity), and computer programs designed to perform operations considered to be specific to human intelligence (Artificial Intelligence, AI).
When it comes to positions of responsibility, there appears to be a decline in the status of CIOs, an issue we have already discussed in these pages: their presence on executive boards has fallen from 71% two years ago to 58% today. However, where they are present, their influence remains intact according to the other members of the board: both two years ago and now, two-thirds of board members support the management ofChief Information Officers. Undoubtedly, those who want to continue to play a leading role must commit to large-scale cloud adoption and investments in IoT and AI solutions, as well as dip their toes into quantum computing, which are shaping up to be trends in the immediate future.
Finally, the survey also reveals some potentially good news after years of cyber risks: cybercrime continues to rise, but at least at a constant rate of around 33% per year. This means that although it is growing rapidly, it is no longer growing each year at a faster rate than the previous year, suggesting a certain "stabilization" in the relentless battle between internal and externalhackers.
These are the anxieties that technology leaders must face if they want to also be at the forefront of corporate leadership. Those who are able to do so, and to do so unequivocally, will have a safe passage to achieving their goals.
Photo byLevi VenturaonUnsplash
