Digital Transformation: How a Fractional CIO Can Spell Success

Digital transformation has become a loaded term. It has been used to describe almost any technology effort regardless of its goal or purpose. In reality, digital transformation looks different for every company and industry. When you think of digital transformation, think about questioning business processes that have become sacred cows. Think about creating a space to be curious and experiment with possibilities. Think about embracing agility so your organization can respond quickly to market trends and customer needs. Digital transformation fundamentally changes how we do business, and technologies role in it. The disruption of the COVID years pushed digital transformation to the forefront and sped up languishing projects that failed to scale up the priority list. That pace hasn’t subsided.

Digital transformation has come into focus for CIOs as they’ve been asked to surrender their focus on cost savings and instead adopt their role as drivers of business innovation. The need to drive business innovation falls on every business. Deloitte found 87 percent of companies believe digital will disrupt their industry yet a mere 44 percent are prepared for that coming wave of disruption. For those organizations that don’t have a CIO, a fractional CIO can be an optimal solution to help plan and execute initiatives around digital transformation. A fractional CIO brings the expertise of a technology executive at a price point sensitive to the needs of small and medium-sized businesses. 

How can a fractional CIO help with digital transformation

A fractional CIO can help guide digital transformation just as a full-time CIO does. Their part-time role sometimes serves the project better as many times a fractional CIO is brought on largely to focus on that effort. When we look at areas that a fractional CIO can make an impact, they include:

Change Management

At its heart, digital transformation is organizational change. We are replacing processes, the business has long relied upon, with new workflows. Carefully navigating that change is critical. A fractional CIO can craft the vision, assemble the right pieces for success, and guide the team through implementation. The fractional CIO has to consider questions like:

• What is the project’s scope, and what steps are needed to accomplish it?
• What does success look like, and how will we assess progress?
• What stakeholders do we need to include in the decision and implementation phases?
• How does this effort help meet the organization’s strategic goals?

Strategic Planning

We can’t start a digital transformation without creating a roadmap. We have to determine what business outcomes we are looking to achieve. We have to understand the why. We have to research, document, and understand the current process from the pivotal players before we attempt to improve it. We should identify a high-impact component we can carve out as the initial project. Highlighting quick wins can help us sell the vision to the wider organization. We also have to land on the technology and find key partners to help us fill gaps in the expertise necessary for the transformation. We need to iterate and refine our process as we go. We should always aim for continuous improvement and foster a culture of learning.

Cybersecurity

According to a Ponemon report, 82 percent of IT security and C-level respondents experienced at least one data breach resulting from their digital transformation. They reported the lack of third-party risk management and misalignment between IT and lines of business as the chief culprit of vulnerabilities. We should move quickly to realize our digital transformation goals, but not at the expense of cybersecurity. Security has to be baked into the process from the moment of design and remain at the center of the strategy throughout. From vendor selection to communicating strategy, we should look at how security impacts every digital process. A fractional CIO can ensure cybersecurity best practices are followed and project execution always takes into account compliance and regulatory concerns. They can help ensure security is agile and flexible and not be a blocker to project success.

Expertise

Every digital transformation is unique, but they share common threads. Sometimes the biggest challenge is the unknown. Bringing in a fractional CIO, with a proven track record of leading digital transformations, can be a significant boost to the team. It would be really helpful to know the answers to those tough questions before you start. A trusted advisor can help you find the answers to questions like:

• How do we know if our organization is ready to embark on this change?
• This digital transformation is a mammoth undertaking. How can we break it up into digestible chunks? How will we know we are being successful? 
• What employees will slow or impede our transformation efforts? How should we approach them for success?
• What roadblocks can we expect?

Communication

The quickest way for a digital transformation to go sideways is with breakdowns in communication. Essentially, we are disrupting people. Changing the way they work. That can be scary for people who have built their careers around a certain way of doing things. We need to work with department heads to help them understand why this change is needed so we can get their buy-in and they can, in turn, sell it to their people. We need to understand how this change will impact individual processes and prepare those employees who will execute that vision with the proper tools and training to succeed. We need to hear people’s concerns, listen to their ideas, and help them feel like they are part of the process. The transformation’s success depends on it. The more open we are with our communication, the greater our chance for success.

Bringing on a trusted advisor can be the difference between success and failure with your digital transformation. A fractional CIO can bring their seasoned expertise to work for your company to help ready it for the future.