To find the right digital leader, or leaders, for an organization, we propose that you should first ask: “Where is my organization today in our digital acceleration journey?”
We define “digital acceleration” as an organization’s ability to effectively employ new technologies to innovate its current operating model and customer experience while also incubating new digital offerings and ways of working
by Shaloo Kulkarni and Scott Snyder Heidrick & Struggles / Knowledge Center Publication
In a rapidly evolving and globalizing business environment, the composition of the C-suite has been changing almost as fast as the world outside the organization. Because fast-changing technology and digital disruption are at the center of many of the challenges—and opportunities—organizations are facing today, finding the right leaders to fulfill the core strategic mandate has become even more critical for today’s CEOs. Unfortunately, building digital expertise is not as simple as expanding the remit of an existing chief technology officer (CTO) or chief information officer (CIO), nor is it just a matter of expanding the C-suite to include a chief digital officer (CDO).
To find the right digital leader, or leaders, for an organization, we propose that you should first ask: “Where is my organization today in our digital acceleration journey?” We define “digital acceleration” as an organization’s ability to effectively employ new technologies to innovate its current operating model and customer experience while also incubating new digital offerings and ways of working. A crucial element of effectively employing new technologies is the right people in the right roles: one study from Wipro Digital states that fully half of all digital transformations fail because of people issues.1 Thus, companies need to understand not only the individual skill sets they need but also their culture and how their leaders, teams, and the entire organization align in order to determine both where they are on their digital acceleration and how ready they are to move forward. Without internal alignment, shifting gears to further accelerate becomes extremely difficult.
