As we mentioned in the announcement about our pending name change to Applause – the app world is much bigger than ever before. Not only are there more apps and more companies making apps, but the business of app quality is no longer solely in the hands of developers, testers or the IT department. It’s now “an engineering problem, a product problem, a marketing problem and a sales problem. In truth, it’s a CEO problem.” A company’s digital presence is now intimately tied to the brand’s reputation and success.
This fact is highlighted by studies and stats, but its also evident in the rise of the Chief Digital Officer. At the moment, CDOs are typically found in more “traditional” companies that recognize they need to change and adapt to keep up with the new digital world. According to Gartner, 6% of companies currently have chief digital officers, but that number is growing quickly. So what, exactly, does this digital head do? According to an article on CIO.com, it depends on the company but generally they have a hand in steering the company’s overall digital strategy and collaborate with many departments.
“As mobile technology and data analytics completely reshape the business landscape, building a truly digital business DNA is an imperative for survival in today’s competitive app economy. Many companies are seeking CDOs to lead this enterprise-wide transformation,” said Bryan Kirschner, director of the Apigee Institute. …
The CDO is not there to make technology decisions or run the company infrastructure. It’s a transformative role that is being used to break up the siloed functions within organizations. The CDOs are more about analyzing the data and how it relates to the business and customer experience. “The way to best describe the CDO is that you need to be a silo-buster connecting different disciplines and departments,” says [Andy Gilman, president and CEO of CommCore Consulting Group].
According to Tricia Blair, Chief Digital Officer at Lincoln Financial Group, a CDO can strengthen the company and ensure that the company understands digital’s impact on everything it does, from product planning to customer relations. Essentially, the chief digital officer is the one that understands that a company’s digital presence is everyone’s problem and it’s the CDO’s job to make sure all the key players recognize and embrace this new way of thinking.
Blair notes that her CDO peers in different organizations have varied hierarchy, but with Lincoln she considers the CIO and CMO peers, as opposed to reports. At Lincoln the three core components of her position include the Web, social media and mobile technology. As CDO she sees the role as the third leg in a good foundation. “There’s a focus that the CMOs take, a focus that the CIOs take and the focus of the chief digital officer that really makes for an extraordinarily strong partnership in a world that continues to get much more complex,” says Blair.
There is some debate as to whether this position will be a lasting one or if it’s just “transitional” as companies play catch-up with the digital age. But what the role of chief digital officer represents – that companies need to approach digital strategies and app quality with an all-in, comprehensive plan that has far-reaching effects – won’t be going away any time soon.