This article about "the role of the CIO in 2030" is based on insights shared by the speakers and participants during an online round table on January 13, 2022, where 20 digital leaders met with speakers and organiser.
Speakers for this event were Saskia Van Uffelen and Jeroen Franssen.
Saskia Van Uffelen is a seasoned executive in the IT sector, Digital Champion for Belgium, working for the European commission and the federal government to foster the digital agenda in Belgium. Saskia is also leading Belgium's digital skills & jobs initiative and ambassador of BeTheChange program at Agoria.
Jeroen Fransen is the labour market specialist at Agoria, the largest sector federation in Belgium representing more than 2.000 technology companies.
Technology has changed society.
Until now turning the back to the most important person in the room was not respectful, yet with new technology, that is what is happening now, and we got used to that.
Everybody and everything is connected. As a consequence, every person believes that they are a better president, prime minister or CEO because they have access to data, very often incomplete and even fake data.
Another effect of new technology is that the competition is not coming out of your own sector anymore, e.g. who will manage the charging stations for electric vehicles: electricity companies, car vendors, retailers, IT companies,…
As everybody has access to more and more data, it is also everybody’s responsibility to handle data in an ethical and respectful way. Also CIO's need to be very attentive to this aspect.
The fast change in technology also came with a war for talent.
And it will only get worse. If nothing is done about it, there will be 541.000 open vacancies in Belgium by 2030, 60.000 of those are vacancies for digital experts, 16.000 of those in the IT sector.
What can be done?
We will need a solid activation program of people who work 0% today.
Belgium is the country where people work most in a binary way: 0% or 100%.
We will also need people who work more than 0% and less than 100%.
We will need to grow productivity per person again.
In Belgium we are good in inventing, developing, selling and implementing new technologies yet not in guaranteeing effective use of these new technologies. RPA, AI and other tools will help to automate the past and free up resources. CIO's need to avoid that talent or money is wasted and focus the investments on what really matters.
We will need continuous training.
We will need to train, to adapt ourselves, to hire raw talent and train them for the task at hand. People management has changed from controlling to motivating. Are the people who have moved up the ranks still the right managers for the future?
The CIO, CDO, CTO, IT manager and all IT team leaders will need to improve their digital skills, moving in many areas from awareness to hands-on experience to real expertise.
Specifically, they will need to increase their knowledge in
- Guarding identity and well-being
- Digital cooperation
- Multidisciplinary work
- Empathy
- Goal-oriented communication
- Creative thinking and innovation
- User-oriented thinking
- Creating digital content
- Resilience
- People management & coaching
- Analysing & visualising data
- Making data-driven decisions
In conclusion, in 2030 the CIO will have to guarantee that solutions are accepted and 100% effective. The CIO will evolve from focusing on IT cost and investments to focusing on ROI and business opportunities. Rather than managing a team of IT profiles, the CIO will be managing an agile team that consists more and more of temporary experts. The CIO will have to be member of the executive committee contributing to defining the strategy of the organisation. For that the CIO will combine his technical skills with knowledge of the business and its strategy. He will also oversee the development of digital skills in the entire organisation and growing a digital culture.
Click here for presentation of Jeroen Franssen
