Toronto CIO Inner Circle

As digital transformation rewrites business models, CIOs must identify and create revenue-driving projects. Reimagine your leadership to increase the pace your department understands business needs and delivers value. By embracing strategic change and aligning more closely with the business, you can open the door to unparalleled opportunities. Discuss methods for laying the groundwork for a sustainable innovation culture, identifying and vetting opportunities, and integrating with overall business strategy.

Build a sustainable innovation process

• How do you design and scale innovation approaches and programs that will achieve business goals?
• What small-scale activities (think hackathon) or major corporate investments (like a lab or external partnership) has your company implemented?
• How do you create and execute a repeatable innovation process?
• How do you foster a culture of creativity to attract and retain employees?

Identify opportunities to profit from digital

• What planning or research have you conducted to identify digital opportunities?
• What tools or processes have you invested in to increase digital revenue?
• How do you identify emerging technologies for digital transformation and vet emerging technology vendors?
• What skills are needed from you or your hires to fully embrace digital?
• What common roadblocks are coming up as you manage digital project implementations?

Integrate business and IT strategies

• In your role, do you help identify parts of the business that could be transformed?
• How do you contribute to the development of an enterprise-wide strategy?
• Have you begun to align IT and OT? What have the benefits been (reduced costs, reduced risks, increased agility, etc.)?
• How have you embedded security into your IT and business processes to mitigate the security risk of digital technologies?
• How do you identify leading performance indicators for new digital implementations and communicate outputs to other stakeholders?