CIOs who work closely with CEOs to direct digital strategies will eventually find themselves in the CEO鈥檚 seat themselves, according to Salesforce.com CEO Marc Benioff.
It might seem ironic for the leader of the company that blazed the trail for shadow IT to acknowledge that the CIO鈥檚 role has ratcheted up several notches in importance. Yet in a sign of how, in the words of Marc Andreessen, 鈥渟oftware is eating the world鈥� and perhaps irrevocably altering the business landscape, Salesforce.com CEO Marc Benioff says that the CEO is working closely with the 娇色导航to architect digital transformations. Eventually, some of those CIOs will become CEOs, he said.
鈥淲e鈥檙e in a new world where the 娇色导航is redefining their role and the partnership that they have with the CEO today is, I think, never happened before in our industry,鈥� Benioff said, speaking to about 100 CIOs at the Forbes 娇色导航Summit in Half Moon Bay, Calif.
What is driving this change? Benioff says that every company is afraid of being 鈥淯berized out of the world,鈥� a reference to how the ride-sharing startup has disrupted the transportation industry, one of the latest examples of the . As a result, CEOs are formulating their digital strategies, and enlisting their CIOs is their core partner for enablement and capability. The 娇色导航has become the Robin to the CEO鈥檚 Batman.
CIOs shine at executing CEOs鈥� digital agenda
Digital transformations are accelerating, . Thirty-one percent of 305 CIOs, CEOs and other senior executives the researcher surveyed said that digital transformation, defined as shifts to cloud, mobile, analytics and social capabilities, will expand significantly within the next 24 months. Another 58 percent expecting to expand their digital activities at a more moderate pace. In five years, 42 percent predict their jobs will be mostly digital.
Benioff said that CIOs have evolved beyond managing financials, general ledger, and email to hashing out digital agendas with their CEOs. 鈥淲hen I look at what the 娇色导航does today鈥� it鈥檚 very different than where it was a decade ago,鈥� Benioff said. 鈥淚 don鈥檛 think that you can separate the CEO and 娇色导航relationship any longer.鈥�
CIOs who are able to guide successful digital transformations will eventually become CEOs, Benioff said. 鈥淭he CIOs are going to become the CEOs because to become the CEO, you鈥檙e going to need this [digital] capability 鈥� More and more you鈥檒l see the 娇色导航becoming the chief executive officer because the board 鈥� is getting a lot of exposure to the 娇色导航and then the board says that 娇色导航has got that vision, has that idea and knows the digital transformations that we have to make to get back to growth. And the growth is going to come from the delivery of these next generation services. That鈥檚 the CEO鈥檚 job.鈥澛犅�
Benioff鈥檚 opining on the evolving role of the 娇色导航was a response to a CIO鈥檚 question about how CIOs should deal with shadow IT. More than a decade ago, Salesforce.com annoyed CIOs by selling its cloud-based CRM software directly to sales and marketing departments that paid by swiping their corporate credit cards. On Monday, Benioff acknowledged that shadow IT has empowered CMOs and other business line leaders to be 鈥渕ini-CIO鈥� serving their employees as customers.
Not every 娇色导航is a 鈥檛ransformer鈥�
Although Benioff was bullish on the power of digital transformations as well as their power to shake up the C-suite, Forbes Insights suggests that the reality is more nuanced. While some CIOs are guiding their organizations鈥� digital transformations, others remained more confined to more traditional roles managing and deploying of technology. Others fall somewhere in between.
Forbes Insight research highlights what it sees as the different types of CIOs. (Click for larger image.)
Thirteen percent of respondents said their CIOs are 鈥渢ransformers鈥� serving as full partners to the business in digital transformations. Another 43 percent are 鈥渁dvocates,鈥� meaning that while their organizations haven鈥檛 fully embraced digital, they are piloting or exploring digital projects. However, 37 percent of executives are 鈥渟ervicers: who develop digital capabilities in response to requests or guidance from other business units. Lastly, 7 percent identified as 鈥減lumbers,鈥� engaged in running the traditional tasks of IT, such as provisioning servers.
The digital disruption, including the evolution to cloud, data analytics, social and mobile capabilities that underpin digital transformations, is such that customers are beginning to resemble cloud vendors, Benioff says. Many Salesforce.com customers provide cloud services to their customers, operate on a deferred revenue model and move faster to product high rates of innovation, Benioff says. That鈥檚 leading to larger contracts with cloud providers such as Salesforce.com, which last month announced that it had inked .
鈥淭oday, you are witnessing a movement where every company is becoming a cloud company that I work with,鈥� Benioff says. 鈥淐ompanies want to make [cloud] our standard for our enterprise鈥� and that is also really the maturation of the cloud.鈥�
