EDITOR ’ S QUESTION
PASCAL BRIER , GROUP CHIEF INNOVATION
OFFICER , CAPGEMINI
When the concept of Digital Transformation first emerged , it was mainly focused on transforming how a company ’ s headquarters operates , affecting areas very close to the world of the CIO . Yet , the second wave of Digital Transformation is going beyond administrative processes to digitise a company ’ s industrial assets like products , factories , manufacturing and supply chains .
IT is often viewed as a support function in these environments , and responsibilities are shared between functions like engineering directors , technical directors and industrial directors as well as the CIO . So , a CIO ’ s first challenge is to ensure they get the legitimacy and the mission to lead this second wave of Digital Transformation which has now expanded far beyond their normal operating environment .
Ultimately , the CIO has the power to lead this new wave of Digital Transformation , but only if they develop the necessary relationships with peers in other functions and take steps to understand how industrial environments operate . To conceptualise this , they should consider the three dimensions of the fourth industrial revolution : products , factories and industrial processes .
CIOs need to first establish how they should support the digitalisation of products , and whether they are best placed to lead the project . For example , digitalising products can mean developing specific embedded and industrial software , so CIOs must determine whether to share power with someone specialised in such environments or if they should take responsibility solely in a domain where they may lack expertise .
The second dimension is the digitalisation of factories and industrial facilities . Here , CIOs will grapple with how to manage vastly different industrial sites . It ’ s almost impossible to define a common digitalisation strategy for environments as different as a gigafactory versus a 150-year-old factory , so they will need to determine what should be digitalised and what will require too much effort .
A CIO ’ s first challenge is to ensure they get the legitimacy and the mission to lead this second wave of Digital Transformation .
The third dimension concerns processes . This can be achieved by taking advantage of digitalisation to improve an organisation ’ s engineering , customer service and supply chain processes . Here , CIOs face the challenge of digital continuity . They should think about how to break down data silos and help different departments , like manufacturing and supply chain , to collaborate .
Underpinning everything they do , the CIO must be prepared to transform business processes , and not just the technologies that support these processes .
By thinking about business processes first and not just the technologies , they will be better prepared for the rapid changes of the fourth industrial revolution .
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