What does a Chief Digital Officer do?

A Chief Digital Officer (CDO) or a Chief Digital Information Officer (CDIO) is an individual who helps a company, an organization or a public institution to deal with the digital transformation, by using new technologies and big data to achieve business improvement and growth objectives more quickly. He or she is a manager with a long-time experience in his or her field, who sees in the digital the challenge to take the company to a higher level of efficiency, by improving the speed of response to the market needs and the users experience in interacting with it.

Responsibilities

The responsibilities of a CDO are many and may evolve as the digital business evolves. He or she is not just a digital expert, but rather a manager with several years of experience in his or her field, awareness of the business model, with strong multidisciplinary and leadership skills, solid project management foundations, consumer service, ICT, HR, marketing, sales, able to guide the company through the digital transformation, by planning objectives, tools and timing.

The digital transformation is not only about the use of certain technologies, but it also involves, first of all, a real cultural change within the company, starting with the people who make it up and work for it.

The greatest responsibility of a chief digital officer is to guide the company through its transformation process by adopting the right tools and the best processes to increase efficiency and optimize business strategies.

Skills

Being a relatively recent figure, there is no a precise definition of the skills required to become a chief digital officer. However those that follow are key attributes that can't be missing:

Experience in the reference industry
Management skills
Leadership
Focus on customer experience and usability
Human resources relationship and management
Solid sales skills
Multi-channel strategist
Basics of digital marketing
Ability to define KPIs
Multidisciplinary approach
Curiosity towards new instruments
Authority and involvement skills
Ability to face challenges

Where others see a great obstacle, a good CDO sees a great opportunity!

What kind of companies should have a CDO?

At the beginning of the digital transformation, the first companies to introduce this managerial figure were the most visionary and digital oriented, but now that the digital transformation is already underway, no sector is excluded and every industry can benefit from the introduction of a figure that can orchestrate and coordinate the different actors necessary for change.

The following chart shows the percentage of companies that already have a CDO in their personnel, broken down by sector.

This statistic shows the worldwide percentage of companies with chief digital officers (CDOs), as of 2016, by industry. As of that time, insurance companies were the most likely to have a chief digital officer with 35 percent of companies reporting they had a CDO. (Statista.com)

And if some sectors seem less involved in this process or do not appear in the chart, a good CDO would see in this "gap" an excellent opportunity to penetrate new markets and carry out the necessary change.

What approach should a CDO adopt at the beginning of his or her mission?

A good CDO will not impose the use of certain tools in a sudden way, but on the contrary, it will first try to get to know and analyze the habits of the teams, their processes, and only later will introduce those tools useful to improve their work gradually, accompanying people through the transformation process and making them perceive the benefits of using the new systems. Usually, in order to complete this process, the CDO must be able, first of all, to involve his or her collaborators, with a shared mission, an emotional trigger. Changing habits and adopting a methodological approach, by facing a learning curve for new tools is very difficult. The solution is to team up and "fight" to win a challenge together, face the obstacles and come out victorious. The best way to do this is to motivate employees with a "superior mission". A very good help can come from opinion leaders who will influence others in adopting new processes or not. So it is necessary to involve these influencers in the cultural change within the company, and follow the process so that it is extended to the whole team.

Only when the internal cultural process is embraced by everyone, it will be possible to deal with external change, using all the tools necessary to achieve the objectives set out in the CDO roadmap.

What role does the CDO play inside the company?

The chief digital officer can be an internal company manager or an external figure who only temporarily takes the lead of the change, until his or her mission has come to an end, and then move to a new company and bring the change there as well. In any case, the role of the CDO within the company must be close enough to the CEO so as to have full confidence of the management and be able to carry out his or her mission independently and with the necessary budget to achieve the objectives. Sometimes it can be a real team made available to the CDO to accomplish the necessary tasks: a varied group of technicians, visionaries, experimenters and habituaries, in order to prevent any problems and go straight to the objectives.

How much does a CDO earn?

Given the high degree of responsibility, experience and preparation required, many authoritative sources agree that Chief Digital Officers are currently among the best paid profiles on the market.

For example, the Sole24Ore business journal was already reporting in 2016 an annual gross salary of 50 - 60,000 euros, but they assure "The initial bar of 50,000 - 60,000 gross euros can rise to peaks of 90,000 euros after the first 10 years of experience" in the case of the Chief Technology Managers.

Today we are talking about figures ranging from 90 to 150,000 euros for the most qualified profiles, and we are talking about the most requested and paid profiles of 2018.

Our CDO Community

Our CDO community is a path of constant training and exchange to acquire useful skills and competences for this important role.

Each member can access a number of benefits including:

- access to a dedicated portal

- weekly webinars

- participation at monthly events

- documents, projections, tools

- constant support

- direct exchange with other CDOs

These contents are also accessible to the Digital Tailors, the Project Managers in charge of implementing the operations studied by the Chief Digital Officer.

WHAT IS A CHIEF DIGITAL OFFICER?

By 2021, the office of the CDO will be a mission-critical function comparable to IT, business operations, HR and finance in 75% of large enterprises.

All over the world, only a few capable people are leading the best companies throughout the digital challenge

What does a Chief Digital Officer do?

Responsibilities

Skills

More and more companies are looking for a Chief Digital Officer to lead the digital transformation

CDO: THE MANAGER OF CHANGE

Digital transformation or cultural transformation? The manager is the tiebreaker

Why a manager shouldn't use the digital

Career advancement thanks to the Digital Transformation

Who is the CDO and info about the Community

What kind of companies should have a CDO?

What approach should a CDO adopt at the beginning of his or her mission?

What role does the CDO play inside the company?

How much does a CDO earn?

Our CDO Community

Would you like to become a Chief Digital Officer?