October 20168 By Kate Christiansen, Managing Director, The Adaptive Advantage and Author of The Thrive Cycle: Unlock The Adaptive Organisation WithinGoing Digital: Why Today's CIO Needs to be Better with People than TechnologyFor 20 years Kate has worked internationally, adapting large organisations to strategic change. Her book The Thrive Cycle: Unlock The Adaptive Organisation Within (thethrivecycle.com) is an innovative, actionable guide for senior leaders who want to build an organisation that's fit for a world of relentless change.IN MY VIEWCEOs are looking to their most senior technology executives to lead the charge on their firm's digital strategy. However, as many CIOs are discovering, success in a digital world is not just about having the best technology. It's also about building an internal, collaborative environment and an organisation that can effectively respond to a world of complex change. So how can you do this?Digital Depends on CollaborationLet's start by clarifying what a digital strategy really is, and importantly, what it's not. It's not about the internet, big data, mobile technology or the cloud. These may feature within it, but at its core, successful digital strategy comes down to an organisation's ability to address 5 core areas, none of which can be resolved by a single department on its own.It starts with gaining Insights into how technology is changing people's lives and how this is changing their needs and expectations of those they buy from, spend time with or work for. A similar level of collaboration is needed on the Responses side, to determine how emerging technology can be used to meet changing needs and expectations as well as making delivery more effective (ie. faster, cheaper, better). The above four areas of the digital strategy involve looking for opportunities and threats that are enabled (or fuelled by) technological change. Then, we reach the fifth area, Adaptive Capability and this involves the greatest collaborative effort of all. Namely, changing the organisation such that it's able to respond to the threats and opportunities identified in the other four areas, on a continuous basis. As Tom Peters once said "...any idiot with a high IQ can invent a great strategy. What's really hard is fighting against the unwashed masses and pulling it off".`Thus, a successful digital strategy is as much about the `how' as it is about the `what' and as much about `people' as it is about 'technology'.
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