CIOs and the Digital Transformation: A New Leadership Role

Abstract

Over the past few years, digital transformation and digital disruption have been widely addressed in both academic literature and business press. Still, these contributions notwithstanding, many IT executives are still struggling to find a go-to reference that would help them to orientate and fully exploit new digital opportunities through their transformational journey. This is partly due to the still limited collaboration between the two communities—academics and managers. Scholars are supposed to be focused on developing abstract models and theoretical representations of the new digital reality. Conversely, business and IT professionals seem to be primarily concerned with obtaining workable solutions to a concrete problem. In this book, we attempt to blend the two perspectives and explore new, fresh areas that are highly relevant for researchers and practitioners alike. To that end, each chapter of this book is written by scholars and co-authored with an IT executive, to bring together the rigorousness of academic research and the richness of practical experience in a single volume. This book is a collection of stories and experiences written jointly by academics and CIOs from the IT community, and is aimed particularly at managers and executives looking for inspiration to advance their digital journeys. The book opens with this introduction as an interview with Paolo Cinelli, Digital Business Manager at IKEA and one of the most influential figures in the international digital community. Paolo Cinelli talks about his experience with the digital transformation at IKEA, openly discusses the challenges he had to overcome along the way and shares his thoughts on what makes a CIO successful in today’s digital world. This original contribution covers a wide range of experiences interlacing multicultural environments and gives an interesting perspective on the definition of Digital Transformation, the needed customer journey and the various challenges that this process is facing. Confronted with the various factors related to this unavoidable and ongoing change, a resilient manager should be able to recognize and seize all opportunities that every epochal disruption ultimately presents to existing organizations.