EY-CIOs-Born-to-be-digital

Typically more engaged on strategicissuesOne of the clearest differences that mark out IT-intensive industryCIOs from typical CIOs is their far stronger focus on businessperformance. One in two (55%) regularly engages with the board onthis topic — well ahead of just 36% of typical CIOs.Take Fred Swanepoel, the CIO of Nedbank, one of South Africa’smajor retail banks, who is a member of the company’s executivecommittee. He provides advice to the board on the strategicdirection of the business and leveraging technology to achievestrategic objectives on at least a quarterly basis.“In IT-intensive industries, you see a more centralized governancemodel, with IT issues pulled together at a board or executivecommittee level,” he explains. In a business such as Nedbank, this iseasy to understand: “We are constantly investigating technologiesto improve client experience and operational efficiency, and tomake sure the bank stays competitive. When you’re talking aboutbanking products today, there are very few products you canactually touch. The computer code facilitates the commitments wemake to clients, so the technology environment is strategicallyimportant to building and maintaining trust in the organization,”he says.Chart 2Areas in which CIOs actively engage with the executivemanagement teamDiscussing business performanceand challengesParticipating in strategicdecision-makingDiscussing mergersand acquisitions*Discussing IT's role in research anddevelopment of services and products*Providing facts as basis forstrategic decisionsDiscussing IT's role inbusiness transformationDiscussing IT budgetary issues andinfrastructure managementStrategic engagement57%55%36%53%45%43%26%27%55%50%59%55%52%IT-intensive industry CIO — board memberIT-intensive industry CIO — overallTypical CIO(Percentage of respondents who have chosen 8, 9 or 10 on a scale from 1 = do not engage at allto 10 = actively engage)* Answer option was not included into typical CIO survey (The DNA of the CIO)64%67%76%72%77%73%12 | Born to be digital