Kinetic CIOs Can Reinvent the Enterprise, Shows Study

COVID-19 ushered in an era of unfamiliar challenges and unexpected risks. Nonetheless, organizations that are in the frontline of digital innovation and are leveraging technology at its best can create a competitive advantage. As companies need a captain to sail through during the crisis, they are increasingly turning to technology leaders who are resilient, agile, and future-focused, according to “The kinetic leader: Boldly reinventing the enterprise,” the recently released 2020 global technology leadership study from Deloitte’s CIO research.

The analyst firm terms these leaders as ‘kinetic leaders’ or the catalysts of change who envision and deliver growth, who are future-focused and navigate you through the reforms.

Kinetic leaders adeptly transform the enterprise, unlike potential leaders who just form a strategy to do so but cannot catalyze them. These tech leaders are not ordinary at what they do. They are the drivers for change and the prime reason why organizations are successfully reinventing.

As observed from the study, there are a number of ways a kinetic leader can reinvent an enterprise:

Kinetic leaders have a Growth mindset

Creativity and innovation are the bread and butter for a company’s growth and reform. Kinetic leaders, emphasize re-creating and inventing new products to expand their firm’s horizons. With a growth-focused mindset, kinetic leaders have the ability to get higher authorities on board to invest in new ventures and increase their customer base. In addition, they walk along with the current technology trends and utilize them efficiently to make the most of them.

“Knowing that technology is an integral part of any organization today, they prioritize creating new business models and leveraging these tech advancements to enhance them further,” researchers say.

They are customer-oriented

A strong customer base is what makes you stand out in the industry. After all, without them your products and innovations are obsolete.  Technology champions who are the kinetic leaders gather a team of tech-savvy members to initiate these innovations that will meet their customer’s demands and improve their experience. These leaders use a plethora of social media platforms, survey and feedback tools, and records their consumer’s expectations. They connect with the customers directly via AI-enabled tools like chatbots. The Deloitte study shows these tech vanguards focus on customers to reach the global markets and increase profits.

Promote enterprise agility

The C-suite executives of a company expect a CIO who is change-oriented, tenacious, a visionary, and an innovator who will navigate the business through the dynamic nature of the industry. In other words, they want kinetic tech leaders on board. In today’s times, these tech leaders with their tenacity, resilience and a single-minded vision, influences the entire firm to walk the path of change and innovation management. For example, these tech leaders, as the research shows, ensure that they hire talent who possess soft skills that are essential to adapt to the fast-paced changes happening across the globe. Moreover, they also invest in training programs to upskill the existing employees to build a relevant skillset for the future.

These initiatives facilitate them to create the ultimate balance of technical and soft skills and transform the enterprise into an agile, contingent, and resilient workplace.

They are Future-focused visionaries

According to the study, having a future-focused kinetic leader is of prime importance to sail through these tough times. Agility and resilience help them to identify and analyze the trends, risks, and challenges ahead of the curve. This potential to stay prepared helps them position the company for several years.

The visionary mindset enables them to think twice before implementing any plan. He explains with an example. Say, resorting to layoffs of employees, who will be needed for future-projects during an economic downturn is a temporary, quick-fix that may harm the firm down the line. But the vision helps them build a mature firm with refined contingency and business continuity plans in place.

Wrap up

Although the pandemic’s complete impact is not fully known, the findings show, technology leaders who can meet business leaders’ expectations of driving meaningful transformation can help organizations navigate the new era of volatility. In addition, the pandemic has accelerated the timeline for technology adoption and business digitization, presenting CIOs with an unprecedented opportunity to help shape the future of the business.

As the researchers conclude, “While technology leaders can’t control the wind, they can adjust the sails—but probably not by incrementally fine-tuning their strategies and technology capabilities. Organizations can meet the challenges of the moment and the future with fast, game-changing breakthroughs. It is here that Kinetic tech leaders can help them make that leap from incremental to transformational change.”