| | August 20178CIOReviewBuilding a Business CASE FOR THE CIO'S DIGITAL INITIATIVESIN MY OPINIONDigital technology is everywhere today. The impact of social me-dia, online applications, multi-media, cloud computing, interoperable systems, and mobile devices is beyond dispute. For many CIOs and IT profes-sionals supporting digital initiatives, the "what" of digital is not the challenge. It's the "how" as in how to articulate business value to justify strategic digital initia-tives. To better understand this challenge, we need to step back and look at the im-pact of the digital wave on the IT organi-zation. Even a few years ago, digital was perceived as something primarily focused on mobile apps and developing content to be delivered by mobile devices. It was driven by a response to customers' expec-tations for technology and brand inter-action. Traditional areas of IT that were making technology decisions focused on operational efficiencies, cost savings and "keeping the lights on" were suddenly be-ing led by outward-facing business func-tions such as sales and marketing. The digital solution demand exposed gaps in core IT skills that were primarily focused on Tier-1 support rather than customer-centric mobile app development. Today, the gaps are closing as digi-tal becomes business as usual, thereby changing the IT leader's role in impor-tant ways. CIOs are now responsible for a wider and more complex range of tech-nology enablement projects for customers and, increasingly, for employees. At the same time, digital projects require a larg-er number of approvalsmany of them outside the IT functionand often give rise to new processes for approvals and budgeting that are not structured around established IT priorities and investment strategies. While CIOs understand and can ar-ticulate how digital initiatives add value, much of the IT organization, which tra-ditionally advances through their careers Jason MoweryBy Jason Mowery, Director, Digital & Mobile Solutions, KPMG Advisory
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