Do organisations need a CDO?

The Chief Digital Officer is a role that is currently on the ascendency. Its popularity is such that I would rank it in the top 5 most fashionable enterprise IT cocktail party conversation themes.

What CDOs are actually responsible for is not crystal clear. It might help to get a better understanding of this new definition of digital.

Those that have been in the IT industry a few decades will know digital to be a reference to those technologies underpinned by binary and Boolean logic. Today it appears to be a way of discussing IT matters at boardroom level without having to involve the CIO.

Possibly the CDO is a boardroom-friendly interface in the same way in which business analysts were created to protect users from technical architects?

If CIOs insist on focusing on technology management then organisations do need someone to ensure that the organisation capitalises on the digital investment and the emerging digital opportunities.

If the CIO was to spend less time being an IT manager there might not be such a need for CDOs.

So as the role of CDO gains traction, it is up to CIOs to reposition themselves as the real CDO or sit by and watch their empire collapse as technology management is absorbed into the cloud.