Chief digital officers join CIOs in 20% of government agencies next year: Gartner

Big-data discipline is set to reach the highest levels of government, with more than 10 percent of government organisations expected to appoint a chief data officer and over 20% appointing a chief digital officer (CDO) by next year, a Gartner analyst has predicted.

Speaking at the research firm’s Gartner Symposium on the Gold Coast, Howard said government bodies were looking for ways to reconcile emerging digitally-focused executive roles with the traditional roles and responsibilities of the CIO.

“With the hyperconnected world in which government finds itself in this new digital industrial economy, the role of government – while it may not change at its core – certainly the way in which it operates will change, and with it the role of the IT service organisation,” he explained.

“This is a very dynamic time to lay out the long-term roadmap, and at the same time to meet the immediate needs of cost containment or bringing greater innovation into the organisation.”

Although the CDO’s responsibilities would initially provide some level of autonomy, Howard believes the new role would eventually be subsumed by the traditional CIO role as the disciplines the chief data officer refines over time are fed back into the CIO’s remit.

“The application of open data principles to data other than public data will give CIOs the ability to regain a key role on driving the data architecture well beyond the externally facing remit of a chief data officer,” he explained.

“As a result, the chief data officer role is very likely to be subsumed by the CIO or the chief digital officer. The title may remain, but the occupant will likely be reporting to the CIO or the chief digital officer.”

In the long term, Howard anticipates friction between the chief digital officer and CIO, with business-unit leaders expected to take back control of digital initiatives once the discipline around data management is better understood and has been normalised within the business.

By 2017, he adds, more than 60% of government organisations with both a CIO and CDO will have eliminated one of the two roles.

“The chief digital officer and the CIO will become information custodians, providers and, most of all, advisors. However, it will be up to the business to determine how to strategically use that information. In such a situation, there is little reason for keeping two separate roles,” Howard said.

“Most likely, the chief digital officer role will be absorbed by, or become indistinguishable from, the CIO role. In a minority of organisations, the reverse might be true, mostly due to the negative connotation of the CIO as a ‘role of the past’. It is quite possible that the new integrated title will be chief digital information officer.” – David Braue