Three Types of Chief Digital Officers and the Reasons Organizations Adopt the Role

Digital innovation impacts every industry, and in response many organizations have introduced a new leadership role—the chief digital officer (CDO). Based on interviews with CDOs from various sectors, we have identified three types of CDOs—digital accelerators, digital marketers and digital harmonizers—and three domains where successful CDOs build digital capabilities (digital innovation, data analytics and customer engagement). As shown below, each type of CDO focuses specifically on one of the digital capabilities. The table also shows the primary objective of each type of CDO and the reasons for establishing that role. Digital Accelerator CDOs. The common characteristic of digital accelerator CDOs is that they drive digital innovation—typically complementing existing IT leaders who are predominantly involved with supporting operational and missioncritical activities, with a strong emphasis on reliability, performance and security. The scope of the CDO is different from that of IT executives in their organizations—less focused on operational reliability and more focused on experimenting with new capabilities in novel areas. Digital accelerator CDOs complement more conservative IT organizations by focusing on rapid development and evaluation of digital technologies. The role of digital accelerator CDOs is to achieve fast results by facilitating continual experimentation with minimal viable products of digital innovations. Digital Marketer CDOs. This type of CDO guides the organization’s digital marketing efforts with an emphasis on customer intimacy through technologies like social media and mobile computing, as well as intensive analysis of customer data. Digital marketer CDO roles have been established to streamline online and offline marketing channels for engaging with customers. These CDOs complement marketing efforts by deploying digital technologies that can enhance products, customer relationships and competitive position. Digital Harmonizer CDOs. In addition to complementing the IT or the marketing functions, some CDOs (digital harmonizers) are brought in to take an aggregate view of all ongoing digital initiatives. These CDOs are charged with linking together a wide variety of digital initiatives in many different areas of their organizations. The digital harmonizer role is a way of bringing these initiatives under a single, typically more strategic, umbrella. Digital harmonizers aggregate the disparate digital efforts distributed across the organization into a single unit and coordinate them. They emphasize governance and the need for transparency in digital projects.