Dive Brief:

• Less than 10% of CIOs are digital vanguards, or leaders who align their business and digital strategies, according to Deloitte's 2018 global CIO survey of more than 1,400 IT professionals. The majority of digital vanguards, 57%, consider innovation their top business priority, followed by customers and growth.

• Baseline companies, or those further behind the digital process than vanguards, list innovation as the fourth top business priority. CIOs in digital vanguard companies are 42% more likely to be "business co-creators and change instigators" and adjust business operations. 

• Deloitte found more than half of CIOs serve as "trusted operators," with a focus on IT efficiency, reliability and cost containment. However, this pattern is expected to become obsolete as digital transformation continues, according to the report. Over the next three years CIOs expect their responsibilities to be more transformative, but it is likely the operational side will remain intact.

Dive Insight:

Deloitte noted many CIOs rose to their position based off their IT talent rather than their leadership and communication skills. Transitioning their skills to leadership is a challenge for some.

Developing the ability to make technical language easily digestible for business execs outside IT is tough. Part of communicating a clear IT vision is developing relationships with fellow executives and board members. And sparking change in nontechnical executives needs to be translated beyond a dollar amount.

IT developments and innovations require each level of their framework to be represented with a process. CIOs can touch on technology lightly in each process but should refrain from using too many technological terms. Naming specific technology can be used to augment the point of the mission and to help better explain why the tech is needed to complete the process.

Funding inevitably falls into the conversation but it's most important to tell a board what they need to know.

Companywide change is dependent on the digital culture a company decides to adopt. The organizations that were able to achieve breakthrough performance in transformation were those who created a healthy digital culture.