Chief strategy officers overwhelming back digital as a strategic enabler

Chief strategy officers (CSOs) are overwhelmingly supportive of advanced technologies in enabling business strategy, according to new research from Deloitte.

Deloitte’s 2022 Chief Strategy Officer Survey reveals that 84 percent of CSOs are vouching for digital technologies including automation, predictive analytics, AI, machine learning, augmented and virtual reality in the convergence of technology and enterprise strategies.

According to the authors, “These technologies will unlock an improvement in human productivity, drive new growth opportunities with greater levels of precision, enable new channels to market, and make new business models viable.”

The top three challenges CSOs are facing in effectively leveraging advanced digital technologies include a lack of clear connection between the business strategy and the tech strategy, a lack of clarity around how these investments will create business value, and a lack of vision for how these investments will scale.

While more than half (52 percent) of CSOs play a role in advancing their business’ adoption of advanced technologies, with 88 percent looking to play a more prominent role, nearly half still believe that their businesses are not mature enough to leverage the tools effectively.

“CSOs have a strong desire to play a more prominent role in developing their organisations’ advanced technology strategy and making it intimately connected with their organisations’ enterprise and business strategies,” the authors write.

“CSOs can, want to, and should play a more central role in helping their organisations evolve their advanced technology strategy.”

In order for CSOs to assist their organisations to leverage advanced technology as part of their business strategy, and to capture the transformational opportunity, the report suggests that the role of the CSO needs to shift.

CSOs should not only identify new growth opportunities but must also “act as incubators of new offerings and strategic capabilities, as well as to assess inorganic growth opportunities in the market.”

“CSOs have an important ‘architect’ role to play upstream, particularly in terms of linking technology strategy and business strategy, prioritising use cases and investments, tracking business impact, codifying lessons learned, and promoting best practices.

“These activities are required to ensure that investments in advanced technologies are intentional, scalable, and impactful.”