Should Your Organization Hire a Chief Integration Officer?

Cloud is now ubiquitous in many organizations and is leveraged in many ways. With integration of on-premises legacy systems and public cloud solutions becoming the norm, many leaders are now asking whether a Chief Integration Officer is necessary to manage all of the solutions and technologies at hand.

The answer to this question may lie in the numbers and trends themselves. Research firm Gartner predicts that $1 trillion dollars of IT spending will occur to the cloud in the next 5 years, possibly requiring a separate position to manage the flow of money as well as the evaluation of technology effectiveness. Much like the Chief Digital Officer, which aided in the evolution of digital initiatives like social media, video, and interactivity, the Chief Integration Officer signals a shift in the business climate.

Vision versus Execution

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One area where organizations can see a difference is whether their current Chief Information Officer is a visionary individual or prefers to stick to day-to-day operations. One area that pales in similarity to this lies in marketing, where there has been a marked shift for Chief Marketing Officers in the past few years from someone who focuses on tactical marketing to also emphasizing the key role of data analytics. You won’t find many organizations at all anymore who don’t place a data-first emphasis on their marketing data, and this may be the expectation of the Chief Integration Officer too.

The role however, would not end there. Chief Integration Officers as we imagine would also be key in the evaluation of solutions, acquisition of technology assets, and the higher strategy that helps the organization maintain competitiveness and innovation. Perhaps above all, such an individual would also be important in providing the appropriate education towards employees on cloud technologies and DevOps philosophies to foster ideas around data storage, development, and security.

Tell Us What You Think

Do you think a Chief Integration Officer is important for forward-thinking organizations? Let us know in the comments section below or send your response to sales@perficient.com.

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