Why the C-suite/IT relationship is critical to a successful digital transformation

The state of business today dictates that the role of IT has changed. For global enterprises to keep up with digitally-driven competitors, IT and technology must be viewed by leadership as strategical functions of business. A fundamental flaw in today's business world is that global business executives pass off technological decisions to IT staff. This is problematic because, in these cases, leadership is not fully considering the value of digital technologies when it comes to business strategy.

Executives who take a more hands-on approach in digital transformations by investing time to understand technologies as they relate to business strategies can help to improve their organization's competitive advantage — empowering employees to focus on strategic business goals.

Many business leaders may underestimate their need to understand digital technologies — unaware of the potential these technologies have to help them reach their business goals by creating a high-performance workplace that can:

• Streamline processes.
• Increase productivity.
• Empower employees with more speed to act.
• Improve customer relationships.
• Promote healthy business growth.

With a solid C-suite/IT partnership in place, every process that occurs internally and externally can be made transparent and consistent. Employees, customers, vendors and other stakeholders no longer have to waste time searching for information in multiple locations, and they can rest easy knowing that data is more accurate and security protocols are in place to help protect that data. When done right, the result of a digital transformation driven by the C-suite/IT partnership is the creation of an enterprise that moves with speed and agility.

Ricoh's digital transformation white paper looks at ways that global business leaders can successfully transform their businesses into well-connected, high-performance workplaces by:

• Partnering with IT to assess digital technologies from the top down
• Centralizing data and making it easily and readily available to all employees and stakeholders
• Taking a proactive — rather than reactive — approach to digital transformation
• Connecting systems, data and processes to innovate and improve the customer experience
• Creating a leaner, more agile global enterprise