Editorial
The Gist
- Unified approach. Connected business strategy aligns operations, enhancing CX and EX.
- IT leadership. IT's holistic view drives integration, improving decision-making and growth.
- Strategic wins. Incremental integration steps show immediate benefits and long-term gains.
In today's business world, leading with a holistic business approach is mission critical. Smart CMOs and CEOs understand that a fragmented customer experience is a long-term looser.
In the upcoming book “Personalized: Customer Strategy in the Age of AI,” Mark Abraham and David Edelman say, “Business is now effectively at a point where competitive advantage will be based on a company’s ability to capture, analyze, and utilize customer data on a gargantuan scale — and how it uses that data to understand, shape, and optimize the customer journey.”
I would go a step further and suggest that having disconnected systems and business processes resembles the power and telephone lines strewn across homes in an East Coast city — it creates an enterprise that does not work well for customers or employees. This is especially true for those that service customers.
For this reason, a connected business strategy ensures every aspect of the enterprise is aligned. By doing so, it breaks down silos and enhances employee and customer experiences. A key element in making this happen is creating a more unified corporate operating model, where IT can drive a holistic business approach. Part of this process involves selling the idea that business integration is essential, as the hidden labor costs of a disjointed business impact efficiency and customer satisfaction. For new CIOs, fostering a unified company culture is key, guiding the organization to act as one cohesive team rather than a collection of isolated departments.
A Holistic Business Approach
Employee experience (EX) should drive customer experience (CX). However, many businesses struggle to deal with their siloed strategies. These silos often exist not only across different business units but also within a traditional "plan, build, run" framework, which can be at odds with today’s agile and DevOps methodologies. This disconnect hinders business agility and responsiveness.
According to The Futurum Group VP and Practice Lead for CIO Dion Hinchcliffe, “The positive trend is that more businesses are recognizing the need for integrating their strategies. As this occurs, silos blur. Despite this progress, many organizations remain at the early stages of this transformation.”
In transition CIO, Martin Davis says, “Unfortunately many businesses still have siloed thinking especially larger companies where strategies are departmental focused. Holistic end-to-end thinking around EX and CX is needed for a true digital experience to be created.”
As Davis suggests, this is particularly the case for larger companies. Strategies often remain departmental and isolated. To achieve a truly seamless digital experience, there needs to be a holistic, end-to-end approach that considers both EX and CX. For this reason, FIRST CIO Deb Gildersleeve says, “Unfortunately siloed is still very much the norm for many businesses.”
Related Article: The Holistic Equation: Why HX = CX + EX
Creating a Unified Operating Model
Creating a unified operating model is essential for businesses looking to enhance efficiency and drive growth. IT, with its holistic business approach across the organization, can play a pivotal role in this transformation. Unlike other departments, IT understands the interconnectedness of various functions, making it the natural leader for promoting unified thinking.
By encouraging business leaders to look beyond their departmental boundaries, IT can help integrate CX and EX strategies, ensuring smoother business and IT alignment. Highlighting value chains, networks and interdependencies within the organization can significantly enhance operational coherence.
The CIO as Catalyst
The CIO can act as a catalyst for this transformation by demonstrating the benefits of integration and collaboration. IT can showcase how connecting operational silos through data and business metrics leads to more informed decision-making and a more cohesive business strategy. Starting with high-value, low-risk areas like marketing, sales and customer service, IT can illustrate the advantages of a unified model.
This approach not only bridges efficiency and effectiveness but also drives growth, paving the way for a successful digital transformation. By leveraging data and creating value-added services, IT can foster a more integrated and collaborative business environment.
IT & the Holistic View
According to Davis, “Unlike many departments, IT has a strong holistic view across the organization, that enables it to provide a joined-up thinking approach to things like CX and EX. This makes it a natural place for encouraging business leaders to think beyond the boundaries of their own departments. The CIO can demonstrate the benefits of connecting operational silos inside the organization and be a catalyst for promoting a more holistic view of the business with data and business metrics.”
UC Santa Barbara Deputy CIO Joe Sabado adds, “IT sees the threads that bind the enterprise together. For this reason, it can bring enterprise perspectives and what other units are doing to the conversations. This can connect folks together.”
Selling Business Integration
Selling business integration requires a strategic approach that highlights immediate benefits and long-term gains. It starts by identifying viable and visible use cases within the organization. Demonstrating success with these use cases can earn support from business leaders across various departments. As part of this process, it is smart to propose incremental steps toward a holistic business approach vision. The strategy should be to start small, move fast and think big.
Building Momentum
By showcasing early successes, you can build momentum and sell the broader vision of business integration.
Richard Waldron, CEO of Tray.io agrees and says, “In our experience, successful business integration isn’t just about technology, but also unlocking organizational potential. Forward-thinking CIOs recognize that integration is the cornerstone of agility and innovation. Take RevOps as an example — almost every workflow in lead lifecycle management spans multiple applications and departments, including marketing, sales and revenue — creating silos that hinder efficiency and the customer experience.
"By integrating these various applications and workflows, companies can gain full visibility into the buyer journey, connect with leads faster and recover lost revenue, making it possible to quickly demonstrate tangible ROI. Starting with high-impact areas like this, CIOs can prove that integration isn’t just an IT initiative — it’s a strategic imperative for businesses to adapt and stay competitive in today’s dynamic market.”
Securing Small Wins
Focus should be on the low-hanging fruit to secure small wins that can be built upon. Show tangible value in business terms, such as increased speed and efficiency. Demonstrate how integration leads to reduced duplication and costs, improved CX and EX, faster business cycles, higher quality results and more innovation. Highlight how faster access to data leads to more informed decision-making, ultimately translating to faster time to value overall.
Developing key supporters, especially from the CFO and CEO, can significantly bolster the case for business integration, ensuring alignment and commitment at the highest levels of the organization. Manufacturing CIO Joanne Friedman says, “Faster time to data, means faster time to more informed decision, which means faster time to value overall.”
Acting as One vs. Many
Leading with a holistic business approach as a new CIO involves navigating a complex landscape influenced by organizational structure, market segment, and existing roles such as chief information officer (CIO), chief technology officer (CTO), chief data officer (CDO), and chief artificial intelligence officer (CAIO).
The extent of autonomy among divisional IT departments and the presence of Shadow IT can impact the organization. The starting point should be identifying overlapping functions and investments, which can serve as a catalyst for sharing resources, services and data, ultimately moving toward integrated business services.
Guidance for New CIOs
Guidance for new CIOs includes thinking in business versus technology terms, understanding the key performance indicators (KPIs) that the executive team focuses on, and presenting ideas to improve these KPIs through holistic actions. It's crucial to think across boundaries and build the capability and talent for integration. Demonstrating the art of the possible by showcasing successful integrations, both within and outside the organization, helps build credibility.
Additionally, arranging for financial benefits to flow back to the business from these integrations reinforces the value of a holistic business approach.
Unifying Leaders
By following these steps, a new CIO can lead their organization toward acting as one unified entity rather than many disparate parts. Capgemini Executive Vice President Steve Jones says, “There is a reason sales and finance are at loggerheads; it’s by design. There is a reason the relationship with suppliers can be fraught. What CEOs need to recognize is that a business is a series of collaborating organisms, working together towards a shared goal. For this reason, CIOs need to aim to recognize the holistic business, and there is no single view or single model that everyone will agree on.
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"Instead, they need to represent the overall collaboration, but give each area its view that is relevant to them. This means fixing the problem, rather than trying to impose a mythical single model. Data and integration have both shown that a single canonical form always fails; don’t fall into the same trap when trying to model and support a collaborative business organism.”
Parting Words
Here, I've shared the importance of connected business strategies, emphasizing the integration of EX and CX to overcome siloed thinking. I also discussed the role of IT in creating a unified operating model by leveraging its holistic business approach across the organization to foster collaboration and integration. Additionally, I addressed selling business integration by starting with visible use cases and securing early wins to establish momentum.
Last, guidance was provided for new CIOs on leading with a holistic business approach, highlighting the importance of thinking in business terms, understanding key performance indicators, building integration capabilities and demonstrating the value of a unified approach.
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