Switching your mindset to a revenue-generating CIO

I just read an HBR paper about the new mindset of the CIO (even if you can wonder if human beings are that binary...some projects can be revenue generating and some others are and will remain costs) - transforming a classical cost-centric to a revenue-generating department.

One of the most interesting part of the publication are the four areas where CIO's and their corporations are looking for a new market approach:

Digital products and business models: This means a shift from selling the equipment that runs a factory, for example, to selling performance information about that equipment along with insight about how to optimize its performance. GE has become a popular exemplar of this, as it leads the way to the digital industrial future. By the end of 2017, revenue growth from information-based products will be double that of the rest of the product/service portfolio for one-third of Global 2000 companies, according to IDC.

Digital operations: Transformation of everything from the supply chain to customer engagement. CIOs contribute significantly to their organizations’ balance sheets by helping run the business better. Examples include enrolling more customers online faster at CVS Health and making field engineers more productive to increase revenue from service contracts at GE Power. Sometimes, as in GE’s case, that capability then gets turned into a product to sell to customers.

Software sales: Companies that have developed exceptional software for their own internal use are finding new revenue streams by refactoring it for use by customers and other third parties. Union Pacific’s CIO runs a subsidiary of the company to do just that.

IT services: Land O’Lakes Inc. launched a business in 2016 to provide IT services to agriculture retailers across the country.

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