TODAY, digital technologies render organisations increasingly transparent, thereby reducing the layers between stakeholders. Similarly, customer profiles and expectations are rapidly changing as mobility and social collaboration become table stakes. As a result, enterprises must meld their internal structures - both human and technology resources - to more effectively serve internal users (employees) and external users (end customers).

Imagine you are the managing director of a global bank and waiting at the airport for your connecting flight, trying to schedule a flight for the following day using the bank's travel application (app) on your smartphone. Unfortunately, the app crashes three times in a row. So you are about to call your secretary to help you complete the booking. Before you even hit the dial button, your phone rings and you are greeted by a service desk agent offering to troubleshoot and guide you through the process of scheduling your next travel. Issue resolved. Unbelievable? It's fast becoming a reality.

To excel in this new world, companies must elevate IT from a business support function to one in which IT drives the business. This means the CIO and the head of digital business roles will eventually converge to help companies fend off the advancers and digital native companies. In addition, together they will convert the massive amounts of transactional and interactional data generated by modern digital organisations into operational and market insights that inform, if not power, IT-led business models.