Lead a Digital Transformation to Advance Revenue Generation

Keeping the lights on and increasing efficiency used to be at the top of every CIO’s agenda.
Revenue generation is becoming increasingly important for the business, and consequently for IT. Often, the business will externally procure high-value technology services bypassing the internal IT department.
IT departments that aren’t proactive and ignore the revenue mandate will become marginalized.

Our Advice

Critical Insight

You, the CIO, can now choose the immediate future of internal IT. The success of IT and your role within the organization depends on you.
The CIO can be forward looking and become the Chief Enterprise Integration Officer. This role will be a business executive with valuable technology insight who will drive the IT-enabled revenue generation program; focus on improving marketing, sales, and service using social, mobile, and analytics; and work closely with executives from marketing, sales, and service.
Alternatively, the CIO can be complacent and become Chief Support Officer, whose IT department will become an order-taking, back-office support function for the business. The CSO will provide information and communications technology support services to the organization, manage and integrate the many IT vendors that business counterparts will be partnering with, and develop and maintain disaster recovery and business continuity planning.
Revenue generation relies on the effectiveness of – and the synergy across – marketing, sales, and service. Internal IT is well positioned to improve this synergy because:

IT has an enterprise-wide, cross-silo perspective.
IT can effectively build, acquire, implement, and support these solutions using its technical expertise.
Internal IT can capitalize on its long-term collaboration and relationship with the business since external IT providers lack close proximity to the business.

Impact and Result

The CIO needs to start the conversation with business executives to create an IT-enabled revenue generation strategy and roadmap, using social, mobile, and analytics to improve business capabilities within and across marketing, sales, and service.
Establish a Revenue Generation Steering Committee (CIO, executives from marketing, sales, and service) to direct and monitor revenue-generation initiatives.
Ensure that IT is ready to support revenue-focused initiatives utilizing social, mobile, and analytics.
Measure the business impact of the IT-enabled revenue generation program and communicate contribution to increased revenue.
Alternatively, dust off your resume and start preparing for your not-so-distant job search.

Lead a Digital Transformation to Advance Revenue Generation Research & Tools

1. Make the case for a digital revenue generation strategy

Develop a list of innovative revenue-generating initiatives that use social, mobile, and analytics.

2. Create a plan to kick-start a digital revenue generation program

Rank initiatives that will provide the greatest amount of revenue while considering implementation complexity.

3. Develop a digital revenue generation strategy and roadmap

Logically schedule the roll-out of the prioritized IT-enabled initiatives.

4. Strengthen the capabilities required to execute the strategy

Prove to business stakeholders that IT can deliver on the promised digital revenue generation initiatives.

5. Measure business impact and communicate the program’s benefits

Measure the success of the revenue generation program.

Lead a Digital Transformation to Advance Revenue Generation visualization

Create a strategic IT-enabled roadmap that uses social, mobile, and analytics to improve marketing, sales, and customer service.

About Info-Tech

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We produce unbiased and highly relevant research to help CIOs and IT leaders make strategic, timely, and well-informed decisions. We partner closely with IT teams to provide everything they need, from actionable tools to analyst guidance, ensuring they deliver measurable results for their organizations.

What Is a Blueprint?

A blueprint is designed to be a roadmap, containing a methodology and the tools and templates you need to solve your IT problems.

Each blueprint can be accompanied by a Guided Implementation that provides you access to our world-class analysts to help you get through the project.

Table of Contents

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Get the help you need in this 1-phase advisory process. You'll receive 4 touchpoints with our researchers, all included in your membership.

Call 1: Prepare for a successful digital revenue generation program

Define the approach and prepare meeting agendas for the CIO to meet with the marketing, sales, and customer service executives to discuss how the business and IT can collaborate to improve revenue generation.
Call 2: Develop a digital revenue generation strategy

Assess current state. Define IT-enabled revenue generation initiatives spanning marketing, sales, and customer service domains. Prioritize the initiatives and assign ownership. Create a roadmap.
Call 3: Strengthen the capabilities required to execute revenue-focused initiatives

Perform a gap analysis and plan to strengthen capabilities required to execute revenue-focused initiatives, e.g. analytics, business continuity management, data management, privacy management, security management.
Call 4: Measure business impact and communicate the program’s benefits

Identify appropriate revenue metrics. Create a communication plan and plan to communicate the program’s contribution to increased revenue generation.