CEO recruitment slows down, Strategy & discovers – Quartz at Work

As e-commerce absorbs a growing share of the retail business, as streaming takes over entertainment, and social media exerts its influence on virtually everything, the general manager of the digital division once seemed to occupy a critical position in any company that wanted to stay relevant.

The trend seems to be disappearing, however. According to Strategy &, PwC's strategy consulting group, the pace at which companies have created digital director positions, or CDOs, has slowed at a breakneck pace.

The company, which examined the hiring and role of the CDO in the 2,500 largest publicly traded companies last year, found that only 54 companies, or 2.2%, had created a new CDO position. in 2018. That was down from 124 in 2017. 160 in 2016. "We can now say that 2016 has been the highlight of hiring CDOs," said the firm in a blog post .

The reason, however, is not that companies have overestimated the usefulness of digital fluidity. This is because, today, this work is the responsibility of the entire organization. A few years ago, as the number of CDOs increased, companies realized that they needed to get rid of their old pre-digital mindset and transform their way of operating. Many have taken a top-down approach, appointing a leader to oversee the process.

Today, however, starting businesses in a digital world can not be the job of one person. "Many corporate executives now feel that naming a single digital transformation manager may not be the best approach because it is an intrinsic strategic priority for the entire organization." Business, because agility becomes essential for survival, "commented Pierre Péladeau of Strategy && # 39; s and Olaf Acker pointed out. "The role of CDO no longer drives a discrete function."

Ian Rogers, the digital leader of the luxury giant LVMH, strongly emphasized this point in an interview with Wired UK in November, claiming to have the word "digital" in the job title of someone, including including his, was redundant. He added:

Scott Galloway, of L2, said, "Having a digitization manager is like having an electricity manager." I think that's really accurate. What you do is that you use this somewhat technical term to hide the fact that your customers' behaviors have changed. You must elevate the technology within your organization.

And this vision seems to materialize. Strategy & found that in the past, the CDO was often a person who played a client-related role and had expertise in marketing, customer service or sales. But there has been a lot of turnover in these jobs, as companies are now looking for someone with a technology background who can make it an essential part of the whole business, rather than isolating it. for specific projects.

The next step, Strategy & Predits, is to completely eliminate the role of CDO. In fact, if a company does not already have a CDO, advises the consulting firm, it should hesitate to create the role now. Instead, each C-suite member should handle the scanning job in the parts of the business under their supervision.