Published on the 16/11/2015 | Written by Donovan Jackson

There are a lot more chiefs on the top floor as we see the introduction of titles like Chief Data Officer, Chief Customer Officer, Chief Marketing Officer and Chief Information Security Officer joining the more prosaic CE, CFO and by now familiar CIO. The reason, said Justin Gray, NZ country manager for Accenture, is that the fundamentals of the workforce model are changing.

“Just what is changing, though, is still up for debate. We’re seeing a lot of talk around the convergence of technology leading to the creation of, for example, the CDO and CCO roles; we’re also seeing convergence of business functions, for example, with marketing getting a lot closer to the business and the emergence of the CMO.”

In days gone by, the gap between business and technology was a frequent topic for discussion and CIOs weren’t always a thing; what Gray said makes some sense. “This is happening across industries, too – you see it in airlines, software companies, in the government – the Australians just recently launched the DTO – it is a reflection of the way things have to move for businesses to be effective today.”

Much of that change is driven by customers and their (perhaps inflated) expectations. Gray said these days, expectations are defined by the very best experience any given individual has with any organisation. The great experience at a bank, for example, defines the expectation from an airline or from the government.  “The rate of change of expectations is so great that if organisations don’t change their operating models to deliver, they can lose their competitive advantage.”

Asked about how Accenture’s C-suite is changing in response to these developments, Gray said, “In Accenture we don’t focus on those titles so much. Instead the fundamental shift over the years is towards a focus on research innovation.”

From a local perspective, added Gray, “When we think about how to structure the leadership team, we’re focused on digital business as that is where our clients are focused.”

As to why digitisation is in such vogue (iStart is of the opinion that digitisation began somewhere around the time of ENIAC), Gray said it has more to do with the pace of change and disruption today. “That’s faster than anything we’ve seen at any time. In our industry, we’ve always said we change rapidly, but the rate has accelerated. IF we look at our technology vision, we look at trends 5 years out and have historically had a pretty decent hit rate – but now, we’re finding that instead of waiting 5 years, predictions are happening within 18 months.”