CDO: What Makes a Chief Digital Officer The New Leadership Position In Companies?

Chief Digital Officer, Let’s end 2022 with one certainty in the business world: the game has changed. And the integration of emerging technologies was the fuel for the transformations that drove the birth and consolidation of disruptive, innovative startups, capable of subverting the order of sectors hitherto dominated by models immune to the impacts of digitalization.

This was the year in which we witnessed the birth of “unicorn companies”, valued at more than US$ 1 billion, which found in the Brazilian market fertile soil to plant their roots with the indispensable ingredients for the proliferation of bit-based businesses. Two main factors fertilized the gain in market share by companies fertilized with essentially digital DNA in the country.

The first was the rapid and continuous growth of our Internet base. According to the National Household Sample Survey (Pad), released by the IBGE, 9.8 million new Brazilians over 10 years of age started accessing the Web in 2014, reaching 54.4% of the population (more than 95 million people connected).

The other is the smartphone fever, which surpassed 76 million units in the third quarter of this year, according to Nielsen Ibope, which represents an increase of 48% compared to the same period in 2014 and a penetration of 61% among 125 million Brazilians who use cell phones.

As a result of the birth of this new generation of connected people, companies and models have emerged – and will continue to emerge – based on the integration of systems and the association of mobile platforms with geolocation, big data, social networks, online marketing and a multitude of tools. and technologies yet to be invented to ensure greater reach to consumers, identifying where they are, what they want, and how much they want to pay.

Do you think it’s all just a passing fad? So it’s good to know that there are already companies achieving higher sales conversion rates on mobile devices and apps than on desktops and that many of them haven’t even cemented a brick in the physical world.

Willing to try and browse apps that help us make life easier and cheaper, such as calling a driver, ordering a delivery, exchanging messages, researching and comparing products and prices, or paying a bank bill, we have incorporated the smartphone into our routine and this is certainly a habit that we will not abandon, just as it happened quickly when the telephone was invented and was only used for (remember?) talking.

In Brazil, the new entrepreneurial wave has already disturbed and awakened giant corporations from different segments, which are racing to adapt to the new times and not lose competitiveness as a result of changes in the behavior of consumers who are increasingly connected and willing to adhere to services that offer more quality and agility for a lower price, a behavior that is also boosted especially in times of crisis.

Enter the CDO Chief Digital Officer. A clear sign of the interest of Brazilian companies in transforming their businesses is the increase in demand and hiring of a “new C”, the CDO – Chief Digital Officer, professionals who have been gaining more power in American corporations and who, here, also are already called upon to analyze and develop projects focused on innovation and digitalization not only of the core business, of products and services but of all departments, from the factory floor to logistics, from marketing and sales to HR. According to the CDO Chief Digital Officer Club organization, since 2013 the hiring of these professionals has been doubling every year in the American market.

Increasingly desired by companies, the CDO Chief Digital Officer has the basic function of transforming analog into digital.

He is still a rare professional, since, in addition to always being on the radar for new technologies and trends, he must bring together several skills that are still difficult to find in a single curriculum, such as knowledge in mobile, e-commerce, and means of payment. , digital marketing, social media, localization, and several other skills needed to play the middle ground between IT and business.

In some cases, we will likely see the CDO Chief Digital Officer take the CEO’s chair and become the chief executive of organizations that base their models on digital strategies to win, engage, retain and monetize customers.

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