It used to be that a retailer’s chief information officer would spend most of his or her time concerned with what the people inside the organization wanted and needed from a hardware and software perspective in order to do their jobs. With most retailers now somewhere along the path to unified commerce and a customer experience-driven approach to business, the CIO, like everyone else in the organization, must start thinking first and foremost about the customer.

This shift in mindset might sound simple. But it can get really complicated, really fast, especially as organizations are deploying more and more customer-facing solutions to keep pace with their tech-savvy customers’ ever evolving expectations. This, of course, leads to more (often costly and difficult to maintain) backend solutions to power the front end. And since no organization has unlimited IT budget or bandwidth, it’s going to take a CIO who can rise above the chaos and trade in the short-term focus to get the company’s technology aligned with and optimized for the new business goals and direction for the long-term.

Redefine the role of the CIO to incorporate three critical capabilities.

For some retailers and their CIOs, this will be a bigger shift than for others. Generally, all organizations can benefit from a refreshed CIO job description that emphasizes the following capabilities.

Own the big picture. Most retail organizations are already using a number of great systems and solutions. The problem is, such solutions are typically deployed in silos by disparate business departments. This linear approach to IT isn’t just inefficient, resulting in significant unrealized capabilities within the tech stack; in a unified commerce world, it can be downright disastrous. Systems that aren’t fully integrated are often responsible for the gaps and friction in the customer experience that undermine a retailer’s attempts to consistently deliver the brand and delight across every touchpoint. To align these strategies and systems, companies should move to a more comprehensive unified commerce strategy and roadmap.CIOs need to not only step back to get a better view of the overall IT landscape; they need to step into the customers’ shoes and start reevaluating everything with the end (i.e. the optimal customer journey) in mind. For most CIOs, this means actually walking the customer journey as a customer would, with other senior leaders, and taking note of all the offerings, promotions, rewards, and technology touch points along the way. Experience every channel, from roadside to on premise static signage and all marketing apps for loyalty, social media, and digital marketing. This effort is so critical to experience all of the intended customer touchpoints exactly as a customer would and consider what each customer would think and do at each step in the journey. Finally, from the customers’ point of view, figure out what’s working, what’s not, and outline the roadmap to remove the friction to make the overall experience better and ultimately drive the customer behavior you want.

Documenting this exercise is key to shifting the focus from individual systems and our own business needs to a more holistic view that’s connected with the customer journey and focused on seamlessly delivering what the customer needs at every phase. With that journey in mind, CIOs can then establish an overall technology strategy and KPIs to evaluate the best customer-facing and back-end tools needed to support the right objectives.

In practice, this means instead of deploying a solution to meet a very specific linear need, such as self-checkout technology to reduce labor or help take care of customers during busy times, the CIO thinks more deeply about how to fully leverage every inch of the technology as it is designed rather than just in parts. The self-checkout technology, for example, has capabilities and implications beyond operations that can relate to, inform, and/or support other department and programs such as marketing and loyalty, and it needs to be exploited and used for the greater ROI and impact on the customer journey and the company’s overall objectives.

This more holistic, long-term, big picture approach sets the stage for the next critical CIO capability, which involves further breaking down the silos between departments.

Create cross-functional alignment around a common IT roadmap. Just as individual technologies can and should span multiple departments, so should the company’s overall mindset around IT. Indeed, it’s impossible for a retailer to move into digital, customer-facing solutions without significantly more aligned business functions to maintain those systems. In other words, IT can’t own everything. There needs to be cross-functional ownership of solutions, with everyone taking responsibility for their own part.For most organizations, this means IT will be cross-functional in a way the company has never seen before. Retail media networks are a prime example as a relatively new, high growth initiative for many retailers. Success requires cross-functional collaboration across IT, marketing, loyalty, category management, and operations to truly enhance the shopper experience.The CIO will need to be the champion in encouraging and supporting this type of close collaboration. It will be his or her job to closely engage with every other department, listen to the business needs, manage competing priorities, and identify a phased approach to improvement, including adopting new solutions and features as needed.

Effective communications will be absolutely crucial, and one of the CIO’s toughest tasks will be getting everyone to speak the same language when it comes to IT. Achieving this utopia and rallying the troops around a common IT methodology will be much easier when the CIO remembers to keep it simple and keep a standout customer experience—something in which every department has a stake—front and center.

Take a command center approach to overseeing and managing improvements to the IT infrastructure. This is probably the space where most CIOs are going to feel most comfortable. However, fully integrating various technology systems, including point-of-sale, e-commerce platforms, CRM systems, loyalty programs, inventory management, and supply chain solutions, for true unified commerce is complicated. CIOs will need to be willing to roll up their sleeves and help teams and the business functions troubleshoot and power through this critical work.

Taking a command center approach will be key here as the IT team learns to consider the connections between systems as opposed to the individual systems when it comes to feeding, nurturing, and maintaining technology. The CIO of the future must lead the way and define business requirements and synergies for ongoing technology and automation that will continually improve the posture of the technology environment. Of course, the CIO will also be keeping the focus on the customer journey and delivering an exceptional customer experience above all else.

The outcome of this work will be a smoother experience for the organization and better access to timely and accurate data across all platforms and programs. And this information, ultimately, will deliver a single, unified view of the customer that will allow that retailer to get even better at creating the ideal customer experience across every touchpoint. It’s a virtuous circle well worth pursuing.

Make a customer-focused CIO the cornerstone in your unified commerce strategy.

At the end of the day, technology strategy needs to support business strategy. And a successful retailer’s business strategy must be in lockstep with the customer journey. Ensuring your CIO has a customer-first mindset – and is capable of bringing the rest of the organization along – is essential.

This might mean investing in some training or development for your current CIO and leadership team or making some shifts to the CIO’s career path. For organizations looking for new leadership, an interim CIO with unified commerce expertise and a commitment to holistic, cross-functional IT strategy can help establish the right direction and even help onboard the new executive.

To further explore the best option for your business, give Impact 21 a call, and learn more about the critical importance of aligning people, systems, processes, and data around the customer experience