SNCF CIO: Why CIOs should also take on the CDO role

The CIO and CDO share many areas of responsibility - but does bringing them both together under one title make sense?

Computers have been part of business since the 1970s, but it wasn't until the late '80s that the office computing revolution really took off. That development also led to the creation of a new role to manage these new, exciting systems: the CIO.

Fast-forward 30 years and the CIO is still a staple of modern business; but, like technology, their role is always changing. The CIO may or may not have a seat on the board; they might share responsibilities with the CTO; or they might have to meld multiple positions together.

Benoit Tiers is both CIO and CDO (chief digital officer) of SNCF, France's public rail company, which is in the middle of a period of modernisation.

The CDO is an even newer position than the CIO, only coming to prominence in the last decade. It's also a difficult one to pin down: as the person responsible for helping a company move from legacy analogue to modern digital systems, as well as overseeing digital developments like mobile apps, the CDO's responsibilities could realistically also be described as belonging to the CTO, COO or CIO.

To Tiers - who joined SNCF to combine digital, telecommunications and IT - taking on the CDO job is a natural progression for the CIO role, and one that more companies will adopt in the future:

"It's not possible to conduct a digital transformation having digital on one side and IT on another," he told us. "What we need to do is to put digital processes into reality, and then we have to adapt the IT system accordingly."

"It is very important to make sure that one team is in charge to perform the transformation, and all the employees are able to consider what is necessary to make transformation a reality", he added.

Any digital transformation involves a move away from traditional legacy technologies - "We need to ignore the past in order to better invent the future", as Tiers puts it - but it is important to bring your staff along and reassure them that they still have value to the business.

SNCF employs more than 260,000 people and is moving to modernise its workforce, which Tiers considers absolutely critical to transformation. The company works with startups through its 574 programme (named for the top recorded speed of an SNCF train), to put digital transformation at the heart of the company and "to help our employees move their mindset from yesterday to tomorrow."

"If you want to transport those teams, those people, into the future, we need to clearly tell them: ‘What you did previously was a necessary step and now, taking advantage of technology, we will be able to invent the future of the company.'"