Richard Hurst, Ovum

A recent Gartner report shows more than 10% of government organisations will have appointed a chief data officer and over 20% a chief digital officer by 2014, but SA is unlikely to follow suit, say analysts.

According to the Gartner report, the development and implementation of digital government strategies is putting the government CIO role under pressure by leading to the creation of new roles. “Digital government strategies issued in several jurisdictions during the past 12 months, as well as, the continued momentum of open government, are bringing new leadership roles to the fore,” says Andrea Di Maio, managing VP at Gartner. “In government, as well as other industries, roles like chief data officer or chief digital officer are emerging in response to the increasing importance of enterprise digital assets.”

The newly created roles are likely to co-exist with more traditional ones, like CIO and chief technology officer (CTO) in the short term, necessitating a close working relationship between new and existing roles, he says.

It is highly unlikely the South African government will appoint a chief digital officer or chief data officer by 2014, says Ovum analyst, Richard Hurst. He notes that while these positions will be “nice to have”, SA has more pressing ICT issues to address, such as government’s overall ICT strategy, IT in education and skills challenges.

“A CIO heads up the entire IT strategy, while a chief data offi cer will be focusing on managing the huge amounts of data organisations now have to deal with. A chief digital officer will have very much the same responsibilities as the CIO. So it is worth thinking about, but not really necessary,” he says.

Hurst pointed out that a lack of skills locally will mean it will be difficult to fill these positions.