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In 2024, the landscape for CIO recruitment has witnessed a transformation unlike any other. The number of open positions has plummeted to its lowest point in recent years in China, with macroeconomic fluctuations prompting companies to adopt a more "prudent" approach to hiring. When a high-level CIO role does surface, it's often in search of an overly ideal candidate, one who excels across a spectrum of criteria including age, qualifications, a track record of career achievements and negotiable salary expectation. This shift underscores a profound change in the expectations companies hold for IT leadership. Amidst this metamorphosis, what are the tangible signs of evolving recruitment practices? And how can digital executives position themselves to thrive in this new reality?
The past decade has seen a meteoric rise in the advancement of transformative technologies like the Internet, cloud computing, and artificial intelligence. These innovations have significantly bolstered the traditional business sector's focus on information technology, sparking a surge in roles dedicated to digital transformation. Companies have come to recognize that IT is not just a cost-saving measure but also a potent catalyst for generating new revenue streams.
In times of economic boom, businesses are typically more inclined to shoulder the upfront costs associated with IT investments. Yet, when economic headwinds arise, back-office expenses are often the first to be slashed, with the IT department frequently bearing the brunt of these cuts.
For an individual, a span of ten years can represent a substantial portion of their professional journey, ranging from a quarter to a third of their career. However, in the context of an industry or functional area's evolution, a decade is but a fleeting moment to establish a solid foundation.
Since the 1980s, the global emergence of the CIO role has signified the dawn of the informatization era. In China, this wave of executive-level enterprise informatization began to gain momentum around the year 2000.
From 2000 to 2012, in the pre-Internet boom era, companies were primarily preoccupied with informatization, exploring how IT systems could bolster the entire spectrum of production, supply chain, and business management processes. The goal was to assist enterprises in achieving precise accounting and robust data management. During this phase, ERP software became the industry standard, with IT directors or CIOs spearheading the enterprise informatization efforts.
Post-2012, as the Internet rapidly evolved, China ascended to become a global Internet hub, with the presence of Chinese experts in the AI field growing exponentially and global capital flooding into the Chinese market. The corporate focus transitioned from informatization to digitalization. In this new era, the expectations for IT technology expanded beyond mere support of production and business processes; instead, there was a desire for IT to drive process innovation and business model reinvention. The remit of CIOs broadened, and new roles such as Chief Data Officer and Chief Digital Officer emerged. These leaders leveraged big data, the Internet, and emerging technologies to develop new application software, explore innovative business models like e-commerce, and establish new process systems, such as C2M (consumer-driven manufacturing).
In the wake of the pandemic, and particularly from this year onwards, the corporate expectations and investment in digitalization have reached a new inflection point. The focus has shifted from the technology itself to its potential to fuel business innovation and transform business models. Today, with IT infrastructure and software solutions maturing, companies are no longer seeking technology executives solely to resolve IT issues. Instead, they are looking for leaders who can foster business model innovation, generate new business opportunities, and drive new avenues for profit growth.
This year's recruitment patterns for digital executives have made a significant shift unmistakably clear. Here's a breakdown of our team's recruitment data for executives in the realms of informatization and digitalization in China for this year:
Currently, the demand for digital executives in corporations has not waned; instead, it has intensified, particularly in the area of digital transformation. However, the job titles and interview screening criteria set by employers have diverged from the conventional models of the past decade. Companies are no longer solely fixated on technological prowess; they seek digital talents who can enact specific process transformations and drive business innovation, with a focus on business acumen, product thinking, and end-to-end management capabilities from R&D to commercialization.
As we look ahead, we anticipate that the future corporate IT technology executive landscape will be distinctly bifurcated into two categories of candidates:
Previous corporate executive architecture Chart
Future Corporate Executive Architecture Chart
The demand for the first category is expected to remain stable but relatively decline compared to previous years. In contrast, the demand for the second category of talent will persist as an additional focus for executive recruitment.
The emergence of new expectations and benchmarks has created a pronounced discrepancy between the supply and demand for talent, posing a significant challenge for job seekers targeting roles such as CIO and CTO. Many may not have grasped the evolution in corporate recruitment expectations, thus failing to effectively showcase their competencies aligned with the new corporate focus during interviews. To assist digital executives aspiring to achieve career breakthroughs, we offer the following career development insights.
The shifts in our times will undoubtedly present new opportunities. When digitalization can be partially decoupled from "core technology" and focus more pragmatically on the essence of business and corporate management, it signifies that Chinese enterprises' digitalization is advancing towards a more mature phase.
We continue to hold the belief that as new technologies persistently challenge existing management paradigms, digital executives with a technical background will increasingly play pivotal roles in corporate management. Mastery of IT technology (including but not limited to AI, Internet application software, big data, cloud computing) is poised to become a fundamental skill for corporate executives in the next decade.
Page Executive is the executive recruitment division of PageGroup, delivering comprehensive search, selection, and talent management solutions. Renowned for our in-house research capabilities and agile response, we excel in placing highly qualified professionals in senior management and C-level roles with notable success.
Page Executive consultants are Senior Partners with at least 10 years of recruitment experience. With an international network of experienced executive talent and local market presence, we’re uniquely positioned to find the right professionals and future leaders to fulfil your hiring requirements.
Our dedicated executive search team provides a range of search, selection and talent management solutions for organizations looking to recruit permanent or interim executives. Our executive team of recruiters specialize in market mapping, executive and succession planning, and compensation benchmarking.
Celest joined Michael PageGroup in 2016 and is one of the fastest-rising executive recruitment assistant partners in the group. During her tenure, she has focused on executive recruitment in digitalization, AI and cloud computing, and cybersecurity, successfully delivering positions such as CIO, CTO, Chief AI Scientist, E-commerce CEO, Chief Product Officer, and CEO of technology subsidiaries for many high-tech Internet companies in China.
She has long focused on high-end positions in technology, products, and operations in the high-tech and Internet industries. Along with the development of the domestic IT technology industry, she has accumulated a wealth of successful cooperation cases and profound industry insights, highly praised in the technology industry's executive circle.
Celest has successfully developed new customer cooperation in various fields in Michael Page Group China. She is the head and pioneer of the recruitment team in several cutting-edge technology fields such as AI, robotics, chip semiconductors, and quantum computing.
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