Every business and industry faces digital disruption today. Digitally empowered customers demand a much higher level of customer obsession to win and keep their business, and they are forcing firms to redefine their business models. Whether you are in banking, insurance, financial services, education, media and entertainment — essentially, in any industry — digital technologies will disrupt your business. Nevertheless, our research shows that firms currently favor a bolt-on digital strategy over digital transformation, but this will drive only limited value from their digital investments. Digital strategy is not about adding a new mobile app or building a social media presence. It requires a fundamental shift in business strategy, responsibilities, technology capabilities, and organizational structure.

Against this backdrop, Forrester is holding its third series of CIO Summits across Asia Pacific in August and September. The India summit is on August 21, 2014 in Mumbai with the theme of: "Beyond IT: Empower Digital Business In The Age Of The Customer." Just like last year, we expect around 150 CIOs to attend the event. The Summit will focus on the significant shift we’ve seen in CIOs' traditional focus — from the design and deployment of internal systems focused on process control to digital products and services for their customers. Of particular importance on the digital journey are three domains:

– Customer experience.

– The mobile mind shift.

– The transformation of big data into actionable business insights.

Each of these topics will feature prominently at the Summit, as select Forrester analysts delve deeper into how CIOs can overcome some of these challenges. We will start the day with Martin Gill, who will present on why “The Future Of Business Is Digital.” The event will also feature our regional thought leaders, including Dane Anderson, Katyayan Gupta, and Nupur Singh Andley; they will share their insights from our Asia Pacific research. We also have distinguished CIOs from leading organizations speaking at the event. We are thrilled to be joined by Punit Garge, President, Reliance Communications; Aruna Rao, CIO, Kotak Bank; and Rajesh Bhatia, Senior Vice President, Head of IT, Religare Finvest as industry speakers.

One of the key highlights at the event is the CIO panel, which will tackle The CIO Role In The Age of The Customer. I will be joined by a distinguished panel for the discussion: Milind Khamkar, CIO of Sanofi Aventis and Bishwanath Ghosh, CIO of Mahindra & Mahindra.

In conjunction with the Summit, we will be releasing new research at the event that covers the state of digital business in Asia Pacific; this will reveal how firms in the region currently stack up in the world’s digital business landscape. While there are some early pioneers, the new research will also help regional CIOs struggling to drive digital business success in their organizations.

Here is the detailed agenda for the India CIO Summit; limited seats are available, so be sure to register early.

See you in Mumbai!