By Samuel Greengard, Writer And Author
Business conditions were harsh enough in calmer times. However, with digital technologies converging, the role of the chief information officer (CIO) is under a microscope like never before. As organizations attempt to navigate today’s tricky business environment and future-proof their businesses, the fundamental framework for business and technology have changed.
Cynthia Stoddard, CIO and senior vice president at Adobe, recently spoke about how the role of IT is changing during a CIO.com podcast: “Today, everything we do has some sort of technology. Digitization is part of the soul of every company.” As organizations—and their CIOs—attempt to adjust and adapt, there’s a need for a bolder outlook, different thinking about the relationship between business and technology, and an examination of how to improve interactions with customers, employees, business partners, and corporate boards.
Future tense
As employees work from home, retail stores, as an example, now take on new and different functions. In response to COVID-19 and the restrictions that followed in its wake, businesses have accelerated the adoption of technology. Thirty-seven percent (37%) of SMEs and 32% of the large and listed companies in Malaysia have taken steps to expand or upgrade their technology capabilities. [1]With technology altering the way consumers shop, CIOs must adapt to consumers through implementing technologies such as voice recognition, augmented reality, the Internet of Things (IoT), artificial intelligence (AI) and automation, analytics and much more.
At Adobe, Stoddard has tapped AI and bots to trim inefficiencies. By introducing AI-powered chatbots, Adobe slashed its typical 10-hour IT response time down to 1 hour for cases that required human involvement, representing a 90 percent improvement. CIOs are required to learn a whole new raft of skills to meet a very different set of goals which means unlearning tech-talk and gaining an ability to translate technical topics into actual business terms that have strategic value. In fact, these business and IT metrics are very different from pre-pandemic days. It may be, as Stoddard has focused on, improving incident resolution for remote employees, or something like the availability and use of contactless payment systems.
More than metrics
CIOs are increasingly part of the digital transformation agenda that looks to advance an organization’s mission. As a result, CIOs must understand how to connect with other leaders within the organization as well as with members of the boardroom and speak in a language they understand. For instance, forging a tighter relationship with the CMO to address different messaging and customer connection points in the time of COVID.
To succeed at this task, CIOs must adopt a broader perspective and possess business acumen that wasn’t expected in the past, according to Stoddard. Today, “CIO’s must understand their role in advancing a business strategy and overall digitization,” she explains. “They must be front-and-center and really understand how to partner with business groups and the board.” What’s more, all of this can’t take place at quarterly strategy meetings, it has to happen dynamically and in real time.
Beyond computing
EY’s Johnson concurs that while COVID-19 has forced businesses to work in entirely new ways and altered everything, it’s important to peer over the horizon. At some point, the pandemic will begin to fade. Yet, a return to the old way of doing things should be out of the question. “Business won’t go back to the same as before,” she says. Businesses that have built the right technology foundation, made the right investments in people and processes will be better prepared to deal with whatever ripples that will appear in the marketplace.
Johnson believes it’s important for organizations and CIOs to focus on three primary things:
- Focus on the technology: Pivot on the technology the organization requires to drive the business forward—with a particular focus on the requirements of “silos, products and people.” This demands strong communication and a willingness to think beyond monolithic enterprise approaches.
- Improve Deployment and automation of technologies: It is critical for CIOs to find ways to improve the way technology is deployed and automated across the enterprise. For example, “Many companies have people working remotely. If an employee has a problem with his or her laptop there’s usually no on-site support. So, companies need to change the way IT functions and reimagine the end-to-end user relationship.
- Prioritize culture: CIOs must prioritize culture in the business strategy. Businesses often talk about digital transformation in the context of people, process and technology. The people portion of this is about continuing to motivate your talent and provide opportunities for personal growth. It’s about CIOs engaging with their team and helping them understand the culture even when it’s remote.
Eye on the customer
Yet, all roads must eventually lead back to customers. Tom Puthiyamadam, consumer markets and digital products leader, PwC says, “All things a CIO does should have some tie-in to creating value for customers.” Given the extraordinarily difficult nature of today’s business environment, he believes it’s wise for senior executives, including the CIO, to be present — to visit stores (once it’s safe), sit in on online sessions with customers and gain first-hand knowledge of what interactions actually look like.
This means finding ways to reduce friction through streamlined apps, quick and easy payments, visibility into inventory and orders, flexible deliveries, and easy ways to connect to a company. Simply tossing technology at the problem doesn’t address fundamental needs. For instance, a sales or support chatbot can serve as an effective tool or a frustrating hinderance, depending on how it is set up and how it connects people and resources. Predictive analytics can help delight or frustrate customers, depending on whether a marketing message is perceived as a value or simply more noise.
Now is the time to make significant investments in technology along with process improvements, Puthiyamadam concludes. Companies and CIOs that get things right have an opportunity to pluck opportunity out of all the chaos and transcend the competition. “The goal isn’t to restore the business to a pre-pandemic form,” he says. “It’s to build a framework that’s better adapted to a post-pandemic world in which almost everything is digital.”
[1] COVID-19 – a game changer for digital transformation, Ernst & Young, 1 June 2020
