2021 State of the CIO

2021 State of the CIO

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hello everyone and welcome to this very  special webcast presentation of idg's 2021   state of the cio survey results the cio  executive council has collaborated with idg   on a number of these presentations over the  years to offer an in-depth view at some of   the findings of the annual surveys these are all  based on responses from top it leaders and line   of business executives my name is tim scannell and  i am director of strategic content at the council   this is the 20th year igg has conducted this  influential research that provides a qualitative   glimpse at what i.t leaders are planning in  terms of budgets technology initiatives spending   and talent engagement and recruitment  just to name a few topic areas in all   1062 executives responded to the survey more  than 800 of whom are directly involved in it   this is about a 15 percent increase over last  year's responses this i think is an indication   of how eager executives in the it community  are to share information as we come out of   the grips of the covet pandemic and enter a  period focusing on recovery and resiliency   it is a pivotal time for the it industry and  companies in general worldwide for the first   time in this year's survey we also ask questions  related to diversity and inclusion within the it   organization a topic we will touch upon during our  discussion today joining us to provide qualitative   insights from the it front are two experienced  technology executives saranacvi executive vice   president and cio at hms host a leading provider  of food and beverage services located at airports   and other travel venues around the world and  nathan rogers senior vice president and cio   for saic a fortune 500 technology integrator  that provides solutions to the defense space   civilian and intelligence markets thank you  both for taking part in the discussion today thank you i'd like to remind everyone in the  audience that the session is purposely designed to   be interactive and we invite you to take part by  sending your questions and comments via cio.com's   linkedin or twitter pages we'll be monitoring the  flow and we'll do our best to present as many as   we can taking us through the survey results and  moderating the discussion today is my good friend   and colleague john gallant who is the enterprise  consulting director at idg and before that chief   content officer at idg us media welcome john hey  tim how are you very well thank you i think you'll   agree that this past year has been challenging for  most companies and i t organizations to say the   least and that 2021 and future years will be both  demanding and exciting in terms of opportunities   tim i couldn't agree with you more as as you  mentioned we're going to be going through the   state of the cio research results today but i've  also been working with idg this year on research   that we've done about the role of the pandemic  and how it's changed uh changed everything from   how workers are supported in the organization  to the priorities of digital transformation   automation security all of those kinds  of issues and i think this survey today   gives us a good look at that as well as some of  the issues about how uh it's changing the role of   the of the cio so we'll look at this today in four  parts again some of the impact of the pandemic   current status of the cio role and then we'll  look at how that role is expanding and what some   of the priorities that respondents told us for  2021 and beyond and then we'll look also at some   of the business and tech initiatives including  diversity inclusion as you mentioned early on   it's an absolute pleasure for me to be joined  by sarah and nathan and i'll be sharing some   of the research results and then asking them  to weigh in on what they found interesting   how this matches with what they're experiencing  within their organizations and their thoughts on   what's ahead so i'm really looking forward  to hearing from them and hearing from   all of you as well as tim said we want  to make this interactive and engaging   so um again let's start by looking quickly at the  pandemic and the new tech landscape i want to show   three slides that capture some of the high level  impacts from a budget perspective and then in   terms of new initiatives i also want to reiterate  that this is just a slice of the overall state of   the cio survey there are many more slides that you  can take a look at we've provided a link from that   so that you can access the full survey a lot  of work goes into this each year it has a lot   of history behind it as well so we can see some  trends as well as some some new areas one of the   things that we asked folks was what happened  to your 2020 it as a result of the pandemic   and you can see that it's pretty much a split it's  almost a three-way split here divided into thirds   roughly there's a third of the folks who increase  their i.t budget and i think you know i've talked   to a number of cios who really emphasize the fact  that coming out of this challenging situation   they want to put their company in the strongest  possible position many cited having learned from   the 2008 great recession that if you only cut  costs you don't come out of these challenging   situations as strongly as companies that continue  to invest while at the same time optimizing their   expenses about a third of the folks made no  changes to their budget and about thirty percent   of enterprise size companies and that's companies  we would say are a thousand plus and employees   uh actually saw a budget cut now i wanna show how  this has changed this is kind of a busy chart but   it to re to emphasize that we've been talking  with cios for a long time about these trends   and what they're doing with their budgets we have  the survey that we do every year the cio tech poll   that we ask them about what's going to come  what's coming in the in the year ahead and   we're comparing some of our new data with what's  happened all the way back actually this data   extends well beyond uh 2008 but i want to point  out here in december 2019 when we did this survey   the blue line what 60 percent of cios said at  that point they were going to increase their   budgets for 2020 and only about seven percent  said they were going to cut them about 34 said   they were going to stay the same well look at  what happened in april 2020 when we did our first   covid research study that number of companies that  were going to cut budgets jumped up to 35 percent   and the number who said they were going to  increase them went down to 25 and you can   see when we did this survey in december of 2020  things have stabilized again that was the slide   i showed you earlier 49 now tell us that for  the year ahead they're going to increase their   budget 39 say their budget will stay the same as  2020 and only 12 percent say that their budgets   will be lower than in 2020. so you can see that  things have stabilized and in fact there's even a   sense of more confidence there going forward we  also asked people whether they agreed with the   following statement you know did you implement  new technologies new i.t strategies or new   methodologies due to the pandemic vast majority of  people agreed with that statement cios are doing   new things they've implemented new technologies  new approaches as a result of the pandemic and   here's where i really wanted to call in sarah and  sarah and nathan nathan let me start with you was   there anything that we saw in the budget data that  struck you is interesting how does it how does   that jive with your own experiences yeah sure no  we definitely experience that v curve there where   you know we're spending you know we're flat or  up going into the 2020 and then with the pandemic   and everyone going home for us it was march 13th  we all went home i remember flying home that day   um and we kind of froze everything really short  term just said okay hold on let's just take see   what's going on right once we came out of it  we said you know what we we've actually got to   invest in technology so so again you can sign up  you see that curve on that prior slide going up   and in here you see the results of a lot of  other cios i think experiencing the same thing   for us we had been really focused in 2019 we had  stood up a team with hr facilities in i.t to talk  

about the workplace of the future so you know it's  kind of slowly going along then comes the pandemic   and all of a sudden it's much more than you know  the workplace of the future it's really the work   of the future and that team has become a really  mature team i was talking before the call we just   had in all hands and we presented some of what  we're working on for the future of work for saic   and the first time as a cio for me where  i actually had digital investment dollars   during the year during a pandemic given to me  for my budget not to do anything new per se but   to take our road map and go faster you know all  the things we were planning they're like we got   to go faster with this stuff i mean it was really  exciting um as we've been kind of moving through   this year and seeing it mature that's great sarah  how about you does this map with your experience   yeah absolutely i know and first of all thank  you for having me uh i'd like to echo what nathan   was saying we've seen a significant shift not  only just on a focus of technology but just the   appetite and the realization and recognition about  how important technology is uh we are uh you know   i get very few questions when i'm talking  about technology and and how it's going to   influence the business transformation that we are  seeing we've gone from you know being all on site   to really quickly shifting into an environment  that's totally remote uh the the adoption of   new technologies such as collaboration tools the  microsoft teams and how quickly users have not   only adapted to that but have really appreciated  having you know such avenues through which they   could engage with the business um which has as  a result um you know increase uh collaboration   better collaboration with it um not only just with  the appreciation but also investment in budget i'd   like to echo what uh nathan said we need we can't  do things fast enough is is the theme um that that   i'm faced with i also represent uh the retail  industry in food and beverage industries so for   those for us it was not only just transforming the  workforce internally but to make that investment   to really meet the demands of the consumers so if  somebody's coming in dining with us they're not   you know really necessarily comfortable picking  up a menu so deploying contactless technologies   and deploying all of these at a very fast pace has  been the demand and and actually exciting because   we've gone from a push to a pull environment  for technologies which is pretty exciting   that's great so i wanted to ask you we this  this slide talks about new things that people   have implemented what have you done differently  what's what's a change in strategy methodology   technology footprint that you think will will  continue that it's not just a reflection of   the moment but will continue moving forward sarah  what have you what's kind of a lasting change as a   result of this yeah i i just think that the entire  environment has changed as i said earlier it's how   technology is looked at as far as specifically  looking at our approach and strategies we found   ourselves to be a little bit more open to  trial and error than we've been in the past   you know customers had very low appetite  of any type of failures they wanted things   perfect before it went into production uh but in  light of covet it has kind of shifted the culture   uh where we are now able to be a little bit  more open to trying new things so that's that's   definitely a pretty a decent shift in addition  to that it has also forced me to take a look at   the partners that we collaborate with you know  what is their appetite to really lift and shift   very quickly um in response to the changing  business environment so that has allowed me   to take a step back and really weigh in as to  which other players that i want to continue in my   portfolio and who are going to be stronger players  as a part of the strategy so it's it's it's a   wake-up call for sure from all aspects engagement  with the business engagement with the players and   overall technology investments that can scale and  adapt to a very rapid change and i think that that   point about your partners is a really important  one and hoping that they understand the changing   expectations and the changing uh strategies  going forward nathan what kind of permanent or   semi-changes do you see coming yeah i mean i  totally agree with the cultural stuff i'll go to   the technology side and make it really simple zoom  um you know or teams i mean how many people have   you this is just part of their life now um  and it's so ingrained you know it's kind of   like when you get your first smartphone now you  don't know what you do without it i think we're   gonna see that with the collaboration tools  as well and they're going to get more and more   advanced but you know i'd work at schools you  know anywhere with friends across the country i   think it's really going to be part of our culture  and the technology that allows us to collaborate   much more so than i i believe any of us were  experiencing fully before um so you know going   to go really simple there but just the zoom you  know feeling is is totally going to stick around   exactly i agree with you sore neck and everything  that comes with all these video calls so we want   to spend some time looking at the the status  of the cio and every year we ask folks you   know do you we don't ask them to choose whether  they're transformational strategic or functional   we ask them basically where they're spending their  time where where's their energy really focused and   then we align that with these definitions so uh  obviously i think if you asked everybody to select   you i would select superstar for myself but we ask  people where are you spending your time and then   how does that really uh define you as a cio leader  so the functional leader is really focused on   operations focused on internal delivering internal  business value sort of that traditional older role   of the cio transformation leaders are really  working more with their business counterparts   uh focusing on an enterprise-wide  perspective really being strong collaborators   and business strategists are those who are  really focused beyond the borders of the business   looking at creating ecosystems looking at creating  the next level of products and services that a   company offers so this is where people are viewing  themselves today if we look at 2020 and 2021   if they based on their responses this is how  the group breaks down pretty much a split more   people in the strategic and transformational  camp but when we ask people where they want to   be in three years clearly we see that the bulk of  folks want to be in that strategic role business   strategist role so i i wonder um nathan and sarah  is there anything in this slide that surprises   you and and how does it kind of match up with  the evolution of your own roles chad you want   johnny some money yeah um so you know what i think  it's interesting i know i've been through you know   i've heard it leaders talk for a long time about  becoming more strategic having a seat at the table   you know i think we're starting to see that that  perception of the of ourselves is here where we're   seeing the increase and we see the increase in the  future what will be interesting i know we as we go   through the survey we'll see other results is is  that actually what's happening and how do our our   peers or other executives um and our organizations  see us i mean i think it's really trying to to you   know make this idea of being more strategic real  for ourselves but also within our organizations   too that that is the challenge but this is  you know good direction great sarah what's   your thinking on this yeah i mean john i would say  that this transformation this change the shift in   the role of i.t began way before covet you know  as as soon as digital transformation came in   and how technology became more and more embedded  in our business uh the role of cio was expected to   change we all like to believe that we are all  very transformational interested strategic in   uh in our operations i i do believe that there  is a third category here where it's a hybrid of   transformational and functional you cannot be  a transformation engine if you don't understand   the functional side of it and the challenges that  you face in running of the business so um there   that transformation that changed the shift in the  role had began way before covet and will continue   to evolve and has become even more important i can  speak for my industry and for my role personally   as soon as uh digital began to become more and  more relevant um so did my role from you know   working for a cfo and now reporting to the ceo for  the very reason that um the need for technology to   not only be uh an executor of the technology  executor of the strategy but actually be   a creator a voice in creating the strategy became  important so this does not surprise me at all and   if if a cio does not change and get connected  with the business then they're no longer going   to stay relevant it is a need it is imperative  for their success makes sense tim did you we have   a question i understand yeah actually we have a  couple of questions from the audience the first   one is directed at sarah uh you know earlier  she said that there's more leeway for trial   and error in her organization but the audience  member is wondering is it more pragmatic though   you know you know obviously that digital  transformation is accelerated and moving much   faster is there more uh you know caution  in making those decisions going forward   um i think there's those fine balance when you  think about digital and innovation by nature   that you're seeing a lot of that at least in my  industry coming in from smaller players that might   not have all of the processes and everything baked  to the extent that we would we are typically used   to um so striking a good balance between security  and safety and still being open to try i mean one   of the idea that we are playing with is how do we  create a field pilot which really addresses all   of the security needs and really isolated from  the rest of the business that gives us a good   playground to test out new players without really  compromising the rest of our business so those are   the type of ideas that we are playing playing with  as a result of trying to strike a balance between   being a little bit more risk takers yet mitigating  it uh with creating controls around and striking   a balance thank you and one further question  this is one is directed at nathan i believe   back in the days of yore pre-covered  most every company had mobile management   rules and structures in place now most everyone  is working at home or was working at home in 20   and a big percentage will be working from home  going forward nathan is there a playbook for   this are there rules in place that saic in terms  of you know uh technology and what what is uh   uh what is it what is given out to  people in terms of the home offices   yeah no we we um we do embrace the ability to work  from anywhere um on any device but we have a lot   of security around that so we're certainly moving  towards a zero trust environment but um as a   government contractor we follow what's called nist  800 171 so the nist standards i mean there's also   new cmmc standards too that you'll you'll probably  hear about um in the news and with the government   so we do follow those and um that allows us to  have a very secure environment uh regardless   of where you work i mean it's definitely you  know it's not like um your personal life you   don't have the all the freedoms that you have in  your personal life for sure um there's a lot of   uh rules and regulations but i'm working out of  my house today as a cio and you know we're we're   keeping our environment pretty secure so we were  able to do that day one because we have always had   a very geographically dispersed population over 60  percent of our employees sit at customer sites um   and they use customer computers they use their  personal computers to come in um you know   virtually so we we've always had a uh environment  so when the when we had to go home it it wasn't   too bad we were used to that environment if i may  just um add to that the one impact that we are   seeing because of the shift of resources you know  remotely as we're looking at a cyber insurance   and all the the need for security the need for  compliance and really exercising and demonstrating   that you're in a fully secure environment no  matter where you are has become very important   especially for those those companies that are  renegotiating the cyber um insurances because   you're seeing a lot more content around how  are you ensuring um security um as a result of   distribution of workforce and and that and there's  a question that just came in about cyber security   in terms of that uh so are your cyber security  efforts more on building awareness among those   those workers right now because they're at home  and there's a lot more happening around them or is   it applying tools that they can apply to their own  technology actually both because just really doing   um you know acceptable use training and procedures  and policies educating them and doing multiple   cycles rather than one or two that we used to do  we are doing you know campaigning on what to look   for for you know for instance uh ransomware and  all of these other intrusions that we've seen in   the past um it's increasing awareness and then  putting in controls around it to monitor them a   lot more closely than we've ever done before john  i know you're the moderator i was gonna say if you   flip to the next slide um the cyber security  question um kind of pops up there at the top   so you know and so from a security management  standpoint and to touch back to people being   more strategical i i believe you know as cios  you know working with your ciso or cisco's   on the phone as well you know cyber hygiene's  always been table stakes but you have got to be   part of your company's cyber security  strategy and building out that road map   cyber security i think for organizations  in the future is really a differentiator   you've got to you've got to nail it and and be  amazing at it and there's a lot of companies that   we've seen over the last year right that have  had trouble um clearly solar winds recently   but we'll see more of that too so i think it's  really important and it's hard because it's   expensive and invisible to a certain degree  and putting mfa on your employees is not fun   so it creates a lot of rules so you're going  to get a lot of pushback from the company   so it's really you have to be strategical you  have to convince the executive team the board   of directors is very much paying attention to this  convince them get the right funding and secure the   environment there's nothing easy about it so i  consider this one of um you know one of the top   you know you have 10 things you're working on it's  one of the top 10 uh strategy things you need to   work on and i think we see it here in this chart  that this is what people are thinking about yeah   nathan that's a great segue because this we asked  people and i'll show you this in another slide   we ask people to uh cios to best characterize  their current focus and how they're spending their   time and this is what we got back to me what's  interesting about this is this real mix of both   operational uh and semi-urgent issues along  with really business oriented issues so if   you look at things like security management at  the top of the list improving i t operations   and systems performance implementing new systems  and architecture you know three of the top four   uh but then we have aligning i.t with business  goals driving business innovation cultivating   the it business partnership so again a  real mix of operational and strategic   and then when we ask attendees i'm sorry we've  been doing too many events when we asked cio's in   the research which of the following activities do  you plan to spend more time on in the next three   years this is how the mix changes and we can see  that it that more of the business oriented goals   come to the top implementing new systems  and architecture still there i think that's   a change that's been accelerated by the  pandemic you know as sarah has talked about   the pandemic as an accelerator of big changes that  were already underway but how did these you know   sarah how did these priorities line up with what  you're working on or were there anything in here   that really struck you as odd um no this is pretty  uh aligned with what i am seeing not only just   within our organization but industry in general i  i do think that the reason why um security is not   further up or or available because it's a given i  mean i think the expectation is that um it's not   something that we can be complacent with it cannot  be out of sight out of mind uh and with any of   these initiatives the expectation is that security  is a part of that decision-making process so   i'm um you know this does not surprise me at all  a couple other things that i was looking at was   although the percentages  aren't as high comparatively   but as we look at business innovation it's also  doing um a lot of like transformation automation   redesigning of the business processes  which there's a smaller percentage here   and then the 25 percent that's noted midway which  says cultivating the it business partnership   again a significant shift and i expect this to  become a little bit more perhaps move higher   in the list because the boundaries between it  and the business are becoming very gray as well   as far as i'm concerned i i see everybody being a  technology leader making it you know harder for us   to stay ahead of the curve um so that was again  another thing that was interesting to me is how   this is becoming a topic of discussion which it  hasn't been in the past before so i'm interested   in getting your view on this both nathan  and sarah and i'll start with you nate's and   obviously an awful lot of change going on  right now there are all the changes that   that your team is focused on in helping the  business to deal with the current situation   and prepare for business going forward  but also take big changes going on within   technology with cloud and security issues  and how are you as a cio balancing these   you know the the strategic part and the  you know the ongoing operational part   so i mean i think you know as a leader you need  to focus on those leadership skills and and really   those soft skills um and have the right team i  mean i have a very strong team that's able to run   the day-to-day business you know i have  strategical people that are able to think   about strategy i have a good cdo good cis so you  know i've got the right people that can help me   so that you know yes i'm focused on strategy but  i'm also focused on leadership and leading um the   team to do the right stuff so i can focus also on  on strategies for the company beyond really i.t so   you know we do a lot of m a activity i'm very  involved with that um yeah looking at new   uh business works you know business business  areas to pursue so i think you gotta to me it   at some point you it the leadership part is a  huge part of your job and i'm very into org health   and being making sure your organization is a top  performing team so that's how i'm able to balance   it um with the day-to-day versus strategy and  nathan just before i let you off the hook there   as a result of what happened over the past year  have you made any changes in your in your in the   structure of your team to emphasize new skills or  new or new initiatives i have we we um and i know   a lot of other companies already well down this  road but we were not um so we have um started you   know using agile processes devsecop processes i  mean things i know a lot of companies been doing   for a long time but we were not so we really took  that on this year because we realized we needed to   move faster and as sarah said earlier you know it  failed quick um as well so we we definitely took   that on and we are full-blown you know getting  that team organized and you know there's been   new members of our team we brought in that were  real practitioners in that area too that could   help the team uh because you know we've got a lot  of great uh team members but some of them hadn't   lived it so we brought some people in from the  outside to help as well and it's going really well   sarah can you talk to me about how you're striking  that balance you and your team between you know   all the change and technology issues that need to  be dealt with the acceleration of these changes   and the strategic focus yeah our our uh journey  of really transforming i.t started about  

a year ago right before you know kobe hit us  so we were well positioned what we did was um   started taking a look at the demand that was  coming very rapidly due to digital implementations   and we just didn't have the bandwidth or the  capacity nor you know would we ever have enough   money to do everything that we needed to do so we  had to optimize our id performance and we need to   really figure out not only how to restructure  uh but create more funding to allocate towards   digital so we ended up outsourcing it that was  uh it's it's funny that i signed the agreement   february of uh 2020 right before covet  hit so uh we just made it right under the   under the wire and by far you know looking back  i i think that was the best decision that i made   um to otherwise i wouldn't have been able to  really respond to the demand that was coming um   through outsourcing i split the organization into  two parts the running part of the business the   functional you know dealing with the day-to-day  operations became an outsourced function and i   scale down and created a very focused team which  was going to drive uh you know all of the new   initiatives for the business that we're creating  more value um and so i was able to like really   secure the talent that i needed whether it was  on cloud or digital or any of the you know rpas   robotics and all of those um skills that were  so badly needed so now i have a very internally   dedicated team that's very close to the business  understands the business very rapid and really   trying out new things um while i have the  day-to-day the running of the business uh   you know being done by a third-party uh provider  so that that has worked well for us um and because   uh we had taken that step of outsourcing i was  able to reduce the cost of running of the it by   30 percent which thereby helped me contribute  you know those funds towards transformation so   all in all it has been like a fantastic thing and  the the other advantage that you know very quickly   with this outsourced solution that i've been able  to build in as a part of our agreement was have   the ability to tap into the talent from around  the world to really secure talent for innovation   because you can never have enough internal  resources to deal with the rapid pace at which   technology is changing so with this outsourcing  agreement now i have you know um access to talent   that which i didn't have in the past and we're  going to talk about talent and skills that are   in demand and hard to get so that's a great  point thanks for tuning that up tim i think   you have a question uh yeah a question for one of  the attendees sort of zeroing in the comments that   nathan made about uh working with the team and the  business side uh the attendee was wondering if the   if the lobs the line of business people uh were  really up to speed on agile methodology and the   importance of most viable production of products  or did you have to do some sort of a training   so for for our company they are um so let me say  two ways the lines of business that are customer   facing are aware of it because we're an i.t  company engineering company so many of them are   very familiar with the agile journey and what it  is our functional groups we're absolutely training   them so you know our contracts our finance  you know hr um we've been doing sessions and   bringing them along and what their role is now  as part of that team that subject matter expert   so internally absolutely a lot of education's  been needed because we've been doing things the   same way for a very long time and and people  have been here a long time which is great um   but but we had to bring in some new ideas and  get those things but people have been really   excited about it because they control their  pipeline they understand what's being done   i mean people are really excited about it from a  functional perspective but in terms of our lines   of business the the vast majority of employees you  know they they understand agile because that's you   know what we do for our customers um so so that  wasn't a hard part sarah what about you did you   have to spend some time on digital literacy and  operation literacy um yes i i just think where we   needed to educate the customers the most was how  and why they couldn't get everything yesterday   so the speed of delivery was uh something that  we just needed to set some expectations so   uh you know agile processes the minute that you  educate them on that the expectation is i'm going   to ask for it and i'm going to get it right away  um so so that was uh for me by far the the biggest   hurdle that we had to overcome right thank you  so i want to talk about some of the expansion   continuing on this theme of expanding the role of  the cio in the new areas of focus we asked cios   which of these actions or activities changed  in importance over the last six to 12 months   and you can see the breakdown in the darker blue  is increased in importance no changes the brighter   blue and kind of gray color is decreased it's an  importance and these are ranked by there are many   other selections but these are the ranked  by the ones that ruin importance the most   and again it's this interesting mix of both  business and operational focus topping the list   automating business or it processes i have heard  this in every conversation with cios and nit teams   what i love on here is this interacting directly  with customers i in order to innovate in order   to create new products and services in order to  better support sales teams and other teams out   in the field interacting directly with customers  is so important along with developing the customer   journey and understanding that and the role  of customer experience in the success of the   company so i want to talk with um with nathan and  sarah about that i also want to point out we will   be talking about diversity and inclusion coming up  in a couple of these other topics but sarah let's   start with you in terms of this interacting with  customers can you talk about what you and your   team do in order to really get into the head of  the customers and how that's changing for you in   in your role yeah this um certainly took um a hit  when we were faced with covet you know customers   uh were inundated with the demand of keeping the  workforce safe especially when you are in food and   beverage industry it's you know ppe compliance  tracking of you know covet cases all of these   other things um so what we found that they were  they were completely overwhelmed and not having   the education or or the background to really  see how technology can really ease that burden   uh it presented and opened the door for us where  we could interact directly with the with the   customers and understand where they were spending  most of their time and really give them technology   solutions um to make things easier which in the  absence of that partnership and relationship we   would not have been able to do so um the the other  thing that is over here that jumps out at me is   influencing the customer journey again another  idea as to as we start educating as cios get   closer to the business and they understand where  the business uh is having the most heartache or   where they're spending most of the time they  may not it may not be just easily apparent   that technology again could be an influencer so  you cannot transform the business without having   those partnerships and without understanding where  the pain points are um another opportunity another   area for us to engage better with the customers  you know we've been able to track the entire life   stream i mean the other challenges that we had  for instance so you know we work in airports   uh airlines um and plain mints were very  unpredictable so how do you open and close   the store how do you staff people quickly how  do you shift resources all of these challenges   the more we understood the more we were able to  bring uh technology solutions to enable this shift   um in in the new way of operating uh within  the within our space so thank you that's great   nathan i want to get your take when we think  of customers i think we always tend to think   of you know an individual at a retail outlet or a  customer at a restaurant or someone buying online   but you're a b to b or b to p to g business  to government uh organization what does this   mean for you in terms of interacting with your  customers uh and and things like customer journey   yeah and i'll take it i'll take one other stuff  too when i think of customers we you know not only   do we think of external but we also think of  internal because we certainly do a lot of you know   r d so we'll support the the business you know the  the r d team or the business development team or   you know our hr team for improving our employee  experience so our customers you know it's external   and internal what's it what's interesting about  these two and i was glad sarah went first was   that i was surprised that it was such a big  increase in importance and not a no change   because i would think those two would have  always been like top of mind very important   um so i was surprised to actually see how big of  an increase in importance they took if that makes   sense from a statistics standpoint um the dni one  i wasn't surprised by because i think that's been   really top of mind for a lot of people and and  something we're addressing more aggressively   than we ever have before but yeah now i think of  the customer um also is the internal and certainly   these are things that um are incredibly important  i mean there's nothing more important than you   know customer excellence um and and customer  success so the these are critical for sure   absolutely john if you don't mind if  i can quickly add for for us uh where   uh we had to shift our focus was again we  do have uh internal and external customers   but with covert for instance external customers  were looking for contactless engagement it became   imperative if we didn't offer that solution  they were not going to stop at our stores so   we again had to take that into consideration as  we were moving forward with our innovative ideas   great so i we also asked is the cio role expanding  into any of the following areas and this is a   segment a little a shorter list of the ones that  we asked about but the number one area where the   cio role is expanding and virtually every cio  says their role is expanding beyond traditional   i.t responsibilities the number one area is no  surprise to me with cyber security i had always   hoped i always think there should be that very  strong connection uh and linkage between those two   areas data analysis data privacy and compliance  customer experience which we've talked about   nathan anything on this list that surprises you  or anything here that you know you've already   been doing and expect yeah yeah i think those top  two too are it's good to see those at the top um   you know this i have i have a ciso um she she's  alicia she's great she reports into the into   myself and then i also this year set up a chief  data officer role um it didn't have anything to do   with cobit we were already headed down that path  given the importance of data analysis and really   improving our business intelligence um and so both  of those roles are in the cio organization and i   i mean we are so tight at the hip and you know  when i have my office of the cio meet you know   it's the three of us plus you know our software  engineer our infrastructure and our customer   experience um leader you know the six  of us are together and i just think   it's a very powerful team and we're able to get a  lot done and react quickly but also put our road   maps together and be very proactive so i i find  it to be fantastic i would be really bummed if if   it was not that way so i would encourage all cios  to to get those teams closer if they're not today   sarah did you want to weigh in on that yeah  it just surprises me that 96 percent of cios   thought that it was expanding for me it was it has  always been a part of my role uh you know whether   it's talking about data or talking about cyber  security so that was the only thing that kind of   surprised me a bit uh this these are the two areas  that should always be the focus of cio because   honestly from data you're creating value  for the organization and optimizing it   makes the i and cio right yeah exactly exactly  no i agree so we also asked in your current   role as a creation of new revenue generating  initiatives among your job responsibilities   and it's broke down into three different  answers nearly 70 percent say yes   that you know the creation of new revenue  generating initiatives is among their tim i think on uh pros at least he froze  for me i assume he's froze for the audience   i think so yeah i guess so so uh i guess we're  focusing on rev yeah i can jump in if you want   and then i mean when i when i looked at this  the line of business um well you know what   do you think about the response but there  you go john is back john is back back great   i think we lost you flipped a slide while you were  frozen there you were back one slide great i know   i actually skipped over a slide because because  of time constraints oh good all right all right   i wanted to ask where you stand in terms  of you know your role in revenue generating   initiatives for the company uh and does  this does the data here surprise you   yeah i mean i'll i'll say that i am directly  involved in that there are a number of   self-service initiatives that we are deploying  which are external consumer facing um so that is   um increasing our capture rate as far as how many  uh you know uh different customers that we can   reach it's expanding our reach um in addition to  that uh through the use of technology we are able   to tap into new sources that were previously not  available uh for us so this does not surprise me   at all uh and in fact i'm really glad to see that  this is the focus of many great nathan how about   for you yeah no it's great to hear sarah's success  i think what you're doing is really great at your   company for me i'm really in that second bar where  i'm teamed up i wouldn't say i don't own p l but   you know again working m a working with our cto  um you know working on different uh supporting our   manufacturing program or supply chain or we have a  lot of um you know uh secure work our team is very   focused on that and helping with um getting those  programs stood up and then supporting them and   and working directly with the customer uh where  we generate revenue but we're certainly teaming   uh with the the programs not not leading per se so  um so i think it's exciting you know what sarah's   doing in her organization i mean just quickly any  advice for the 32 who say that their team is not   tasked with creating and that means they're  not involved they're not leading advice for   them uh that seems a lot to me at this point in  the evolution of the role yeah i mean my advice   would be just get close to the business i mean in  fact i forget where i was reading an article where   it said cios are now coming from the business  side of the house more so from a technology uh   tier uh that that in itself tells us that the need  for cios to really understand the business side of   the side of the house is imperative i mean how  can you transform how can you generate more value   if you don't understand and it's a journey i mean  the more that you start engaging with the business   the more trust is developed and more they start  relying on you so there's a shift in culture uh   and and it can only begin with better partnership  and improving you know and steering committees are   a great way spending time in the business which  is which is uh something that uh i like to do   you know postcode as well educating your teams to  spend time with the business really being on the   front line are some of the ways through which  you can see where are the pain points and then   come up with solutions um to help resolve those  thanks the job rotation's a great thought you know   whether it's yourself or people on your team that  you rotate in from outside the business will give   you more you know diversity of thought across the  business i personally came out of finance and and   shared service operations that was my background  before i got to it so i came with a very different   lens than my it team and i think that's a great  idea i think also you know if your organization   has a cto that's not in your team but it's it's  part of the company or you you do have m a so you   have someone who's focused on you know strategic  acquisitions or mergers making sure you're close   to them and understand what they're doing and  then also trying to get on the calendar of if   you have you know big lines of business presidents  or vice presidents or whatever they may be called   to just just have that conversation about the  strategy because things will come up that you   could be like yeah i can help you with that um  i think those are really important ways and then   as sarah mentioned once you get more involved  getting that steering committee going um and   really partnering on the road map um and owning  it together um i think starts to to get into those   upper two great thanks nathan so one of the things  i love about this survey there's 1062 respondents   and 250 of them are line of business that gives us  the opportunity to kind of compare how cios view   themselves versus what's on the mind of line of  business folks and if you have a chance to look   at the full survey you're going to see a number of  things uh everything from what they what the ceo   is expecting from the technology department right  now that what's the line of business view on that   what do they think the ceo wants as well as what  does the cio think that the ceo wants and there's   some real differences there but here we asked  cios themselves about their level of agreement   with these statements 92 percent say the role  is becoming more digital innovation-focused   89 more involved in leading digital transformation  initiatives compared to business counterparts   eighty-one percent say they've implemented new  technology to enable better customer experiences   and interactions but here we ask the line  of business respondents to 250 non-cios   how they view the cio role and it breaks down  into these kind of personality types or role types   28 view them as a strategic advisor that  proactively identifies business needs   opportunities makes recommendations 25 percent  view as a consultant evaluating and advising   on business need technology choices  risk assessor cautious voice of reason   autonomous players primarily doing their own  thing this to me seems like a real mismatch   in the views between how cios view the role  and how line of business is viewing the cio   so nathan what striker what strikes you about this  and why do you think is that differentiation i   don't know you know my thought is i'm going  to take this back take the percentages off   and i'm going to go to my executive leadership  team and ask them because i mean if i'm not in   that strategic advisor box i'd be kind of bummed  out so i mean i'm sure i share in all of all all   five of those to a certain degree right there's  a part of me that probably fits them all but   that would be the one that i would consider so  the fact that there's such a high percentage of   line of business that didn't pick that um and i  i mean i don't understand if you feel the same   way but i got to imagine a lot of the cios on this  call feel i hope they would pick me there so i'm   going to go back and ask like i'm very transparent  with my team i will absolutely go back and ask i'm   kind of curious is sarah do you do you see this as  a communication issue that perhaps that cio isn't   communicating as effectively as possible just what  they are involved with and what they are driving   forward in the organization look i i think our cio  role is still seen as a technical call them and i   have a technical issue the the business continues  to see us that way and it's going to be a while   before there is a shift in perception in addition  to that at least in my organization there are   centers of excellence for instance that  are being created which are outside of   i t everything that's happening in center  of excellence is driven by technology but   the business sees that as a separate entity  therefore they might not be connecting the dots   and we're not seeing that you know these are  the changes that are happening driven by cio i   still think that cios are being seen as just their  boundaries our technology solution providers not   necessarily strategic and it's just um you know we  need to work on communication we need to improve   and again going back to my previous comment the  more that we are embedded in the business the more   they start leaning on us um to drive solutions the  more they're going to shift their focus and see   as strategic players rather than just as solution  providers i think it sounds like you need a high   priced internal consultant and i'd be happy  to fill that role marketing campaign yeah   i'm going to skip over a couple slides because  i really want to make sure we have time to talk   about this issue been a big issue uh in in  american society this year not just this year   but really heightened this year this issue of  diversity diversity and inclusion we asked uh   cios to respond whether they their level of  agreement uh and this is the group that would have   said agree i'm sorry agree somewhat or strongly  agree and that's on a range of don't agree agree   slightly but these are the folks who say strongly  agree or agree somewhat 77 our team includes a mix   of genders that's remarkable to me that there's  23 teams that don't have a mix of genders at this   point 77 our organization understands that our  innovation capability increases if diversity   inclusion is a is a strength of our team 73 our  team includes a mix of ethnic and racial groups   72 percent nearly three-quarters were making dni  a priority during the hiring process great news   there and our current team of less than 60 percent  uh includes people of varying physical abilities   i'd ask you both i'll start with you sarah  what strikes you from this slide and then talk   a little bit about what what what's happening in  your organization around diversity and inclusion   before we go there john can i add some  context to this discussion just to   people don't understand there is a problem here so  a survey a women in technology survey done by idc   86 of the people who responded to that survey said  that a lack of diversity within an organization   will have a definite impact on an organization's  culture and its revenue yet if you look at   some of the statistics that 16 of managers  in the information technology industry   um are women and and the rest is are not so  there's a disparity there and mckinsey uh was   quoted as saying this is a quote from mckinsey  women are at a high risk of leaving the workplace   due to the co the challenges of covert 19 the  impact of this loss particularly the loss of women   leaders could be devastating to companies so this  is just not a discussion this is an imperative   yeah yeah i i couldn't agree with you more but  the thing is in spite of our like best effort we   are just not finding that talent i mean i think  john in our previous conversations i was talking   about we have to go back to the root of it if you  look at stem education and look at how many really   females are entering into these fields i mean  looking at how we how important technology has   become in our lives yet you're not seeing as many  females enter into the field so we need to start   some of our programs from there to really attract  some of the you know diverse groups to enter into   these fields and then support them through the  journey i mean we have we are actively trying   to bring in diversity but unfortunately just the  pool isn't there now with you know the evolution   of workforce and really having more acceptable  standard of remote remote employees all over   one would think that this would increase  our zone it would allow us some options   um to hire from regions that otherwise we  wouldn't have i mean the problem for us   is that the pool just isn't there right and  did i did i understand sarah do you think   that there's the possibility that because  we're more comfortable with remote work it   might actually open up that pool to something it  might it might and that's what my hope is i mean   you continue i continue to look at you know who  are the female leaders that are entering into the   market and very few cios i mean how do we explain  that and then you start working backwards and you   see that it's it's a problem at every level um all  the way back to you know where the education is uh   being pursued by these diverse groups makes sense  nathan what's your take on this and then maybe you   can share a little bit about what you're working  on when it comes to diversity and inclusion   sure yeah i mean i think you you absolutely have  to lean in um and you ha you can't just be on the   sideline i've said this before over the last year  you've got to get in the game you've got to play   hard you got to figure this out and as i.t you  know it's it's hiring the right people but it's   also looking you know it's people systems and  processes it's also looking at our systems and   processes right and make sure there's no biases  built into them some of them have been around   for you know decades like are you re-look at them  you know are they right um you know i think you   know we're doing a lot of things i'm trying  to do a lot of things with an i.t to really   to broaden our horizon uh looking at interns um  you know we're involved um so early on making   sure that we have a strong internship program  we're also looking at an apprentice program   um that that attracts uh diversity um and i think  you know ssc has has really leaned in on this area   specifically with women in the workforce and we  are a technology company and we're a government   contractor you know we have a woman's c ceo half  our board is female i mean we have really leaned   in there and i think you know we we were i think  we've been so you know somewhat successful um on   that front but we also need to um lean in you know  with other communities uh diverse communities too   um and we can do better there and it's a hard hard  problem and i agree with you sarah it starts very   i have a you know nine-year-old daughter and i  keep like you know hoping she's gonna go you know   science and them and you know and she really loves  it and that's great but it's got to start really   early on and i think that's a cultural shift for  all of us as i.t leaders but as parents as well  

so we are coming close to our time and i just  wanted to take a little bit we were talking   about the difficulty from a from a diversity and  inclusion perspective this is really more overall   where stan iowa's are having difficulty  finding appropriate skill sets with security   leading the list of things  that are difficult to fill   ai machine learning are a newer area than security  uh data science and analytics does this match with   where you're having challenges in terms of hiring  and bringing talent into your organizations essay   an i.t company and we have 25 000 employees we've  bought over 500 open wrecks right now in all these   areas i think it's crazy you know cyber security  is is negative unemployment right i heard that at   an mit conference a couple months ago um it is  very very tough and you know we try to you know   you can fight over pay but in benefits but really  you know we we try to attract people based on our   mission um you know what we're trying to do and i  think each company has a unique mission and that's   really where you attract the right talent  is someone who's really passionate about   what your company's purpose is and that's  what we're you know we try to focus on that   to differentiate ourselves when we're trying to  hire new hires but to sarah's point hopefully with   the world kind of opening up you know or the at  least for us it's more us-based but um being able   to hire across the country because we can hire  people in some cases um that can work at home   it should open up a little bit sarah i don't  know what you're expecting yeah i mean i   i think i absolutely agree with you nathan that  you know it definitely reflects the priority   and the difficulty in each of these roles  the thing that i noted the most about cyber   security is that even though we put in a lot  of effort and we even hire like junior people   who may not have all of that talent we invest  in training them and then the minute that they   are a little bit more mature six months eight  months a year into it and then they're gone   because the turnover the the pay scale is like  so high the talent shortage is so high that the   the attrition in this area makes this issue even  bigger for us um so doesn't surprise me at all   i wish we could do something with it now  the one of the strategy that we have adapted   is started uh attracting our internal resources  train them and and kind of give them diverse um   pathways so that they can learn and hopefully  continue to stay great well i'm going to turn this   back over to tim but before i do just a couple of  things one a reminder that this is really a slice   of the overall survey there's a lot more data  in there about all these i skipped over a slide   that really talked about some of the technology  priorities uh according to cios for the coming   year i think we covered a lot of ground in sarah  and nathan i'm really grateful for your insights   and your candor about what you're working with  what you're wrestling with i want to thank you   tim i want to thank you and the cec for the  opportunity to do this it's been a real pleasure   to go through these results and learn so much  from our guests today thank you very much   thank you appreciate the opportunity thank you  all right thank you john yeah we are at the top   of the hour and out of time so i would also like  to express my thanks to sarah and nathan for   joining us today i'd also like to thank you john  thank you for moderating and walking us through   the slides and staring this discussion i'd also  like to thank idc research producing these great   state of the cio surveys each year in the idg  virtual production team for creating and managing   today's presentation as well and as john said as a  reminder you can view more results from the survey   as well as read an executive summary  of the research by going on cio.com   today's presentation will also be available  on cio.com website as well as their youtube   channel for the ci executive council i'm  tim scannell stay safe and see you next time

2021-02-04 14:34

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