2025 State of the CIO Survey Results: An exclusive discussion with IT leaders
Hi everyone and thanks for joining us for the 2025 State of the CIO survey results. It's actually the 24th year that we've done the State of the CIO survey and it's wonderful to have this opportunity for this exclusive discussion which is presented by cio.com and the IDC CIO Executive Council I'm really happy today to be joined by my colleague Zach Miller who is executive director of the IDC CIO Executive Council as well as two CEC member panelists Devon Valencia, who is CIO at CareSource, and Satya Jayadev, who's VP and CIO at Skyworks Solutions. So I want to hear a little bit from each of them to tell us a little bit about what they do and their background so why don't we start with you Zach thank you John, pleasure to be here today as John mentioned I work with the CIO executive Council have the opportunity to work with folks like Devon and Satya and CIOs from across the United States and Canada and bring them together to be able to share best practices with one another as well as work closely with our IDC analysts here in the US and really enjoy the opportunity I have to hear about all the Innovation that's occurring across the companies that we work with yeah it's a great position enviable position position Sacha tell us about yourself this is the Jeopardy part we say tell us about yourself nice to meet you all I'm JV I'm the CIO for for Skyworks Solutions Skyworks is a hyperformance analog semiconductor organization whenever you you hear about Wireless connectivity or 5G we we probably have a product in there so we we operate in in many different Industries our products are powering the the you know Wireless Revolution as we call it it is it is in the Aerospace in in the hander industry in the infrastructure all the way to the variables Market wherever you see 5G or Wireless connectivity we have a product in there very good thanks Sacha and Devon first congratulations Devon and Dayton Ohio Ohio State University national champions Buckeyes in the first 12 game playoffs that's quite quite a thing so Devon tell us about your role thanks Kristen thanks for having me similar to Satya I'm the Chief Information officer at Care Source so car source is a$1 13 billion Managed Care Organization so what does that mean that means we do health insurance and we are located in Dayton Ohio we are fast growing I joined carers about five years ago going on six we were in four states when I joined we're now in 14 and so fast growing and we serve predominantly government business meaning healthccare coverage that comes from State agencies and CMS so Medicaid Medicare Marketplace plans and then veterans families and such so I'm excited to be here and and appreciate the CC and all the research you all do to help us do our jobs great thanks thank you Devon so before we go into the questions for the panelists I'm going to be walking you through a few slides from the survey really this is just to get you acquainted with it if you've not had any experience with the state of the CIO survey it's a big survey it's over a thousand respondents heads of it most of them have the CIO title but there are a variety of other titles in there as well the whole goal behind this research is to focus on how the role is changing what are the priorities for cios today what are some of the challenges they're facing and some of the technology projects and initiatives that are underway and we'll be talking about those things as we go throughout our presentation today one of the nice things is we're always asking in our surveys at Foundry about at cio.com about budgets
so over the next 12 months what's your expectation and the good news in this research as well as most of the research that we're seeing recently is budgets are going to be going up in the next 12 months so that we can see that almost 2third of the respondents said they expect their it budget to increase in the next 12 12 months and we asked folks why what's driving those budget increases and I won't go through all of that I know that CC members will be getting the full research results but what I wanted to point out here is the nber one answer is additional investments in Ai and machine learning and other and AI enriched products and services so both internal AI initiatives as well as technology that's being acquired that's AI enriched so that really is the first area where I wanted to spend a little bit of time focusing on with u with the three of you I'd love to hear and Devon let's start with you on this what is your current approach to AI I mean we're hearing so much about it your organization has had a fair amount of experience with that I know but what's the current approach what are you hoping to achieve and what kind of lessons have you learned along the way yeah thanks for asking so AI is obviously top of mind for everybody for everyone's SE Suite for every organization certainly our board of directors I think for for us in technology AI has been around for a very long time we've been I mean my organization lots of our organizations been working with some version of AI whether it's Bots or modeling or all sorts of things for years and years I think what we're seeing is two things one it's it's conser oriented now so that that average person can touch AI with generative Ai and chat GPT as an example and so you're seeing it more in the news but I actually think we're at a Pivot Point here and we're having a lot of conversations with our board of directors and our suite that we're kind of at a pivot point in like the mid90s around e-commerce and the internet and things like that and there are parts of our Industries ways will work weighs the the universe will work that we probably can't even imagine right now so we our approach to AI is it's here to stay it's not going away it's like saying you know hey is can we can you put the calculator back and change math to an advate it's just never going to go way yeah so we have especially in an industry like healthcare we have to embrace it and know how to use it or also competitors will beat us to it I I do think there's a lot of caution though about how it's used and I think so there's just a lot of learning so we're aggressively using it we use it extensively already particularly in our data and analytics and things like that and also member facing activities but we are being thoughtful particularly in when clinical outcomes and and patients and providers and right such how we're very cautious about we just don't let that go by itself right so there's a lot of han in the loop is what we really focus on makes a lot of sense and Devon if you were to say in one sentence what's the most important thing you've learned about AI so far the most important it's not going away it's not it's not it's not a temporary thing it is a it will be a pervasive part of how we work and so it's going to be embedded in everything we do yeah generational shift in the technology Sacha what's what what are your plans what are your learnings what's your take on AI at this point yeah so I think we we've we've gone through that hype cycle and now we are into a good space where we're trying to understand our our use cases better in the Advent of AI every every nail looked like an AI nail because we had an AI Hammer but now we are starting to kind of sift all of that and and and we're trying to understand what's what's a good use case for how we want to manage this and I think when we talk about AI we have to start talking about data and when you talk about data you talk about the systems of Records systems of transactions what generates that data for you to start thinking about AI in in in totality in terms of what you're trying to do so I think from that perspective we are now peeling the onion and we are looking at the different layers of what what constitutes that so which is in line with what you had actually mentioned about when you spoke about it budgets why are they increasing right so the reason why we're increasing is because AI being the catalyst is driving that single source of Truth when it comes to data and that single source of Truth is also trying to modernize our systems bring in more optimization bring in those systems of records of transactions that are generating that so it is it is operations modernizations and and the transformation that is is all driving the cost up to to make sure that we deliver AI at at where the the organization feels it and and sees it from from that perspective so I agree and I think Deon H some great points as well in terms of AI is not going away it's going to be here it's there's a lot of Investments coming through and we're going to start seeing that in the next few years that makes sense I also want to ask you know if if 2024 was the year of AI hype and Sky hype promises and lots of promotions and projections around on that what's your expectation of how 2025 will be remembered when it comes to Ai and actually want to start with you Zach we were chatting about this earlier what when you when you think and talk across the C what do you think 2025 will be remembered for yeah what we hear from Members is that 2025 is the year of AI investment and in some cases as Saia referenced it's the it's the investment in preparing for AI and that investment comes in large part around data strategy and data governance and cleaning up of tech debt so really it is about AI investment and the other thing we hear from the members is that as they look at 2025 where there was a great deal of experimentation in 2024 they're now looking for use cases that have the greatest chance of success and business impact in their organization that makes sense and Sacha what would you predict 2025 will be known for AI the year of I think we initially when when AI came to the four right we had a venture capitalist mindset to say let's let's put on 8 to nine use cases let's see where we are let's do some Discovery so we had some Investments coming through so a lot of the learning is now starting to crystallize and now from from VC's mindset we're going to go into an Roi mindset give me those use cases that is now coming to to to like fruition how is a company benefiting from that the board is looking at that the senior executives are looking at that the the feeling for what AI can do whether it's a hype cycle or whether it is true and all of that is now pretty much crystallized and we know what we can do with it we know where we are with that and I think this is going to be the year when you're going to see some organizations drive that Roi towards the finish line and that's what is going to happen I I believe in 2025 yeah that makes a lot of sense I hear about that Roi issue from a lot of cios it's been difficult in many cases to U model that in advance of a pilot and it's difficult afterwards to determine success so that's it's a great topic to bring up Devon what will it be known 2025 the year of yeah I think it's the I think you're going to see the some companies because they've made the right plays both in their data platforms and in their engineering talent and their data science Talent they're going to pull away from the competition at a pace I think that's a little bit going to be unexpected I I worry a little bit that some companies that haven't aren't totally prepared they're going to be a little bit lagging so I it's kind of the separation of the wheat from the shaft I think you're going to see a huge acceleration in companies and spaces and actually I think you're going to start to see things like what what's the in in 90 what mid 90s there's like a thousand new companies are on the S&P that didn't even exist in the mid 90s so I think there's whole new companies operating modeles the emergence of ways of working that aren't even I couldn't even explain what they are now but I do think you can see you're going to see a a differentiation I think some companies are really going to take off very quickly because they have the right building blocks in place and I think others are just going to try to be catching up a little bit you know it's interesting we have a a survey called AI priorities it looks in exclusively at Ai and one of the questions is do you think your organization is moving too quickly or too slowly when it comes to AI it's really split I mean it's almost a almost an even split but one person remarked that I think for the people who think they're moving too quickly they're one press release from a competitor away from realizing they're not moving anywhere quick anywhere fast enough when it comes to AI so I wanted to note this a this slide from the state of the CIO survey where it says 75% of cios are working more closely with line of business on AI applications and 71% agree that it's the IT department that's driving AI adoption efforts and aligning with business units on that so we're going to talk more about the role but I wanted specifically to ask and I'll start with you Devon how is this focus and this urgency around AI how is that alone changing the CIO role today yeah I think you're moving to much more of a strategist role I think there's because because again they're not asking hey I have this problem and I've seen it solved and help me solve it and by commercial software the questions are I think we can do this I don't know how and so we're all like it's problem solving in a very different way it's not like known Solutions and so I think it's it's changing maybe the conversation from a transactional I have this problem I know need to buy software and so help me pick it to I think I there's this emerging capability I want to build so it's a different conversation which I think is fun for us and also fun for our business partners and I think it's changing the dialogue between our organizations makes sense Sachi is that your is that your sense as well yeah I I agree I think U you know Deon hiil on the head we are for the for the first time I feel like technology has no limitations in terms of what it can do and I think we're also starting to see the role of the CIO change pretty you know significantly right we've we've always had a good hold on technology that is running the the business and moving the business forward we also have some great folks within it who can put on their business hat and be very Savvy about it but now we are this is a time where we we can become very relevant or become very irrelevant in terms of how we see it we start only talking about data governance right it becomes very irrelevant you got start talking about governance and the value like know proposition as well we've got to drive both these engines you know fast and I think that's where the you know secret source is how do you how do you understand this how do you demystify this to the board and how do you how do you demystify solutions to the to the you know senior to the senior members of the you know executive team all of that comes all of that becomes very very important I also feel that now it also has a great path towards adding to the Topline growth of the company which has always been a pipe dream for for many right and I think even in a manufacturing organization you can see it now adding value through AI they are adding to the top L growth and to the bottom line growth of the company Engineering Systems are now being significantly changed because of what AI can do that helps with the productivity of your engineers and that also helps with your products getting out there much much faster and you're now seeing the same thing from manufacturing efficiencies and all of that so a very interesting time to be as ACI I'm sure Devon will agree with me on that and I think this is only going to get better as we start seeing some of these mainstream use cases you know come to life and I think that's where you are going to see that the it organization is a significant value Adder within the business yeah so let's stay on this go ahead Deon yeah I you know s you Ed the word said demystify it I think that's actually because AI is putting technology so close to like every han the things you can do with chat DBT that you used to have to ask somebody who's very techsavvy how to do they used to have to code something for you because it's like a low code it it is in a really cool way changing like my peers perspective it's so embedded in they're doing they're like automatically I have a technology solution I need to solve for where it used to be like we were behind the wall you techn used to be like oh that thing in the back office and now they can see it and touch it and so they're more apt to say hey like let me talk to Devon about how we solve this versus it being a purely business problem so I think it's changing their imagination and how they think about how we work together good and I want to explore that we're really going to focus on the role here because as I mentioned really at the heart of the state of the CIO survey is the role of the CIO which has changed dramatically over the 24 years of this survey so for example we see here 82% of cios say that the role is becoming primarily digital and Innovation focused 82% say they're leading digital transformation initiatives within their organization and 81% agree that the CIO is becoming a change maker and interestingly we see we always ask I think it's 250 line of business Executives also fill out this survey because we want their perspective on how they're working with their own cios and the effectiveness of the CIO within their organization line of business Executives agree with these statements they're really looking at the CIO to be a change maker so Devon let me start with you talk in talk overall about how your role has changed and how you expect it to change I want to talk more about the interactions with the board and line of business and CEO in a second but really what you're telling your team about their role what you see your role within the organization how has it changed and how do you expect it to change yeah I think you know it's I used to people say Hey you know think about how you touch the member to my team they can so clearly see how they touch our members and our and everybody in the organization it's just a it's a much clearer line of sight because the technology is literally everywhere it's not just in the back office like in the data center anymore it's literally everywhere so think it it it is exciting for the people inside my team and I think the other like they're I I'm in so we're obviously fast growing both organically and inorganically and I am in every deal conversation because technology is native to like everything we're doing so like it's a competitive Advantage for everything we're doing where it used to be sort of like hey well let's talk about the cost structure of it and and so I think and every organization's different right so my CEO and my very aggressive about technology so it makes my job fun and not not every company's like that but I do think it's just changing where it used to be sort of a functional role it's certainly a a strategist you know new Revenue opportunities how are we doing growth and things like that it's a it's a big part of just the broader strategy it's a sort of it's a line that runs through all things you know I'm glad you use that word strategist one of the things that we ask the line of business Executives is how would you characterize your CIO and one of them and really what we consider to be the ideal role is business strategist and this year that nber increased significantly I mean it's still it's still under 60% of the line of business folks categorize their CEO CIO that way but we're seeing good growth in there so I'm really glad you brought up that strategist term Sacha how has your role changed and how do you envision it changing going forward so the the metamorphosis of the role is pretty fascinating about in in my own experience right about eight years ago it was a support function right and and from a from from a support function Co became a catalyst where it became an enablement engine where we were trying to help the business run from wherever however whatever so I think that was where U it gained a lot of credibility right a lot of leaders who who thought it was a cost center started to look at it to say wow these guys can can you know help us toh to know run the business maybe we we get them more involved in these conversations and then postco world we became U more of the drivers because we were now at the ideating table and then we were giving our ideas our views on on how we need to shift and focus we were real solution Shapers at that you know from that perspective again a lot of credibility earned through the years and then now in the Advent of AI we seen as a Visionary organization how do you guys come and and enable us to kind of kind of like you know get there so you know you you have to kind of show them the Utopia of what AI can do when you when you talk about when you talk to a COO or you know how do you envision your day what are you doing when you come in when you get into your when you look at your like a system what are those things that are on your mind do you want to know where are we on these design ons right where are we on on these orders and how are we going to get are we attaining our like schedule are we doing all of that through just natural language you don't need to log into into 15 different systems to get you the answer that you that you're looking at so so that's the pivot and and that's why I use the term demystifying officers is because we need to kind of demystify these systems take away all those three-letter acronyms of of you know systems that are that are that are that are changing and you know shifting our world to saying what do you want ask in in natural language well we we will get there at some point but we need to know where we're getting towards right and I think that's where you work backwards to say how do I get them if I need to know a lot information how do I get that lot information to to the to the exact in in a very simple format right and that's where the the you know Secret Sauce lies and I I can I can't imagine how this this role of of the CIO is going to change over a period of time I like the term like you know strategist right and I think that's and Deon is right and I think we are seen more as people who understand the business and technology and how do we bring that to the business and how do we build the value yeah over over a period of time yeah S I have to say that we did cio.com we did several surveys during the pandemic and post pandemic and you're right remarkable change in the perception of the c role as someone who enabled the company to either Thrive or survive during that typic difficult period And I think AI is having that same kind of effect of driving those conversations enabling those conversations but let's talk talk about those conversations talk about how your relationships with the CE CEO the board and business peers have change and I know I'm G to ask you about this Zach as you talk again with with all of the members of the C how do you see those relationships changing yeah well first I'll just step back and and I think you feel it here and we feel it within the council the energy level among the cios we work with is is very high they they their profile within their organization is on the rise and they know they have the opportunity to impact the business in in meaningful ways and that lends itself to the the time that they're spending with the board and within the SE Suite really helping to develop strategy that's driving the the companies forward so we we see and feel it every day as we visit with cios they're being a lot's being asked of them but it's it's an opportunity to really bring their expert forward and and have an impact on the business yeah and then Sacha what's your take on that how how are these discussions and relationships changing yeah I think as you know Zach mentioned it's the the energy level is high for different members of our own executive team too as they as they look at this and they're trying to understand what can we do how can we use it in my own line of business like we are trying to think about very innovative ways of doing it age of those low hanging fruits that came with AI are all taken now everybody wanted to take advantage of how do we generate code and how do we use co-pilot or something to kind of write our emails how do we all of that is gone right we have we've all taken advantage of all that but now it comes down to the real me of it to say how do we make our process much more faster much more optimal can we look at it in in a in a variety of of of different functions right and I think just being involved in those discussions just being asked to be at the ideating table whether it is at the highest level or whether it is within the the individual functions is where you know it it really warms our heart to see how much the fabric of it is kind of intertwined with with many different functions of the business and I think but we've got to be very careful we can't boil the ocean right we need to understand the prioritization of it the democratization of data the democratization of analytics and now the democratization of AI is coming to the for Devon mentioned about about getting that those the the rise of data scientists and the citizen you know development that's happening and I think it has to be very careful about building governance models that is that is going to help make these processes faster so I think there's there there's a lot of pull in different areas it's always great to be wanted but I think you have to deliver in order for that to to to be a very fruitful relation to continue and build on and Devon I want to get your take but something that you said struck me you talked about there's an educational component of this like particularly around Ai and I've heard this from other cios where they have you know line of business coming saying do we have an AI or can you get us an AI and you know there's a lot of Education that they're having to do around not only AI but around risk and security and other things so how are your conversations with CEO board line of business peers how are they changing well I think one of the things I embraced a few years ago even kind of pre-co was when I introduced myself I say first of hey I I've been in managed care for 23 years I happen to have been playing an IT role those whole 23 years so I think you have to really know the business you're in and then luckily I happen to really and deeply understand technology like just a bonus I think I think you have to come at it from that lens because if you start with technology first it's like a mystifying language like so s was saying like how do you demystify all this it needs to be in natural business terms we talk a lot about you know these acronyms and technology and even the sort of like all the different types of AI you know generative machine learning all these different things even GOI all these things it can be very confusing and you have to simplify it because it it's very accessible U and so I try to just I try to just say hey first let's talk about the business with the business problem and then know by the way I'll explain this in the back if you want I'll draw a picture for you if you want but let's talk about the business problem and so I think you have to keep it there you can get like with any technology you can get really in the weeds and when you're talking to a CEO and a board they they trust that Sati and I know how to do this that's not their job but what can you do and the possibility I think you got to keep it there so I I you got to know the business really well so you have to have credibility in the business you're in yeah and then also deeply know technology in the same way like my CFO deeply knows the business we're in and he's really good at actuary and financials right that's schal career so yeah one of the themes that's come up in other discussions is this notion of proactivity so instead of waiting to be asked what can you do it's also bringing ideas to the table and bringing Solutions in advance which really requires as you say knowing the business and knowing the market and and The Wider economy so for the first time this year in our state of the CIO survey we asked some questions about stress and burnout and job satisfaction so I just want run quickly through some of the findings of that when we asked about CIO burnout like how burned out do you feel in your job we had a significant nber over almost a third of the respondents who are in the very high ranges of that on a scale of 10 they were eight nines or tens so then when we asked about their stress level in that same category of eight nine and 10 on that scale with 10 being I am extremely stressed out which I feel in a lot of my life but separ we had even more people we had close to 40% of the respondents were in those highest levels of that and what was more concerning when we asked line of business Executives what's the impact of that we had 67% of them 23ds of them saying that that stress has either somewhat hindered progress meaning missed deadlines or project failures or significantly hindered the success of projects or meeting deadline so I'm going to start I'm going to start with you Devon do these nbers surprise you these stress and burnout nbers a little bit maybe not so much and I think there's also the correl there's another question in there about like and started skip ahead but like do you love your job and everyone said yes was even more yeah I was going to get to that too but you can tackle that right away it's sort of and I'll I'll show our audience you can see again on that 8 n and 10 scale we really had I mean close to 50% of respondents said I love my job so how do these how do these things sync up I I don't I don't know the I mean know for for me I think one of the things maybe it's this pivot from like functional expert to strategist I think it is really complicated everything from like end user compute the software on the the network the everything is running in technology so the expansiveness of the job and the disciplines under it is just ever expanding and then within that everything including the network the data center everything is evolving at like a quarterly Pace like it used to be hey I'd upgrade something in a you know 18 24 month cycle I mean Microsoft teams is patching and doing feature points at like every other week I mean the pace of the acceleration of it so it's like the moment you believe you're expert in it you're actually already Antiquated you have to learn something new and so then I think then maybe many of us as having had been sort of in that control functional role pivoting to this role where like you your your honest answer has to be I actually have no idea how that's going to work but I'm going to figure it out maybe that's an uncomfortable transition I and I think it requires a lot of resilience it requires a lot of risk-taking and sort of like how do you how do you create an environment around yourself with your team with your peers of curiosity and questioning instead of perfection because there's no version of that anymore I mean the the pace of the technology in every component technology is at lightning fast speed so I'm wondering if it's just that pivot of like the expectation of being expert systems all have to be up and available a 100% of the time like there's no more 99 it's it's five NES for everybody for all things and then the pacing of it the modernization the security and everything on top of it so I'm just wondering if it's that it's that tension point between the two of that expert and then becoming strategist means you're not expert there's no such thing as expert because you're you're going into new worlds that don't even exist yeah and Sacha what's your take on this stress level this burnout level does this surprise you especially concerning I think is the line of business responses that it's having an effect on the performance no I think I think Devon had all the key notes there it is a very interesting time but it's also a time where we've got to pace ourselves and I think we need to understand I think AI is is is a part of that equation AI might be the Catalyst in that but but then you got to think think about it holistically Deon mentioned about looking at our at our at our data centers looking at our Cloud portfolio looking at our our Network because if you going it's like you have a Ferrari you need to make sure there are I mean you need to put the right roads to to kind of get us there you need to put the right guard rail so it if this doesn't crash you need to know how to drive this car you need to make sure that the car is taken care of there's so many other things that that that we need to understand because again when we talk about AI we talk about data we could we talk about the systems and we we also have to operate the you know three-speed architecture right that is it operations the you know day-to-day operations and then there is the modernization of our applications of our systems which is a continuous process know just a few years ago we used to talk about technical debt now nobody talks about technical debt everybody talks about AI we still have to address the technical debt because the age of AI yeah in the age of AI garbage in is garbage out squared right so we need to make sure that we we we have a good path to making sure that our systems are good clean the data is sanitized that is a single source of Truth and then when we go to the data layer how do you harness this data the knowledge graph around around all of that and then you you start talking about data now there is agentic AI models coming out there and so we need to you know think about the the the you know interoperability of these you know agentic models and then you have to you have to think about the business layer to say what what works for us so we have to pace ourselves right I think there are I heard that there are what 30,000 startups in AI we we've got to start thinking about not making everything ourselves have to start looking at what's available out out there we don't have to reinvent the engine we can be the ones that are that are that are using those to to to where it should be so I think it's about pacing ourselves and I and there is definitely a a feeling of burnout and I think no matter what you do the Finish Line seems to be going forward if few more step so I think that's where it is something that we'll have to understand we'll have to learn and maybe you know Deon will agree all us all of us will have to start becoming more healthier get our our our yearly like physical checkups and make sure that we are there for the for the Long Haul well I have to say you two seem very happy in your job so I'm glad but it just it really strikes me and again de I just touched back in terms of stressed out burned out love my job yeah yeah well I don't you know I don't I don't I'm not an expert on my psychology I do think it it to run an organization and to be part of a sea Suite is it's stressful those jobs are I me they're burner right they're burner job so self-care giving yourself some Grace taking your health I think the other thing and expert in this but I was thinking a lot about these this coming into this interview there's some military studies that said stress really so they they equate stress to lonely yeah and so like I you know so how do we create communities in our teams at a sea Suite level how do you create a community because when you're stressed out you just feel like you're isolated right that's what that feels like you're alone you don't know how to solve the problem so I I deeply believe in sort of community and culture and both at at a CIO peer level but within the companies we're in and yeah I don't know just be nice just be nice to each other too yeah that's a great jping off point I wanted to I wanted to talk to you about that within the survey we asked you have lots of goals there's lots of things as IO you want to achieve and you want your team to achieve but we ask what's holding you back from being able to achieve those goals variety of things but the nber one answer is staff and skill shortages and we have seen this in a variety of surveys whether it comes to AI security Cloud the changing nature of the staff the skills we don't have in order to move these kinds of initiatives forward the challenge of keeping good people so let's talk about these issues and Devon I'll start with you because you brought this up how how are you managing the challenge of finding training keeping people not just the roles that you already have but all the roles you're going to need for these new initiatives like AI like Edge iot pick your you know pick your your cool new thing going forward it's probably the the people side and the culture and the talent is probably the thing I spend my most time on yeah I mean you know like S I mean I'm competing you know I'm competing for talent at a national level and a global level even and I mean I'm competing against hundred billion dollar companies right for best talent so you have to be a place where people are dying to work for you and feel like they have opportunity and career growth and and and that it's fun right so there's it's a big deal and I think going going about correlation to the stress part when I'm super stressed out I'm not of fun to be around I don't really create a good energy in the organization so I think that like self-re as a leader as the top leader in the it organization as we compete for talent that Ripple of your Vibe or feeling of stress or happiness or whatever it is or optimism flows through the organization so I think it's really spending time at an individual level like what what are your people feeling when they're around you and it it it changes the shape of the team and the dynamic and whether people are will to take risks or not right if they feel like they're going to be penalized or whatever it's it's a tough place to have Innovation and Devon I want I want to press you on this so when you talk about culture what is it you do specifically that makes this culture that you you value so much oh it's a lot of things so I talk to my people I just was just I do round taes all the time I talk to people right I I try to just like model like what it is to be nice and kind and like be good to people we spend a lot of time on what do we expect people to do and be and how do we expect them to be Innovative and we're kind of relentless on our you we we use the concept it's a little controversial of talent density what do we really think about who's our very best talent it's just it's kind of a it's an constant conversation of communication and teaching and it's like in everything we do and I expect my staff and we don't and we kind of have a you know a no blip roll but we don't let bad people in and you just you can't make that and you got to have to hold a line oh now I know what the blip is it just figured it took me a little bit to figure it out but now I know what it is is yeah Sacha how are you managing this this again this comes up in every survey we do I think it's I mean from a from a culture perspective it's all about trying to instill what's in it for my team members right what's in it for them before what's in it for the organization the you know bigger picture again working on some very cool Technologies working on technologies that is that is having a direct impact on our business is a huge thing right I think it's it's the folks that are that are doing this are actually going to see the impact of what they did and I think seeing that is hugely inspirational yeah and I think that's where the the role lies in in trying to tell them to say you got a frany drive this towards towards where it should be and and you are you will see the impact of what you're trying to do as well so sometimes I feel that the eye in the CIO stands for inspiration to make sure that we are the ones that are that are trying to kind of help the organization see what it is is and I think it's also about know coming back to the other question which is what are we trying to do to make sure that we have the talent that's that's definitely a huge challenge right some of the reasons why there is stress and burnout is also because of the talent that we have been thinking about how do we bring the right Talent how do we because I don't want it to become the choke point for the business we don't want to be strong arming the business strategy we want to be doing everything that we can to kind of keep this thing going which means there's going to be a lot of resources that is going to be required to kind of drive this forward and I think how do we get those those resources and that's where you start looking at the entire ecosystem where can you co-develop with your with your vendor Partners can you co-develop with your customers can you co-develop obviously within the organization can we create an entrepreneurial like Ventures can we what can we do to kind of spur all of that so that we can keep this thing this you know Juggernaut rolling rather than stalling is where we we we spend a lot of time and how do you resk how do you retrain and how do you keep the employees that You' reskilled and retrain too so it's a it's it's a concoction of many different things that has to come together and the successful cios do that one last thing I'll talk about is that it is also looking at the U at the Paradigm change in which we are operating right I think we have to start looking at certain areas of of it which is adding value which is making us more competitive and looking at certain areas of it which is basically commodity everybody does that right everybody manages backups but we can be thinking about that as something we need to we need to start thinking about giving it to somebody who can do it better and start focusing on on areas which is going to add more competitive or more make us more competitive in the you know business place and I think that's where we have to start thinking about Talent holistically right that makes sense I I do think you have a line of t-shirts and coffee mugs with Chief inspiration officer I love that on them I think you can own you might want to trademark that before we get off Zach I'd love to hear about what you hear from the CEC about this issue of Staffing and then I get your take but I also want to hear from Devon and Sai about it how do you think AI is going to change that so AI has uses within it as well so first what are you hearing from CC members about yeah well CBC members definitely concur that Staffing is at or near the top for the list in terms of the challenge that they're faced with we spend a lot of time as a council trying to to brainstorm and share best practices around how to overcome some of those challenges on the AI side of the equation interestingly as we look at the AI use cases that have been most successful in the past year within the council there's been nerous use cases shared where our members have leaned into AI to automate tasks and really have done so not only within it but across lines of business to help address the the shortage of of talent that's out there by being able to free up time of their current staff who maybe is in a great position to focus on Innovation and allow them to you know focus on those higher value activities versus the tasks yeah it makes sense and Sacha I we're we're coming up on our time pretty quickly we have about 10 minutes left I do want to get a quick take from you and from Devon on how do you see AI changing the game and how your team works we talk about it a lot about the rest of the business but how's it changing it yeah I think we will get more and more into into an AI driven process or into an AI driven process I think we we've got to start U we got to stop thinking about the silos within the within the it organization and start looking at at AI as as something that's going to unify things even within the even like know running the it organization is going to involve a lot of AI to kind of do this especially in the you know service management space I think we are starting to understand acknowledge that generating code is something that we we've kind of embraced well that was a good test to see if if AI are also people who can accept changes and embrace change I think this is something we've got to start thinking a whole lot more how do we how do we simplify systems right those are very those are also very important for for my team members to understand this if we are going to be driving this within the organization we better start living that day in and day out and that's that's going to be how I see this moving forward makes sense Devon any thoughts on this yeah I mean I I imagine a new world where everybody in every organization is a technologist meaning like there's no I just spend time with a Founder who's building like he you can build apps and websites and apis with drag and drop you should be able to do that I mean I need to give my business partners a platform that's secure and stable and there's a promotion path for testing and things like that but why don't they manage their own business rules why aren't I mean I don't ever want to write a report again I those things are run a job those like so I think one of the beauties of AI is it it puts the tech it puts technology in the hands of everyone you don't have to be a deep technology expert and then what do technology people their imagination run wild because they aren't consed with things like back-end jobs and backups and things like that they can do really creative stuff so I just I just think it's makes technology more pervasive and makes everyone in Tech everybody should be in it yeah Empower everyone so we again we don't have much time and I have two big topics that I want to ask you both about sort of unfair to tackle these big topics in a short period of time but when we ask cios what I mentioned earlier the slide where we ask them what their focusing on today one of the big areas is this issue of modernizing infrastructure and applications and to that I would add modernizing the way we develop applications and modernizing security so how are you wrestling with that you talked about technical debt SAA and I'll start with you this is a huge thing and it's behind the scenes and it's tough to get funding for and it's tough to get people excited about how are you navigating modernization and getting getting past that technical debt I think again it it comes down to u to kind of explaining the The Whole Enchilada in terms of saying AI Data Systems processes so we have to get them the whole picture there and and kind of walk them through the whole process too and I I'll tell you one area where technology is breaking silos within the business right because when we look at the single source of Truth for example when you talk about cost models you're going to say okay where is the data for a cost model coming from you ask a business and each one has a different C different area from where they pulling their their cost models and that's where you're saying well I need to start thinking about my data Lake and for my data Lake I need to populate that with the single source of Truth so let's get together let's have the discussion let's think about the process let's harmonize that and look at that single source of Truth so that's where you see that discussion coming towards that and then when you identify that there are gaps which need which is a cause of a technical death you start fixing those and then when you fix those that has a direct impact on on the results that that you will see see on your you know AI processes or AI systems so I think you you've got to kind of you know like you know walk them through the the the entire journey to to make sure that that is there's a lot of importance in investing in the right systems and building or harmonizing the processes as you go through the process which will reflect in your data and I I will mention this again garbage in is garbage out squared so keep that in mind when you start thinking about Ai and data yeah I think there's another coffee mug and t-shirt in that garbage in garbage out Square have so many of these I have to yeah you've got got something going on here Devon how are you tackling this issue of modernization in terms of what's working for you what advice do you have for others you know we've instituted for a very long time and even in my prior roles an very structured n minus one and I all the way up to the board of directors and when I said everything's n minus one or as much as it can be right without dting the business I think it gets it's really hard it's like having a car and you choose not to change the tires and you keep driving it's some point it's going to break and that catch up when that tire blows and then you have to replace not just the tire but the rim and then the whole and the whole chassis the expense of that so storytelling to your board and your CFO to make sure that that funding is always available and it's not a discretionary topic because once you get behind the curve and I think this is even true especially with on the you know the emergence of AI those companies that can stay modern and stable if you're if you're replacing like your integration framework or even a main frame Mainframe AI doesn't run on a main frame it doesn't run like you can't so like you're you're you're starting to make these like very difficult choices but if you if you get behind It's tricky to catch up so I just think every CIO has got to convince your board CFO CEO you have to have an N minus one kind of a strategy where it's just part of your dayto day it's like taking out the trash yeah I I talked to one CIO who said just tell them that it's that it's out of security and it has to be fixed because it's could do that a security problem and again I apologize because this is a big topic but I think and it's not mentioned specifically in the survey but I think it's so important right now in a meeting with another group of CI one of them said one of the challenges that we have is the world that we're in right now is the the world order that we all grew up in is dissolving we have wars in the Middle East Wars in Europe Global tensions we've got just so much change and things that we took for granted three five seven years ago are different these days even a new Administration here there'll be changes associated with that how are you as cios helping your organizations navigate this world of Rapid change rapid uncertainty where it's different than it was just a few short years ago Devon let me start with you and and we'll wrap up with sa on this yeah I think it's hard like you got to pay attention to what's actually happening there's a lot going on in the world and and then you have to I for me I try to step back and say well where are we globally I mean because these these amazing things are still happening so every han protein because of generative AI is now mapped and and the ability to solve diseases literally give immunization it's at a pace and like the our imagination the things we can do with medicine alone just because of AI are astounding and will change the course of history and and Hanity so yes I mean hans are still hans we all are do some silly stuff and I think we'll continue to do that stuff I do think the possibility of hanity is still on a positive trend and and I think it's Our obligation particularly as Leaders of technology to do good with what we have and the accountability we have and the roles we play is to do good with the technology so well optimistic you are very optimistic and just let me ask in terms of philosophy I know in the past it was all about speed and and moving forward quickly have we shifted away from speed to resiliency no I think you still I think it's it's an and like it's just a pile on it's a little bit that's get out the stress level it's a it's a everything is additive you cannot slow down it's and that's right I mean yeah yeah right yeah SAA what's your take on this it's a new world changing so my one minute on this yeah my one minute Spiel on this is that I think we've got to give the business the agility that it needs we got to be lean and Nimble our systems have got to be more U more resilient because of the fact that that so much uncertainty things could change within a span of hours days these days right I think we as the business depends more and more on technology more and more on on on on tools to kind of Drive everything we've got to start thinking about resiliency within the it organization as something that's very or for the organization as something that's very that that is paramount if you think about what the what would happen if some parts of of our systems don't work today it could be catastrophic and it could affect our revenues could affect operations so we've got when when we think of new technologies we've got to think resiliency also as a part of that and that's one of the reasons why within my own organization I have resiliency as as one of those functions that that's constantly thinking about what are you doing for this if you're going to be building a new AI model if this doesn't work what happens what's the alternate we've got to start thinking about that and because there's there so much happening so much uncertainty so much dependency we are dependent on our partners and our partners are dependent on so many other partners so we are in in a in a huge like you know a you know supply chain based model that is that is going to run all that so definitely think about agility being lean Nimble how do we make sure that we continue to survive and we continue to thrive when when when when some catastrophe hits us I think that's very important you know ADV in advance of this discussion I told folks that it was going to be a great conversation with some really smart people it's a great part of my job is that I get to talk to people who are a lot smarter than me but today I was right it was was a great conversation with some really smart people and I'm really pleased to have been a part of it thank you so much thanks Sacha, Devon, Zach great insights terrific conversation I also want to thank my colleagues behind the scenes Holly McWalter of Foundry and Robin Clausen of the C for making this research and discussion happen they were invaluable and driving this forward I had the easy part they did a lot of the leg work and a lot of the leading up to the research and preparation so thanks for much to them I also want to thank our video team great group of people to work with who always make these things come off smoothly most of all thank you all for joining and making time for us today whenever you're watching this hope you found it valuable hope you found the information useful for cio.com I'm John Gallant.
2025-02-02 13:09
