CIOs have a significant opportunity to drive a transformation and innovation agenda in 2023. Despite the global economic outlook pointing to ongoing market disruption, inflation, and recession in many parts of the world, organisations are going to want to continue to invest in technology, and this will benefit both employees and customers.

Research in the The Human-Centered Insights To Fuel IT’s Vision 2022 report, conducted by Reach3 for Lenovo, 2024, shows that 20 per cent of the Global 2,000 CEOs will report an increased appetite for risk and improved resilience. As Deloitte research highlights, the reasons for this come down to handling disruption.

“Almost 100 per cent of responding leaders believe their organisations will face serious threats or disruptions in the next two to three years,” the Deloitte report notes. “They’re concerned about the breakneck pace at which their organisations must develop, deploy, and manage new technologies. And they’re keenly aware of technology’s potential to disrupt business models, customer behaviours, and markets.”

Delivering the technology that will assist the organisation to deliver an innovation strategy and address the challenge of disruption will not be easy. The Lenovo and Reach3 research shows that 76 per cent of CIOs are finding it a challenge to balance business innovation and operational excellence. Many IT leaders are still grappling with the shift to hybrid working environments and the massive shift in IT strategy that is required for that to be viable over the longer term.

Additionally, CIOs need to understand that in a highly disrupted global market, resilience means being flexible and able to adapt. According to a report on CIO, 72 per cent of IT leaders are frustrated by their business leader’s changing of priorities. There’s little alternative there, however. Businesses need to adapt to rapid changes in the macro environment, and this means business strategies will be under constant review.

By focusing on the experience, both for employees and customers, the CIO can lead positive disruption and innovation, while at the same time promoting stability and resilience across the organisation.

How the employee experience affects resilience

One great concern that business leaders have is the ongoing impact of the global “Great Resignation”. While there are signs overseas that the trend is easing, in Australia it may just be getting started. A recent PwC study found that 38 per cent of Australian workers are looking for a new job, and this is contrasted with 73 per cent of leaders finding it difficult to attract new talent.

Employee retention is, therefore, a critical part of organisational resilience. Businesses that have too high churn will struggle to fill critical roles, let alone be in a position to adapt to changes and disruption in the market.

The CIO can be part of the solution. Lenovo and Reach3 research shows that employees are 85 per cent more likely to stay at their job for three or more years, and are 230 per cent more engaged when they feel that their technology supports them at work. This does mean using technology to enable employee’s preferred ways of working (for example, employees want a hybrid work environment where they only spend one day in the office), and it means ensuring that they have all the software and hardware tools that they need to enjoy a seamless and flawless work experience.

Consumer demands and habits are changing

According to the CIO Technology Playbook 2023 study by Lenovo, organisations will generate as much as 43 per cent of revenue from digitally-connected products, services and customer experiences by 2027. CIOs and other IT decision makers are actively looking to leverage technology to optimise supply chains and improve asset utilisation, agility and resilience with this in mind.

To execute on the opportunity here, CIOs need to deliver an IT environment that is seamless and where uptime is guaranteed. The more an organisation relies on revenues from the digital sphere, the more expensive uptime becomes. To assist in achieving this, CIOs will want to look to consolidate vendors and find end-to-end suppliers, where interconnectedness between technologies and applications is built in and doesn’t require the IT team to finesse it.

A good example of how a CIO can deliver this is via the latest Lenovo devices, powered by Intel. For example, the ThinkPad X1 Carbon, powered by Intel vPro, An Intel Evo Design, is built for what IT needs and users want.

Additionally, CIOs will need to consider sustainability, as corporate responsibility has become a hot-button subject for consumers. According to a Lenovo study, 60 per cent of consumers prefer brands that reflect their personal values, and 80 per cent consider sustainability to be part of their value system. 60 per cent of consumers are willing to change buying habits to reduce environmental impact, meaning that IT decision leaders need to find vendor partners that can display proven sustainability credentials.

To address the organisation’s challenges across both employees and consumers, CIOs need to take a leadership role within the organisation. The opportunities are there, and the understanding of the value that IT returns to the organisation among others in the executive layer has never been clearer. CIOs have a real opportunity to drive a progressive and value-adding agenda through the next few years of disruption.

Lenovo

Before any innovation initiative starts, there are questions (and usually lots of them). What is innovation and, more importantly, what does it mean for your organization? What fears or misperceptions hold innovation back? If you haven’t yet, check out this blog before reading this follow-up piece.

Decades ago, Netflix mailed DVDs to homes and a copy of the Yellow Pages was next to every landline phone. Today, Netflix is a streaming juggernaut producing award-winning content and the Yellow Pages’ website, Yell.com, is one of the world’s largest online directories used by millions of businesses. 

How did these well-established brands simultaneously run and reinvent? Their stories prove that innovation without disruption is possible. Here’s what we can learn from their successes… 

Introduce incremental value while keeping your core service

In the prelude to this blog, it was discussed that innovation doesn’t have to be a breakthrough new technology or a completely new business model. It can be something simple that adds value to the day-to-day lives of your customers or employees. 

Yell.com is the perfect example of this. While the Yellow Pages eventually ended its printed product, it took two years for them to finally get there. The company worked incrementally, first by strengthening its market share through strategic acquisitions and then by adding multi-channel marketing as a business service. Today, Yellow Pages provides the same service as its first publication back in 1966 faster and better. Likewise, to this day, you can still have movies delivered to your home as part of your Netflix service. 

Great innovation shows that you don’t need to forsake the old in favor of the new. By retaining their core service while laying the groundwork for next-phase evolution, these brands were able to retain their loyal customer base while reaching out to new audiences. 

How can your organization take small steps toward innovation while still following its North Star? Perhaps this means augmenting your voice-only customer service with new digital channels that make it easier for your customers to contact you. Maybe it’s adding analytics that allow you to better understand what your customers want so you can give it to them. 

Digital channels, analytics, AI, and automation are key technologies companies are leveraging to drive innovation, but they’re only accessible in the cloud. What does that mean for your decades-old on-premises systems?

Innovation starts with ideation and follows through with implementation, but current investments shouldn’t be abandoned in the name of innovation.

You may not be ready to move on from your rock solid on-premises systems (and that’s okay), but you know how greatly you can benefit from new capabilities delivered via the cloud. Even if you are ready, the systems you have in place are deeply entwined with other frameworks. Even something seemingly simple like adding new digital channels to your voice-only contact center can create a lot of new challenges such as different agency interfaces, split reporting of customer interactions between voice and digital channels, and changing communications mode in “real time” to address customers’ needs (ie: shifting from chat to voice to video). 

You need to move at a pace and path that fits your business needs. If your technology isn’t mature enough to deliver what needs to be developed, you’ll need to collaborate with partners who offer enabling technologies to gain access. 

Here are a few examples of innovation without disruption using Avaya’s Experience Platform:

Superior Propane – Canada’s leading supplier for propane delivery and tank installs – uses Avaya’s Experience Platform to open the door to cloud and AI without having to rip and replace its existing on-premises systems. 

Our partner alliances also helped speed time to value by offering access to dozens of leading tech vendors that could seamlessly integrate with the company’s Avaya solution. Superior Propane began driving innovation internally and externally using proactive automated outbound notifications, real-time reporting, and speech and desktop analytics that helped reduce Average Handle Time (AHT) by 30 seconds per call.

Standard Chartered Bank uses Avaya’s Experience Platform for a personalized path to cloud adoption.

Public cloud was not a model that was yet suitable for them when weighed against their business and client requirements. Avaya Enterprise Cloud created the global platform they needed while ensuring optimal security and data privacy. With Avaya, the bank has been able to innovate externally with digital, personalized CX and internally with enhancements to its agent desktop.  

Unlock new value through the cloud at your own pace 

At the heart of business is the propensity to keep moving forward, opening new doors, and doing new things. Embracing new ideas, however, shouldn’t mean disruption to your existing business operations. Create your own path to cloud technologies that drive innovation – Avaya can help every step of the way. 

IT Leadership

By Milan Shetti, CEO Rocket Software

In today’s digital world, technology can make or break a company’s outcomes for its customers. As a result, all companies that use technology to meet or solve customer needs should consider themselves a tech company. In order to meet ever-changing customer demands, it’s critical that companies understand why and how to successfully modernize their tech stacks in order to provide a top-notch customer experience.

Too often, businesses make the mistake of blindly following tech trends and jumping from one platform to another without sufficient planning, disrupting operations and struggling to deliver outcomes and revenue. Instead, companies should look to modernize existing infrastructure — including mainframes. While these undertakings are complex, leaders can ensure a seamless experience by keeping in mind a few key points. 

1. Mainframes are still the backbone of many organizations

Mainframes have been the backbone of IT infrastructure for mission-critical companies for decades because of their resilience, security, and data governance. A report from Rocket Software, The State of the Mainframe, showed that these technologies are still the cornerstone of most large enterprises, with 80% of IT professionals agreeing that the mainframe is still critical to business operations. As cloud-based solutions continue to gain popularity, companies that can achieve selective and in-place modernization that combines both cloud and mainframe technology will be ahead of the curve.

2. Modernizing in place ensures a seamless experience

As new innovative technologies enter the market, many organizations are looking to “rip and replace” mainframe systems for cloud technologies. But while the impulse is strong, rip and replace approaches to modernization introduce significant risk, requiring a substantial time, cost, and energy investment with no guarantee of a successful outcome. Organizations must remember that ripping and replacing requires organizations to replace all of their IT infrastructure while maintaining the same level of security, data governance, and resiliency as the mainframe — a nearly impossible task.

Fortunately, with the right tools and technology, any innovative application can be developed in the cloud and then safely and securely connected to the mainframe with little adoption. These hybrid infrastructure models allow businesses to continue leveraging the reliability and security of their mainframe infrastructure while also taking advantage of the latest tools to provide teams with the flexibility and user experience they crave.

3. Hybrid cloud is the future

With 10 of the top-10 companies in the defense, space, banking, and healthcare industries continuing to leverage mainframe technology through hybrid cloud models, it’s clear that hybrid infrastructures are the future. By enabling core infrastructure to continue living in mainframe environments while leveraging APIs that provide teams and customers with access to cloud solutions and web and mobile applications, businesses are providing a modern experience for employees and end-users without taking on additional risk. 

4. Customers are at the core of modernization 

Companies that take the time to understand what their customers really want from their business can take a more strategic approach to modernization. By identifying customer needs and then working backward, teams can more clearly determine where modernization is necessary in order to deliver the desired outcomes. By making customers the central point of modernization efforts, companies not only mitigate disruptions and save time and resources, but also ensure efforts are aligned with what their customers truly want.

As we dive deeper into an age of modernization, Rocket is looking forward to the challenges ahead as we continue our mission to simplify mainframe modernization. To learn how Rocket Software can simplify your mainframe modernization project, visit our modernization page.

Digital Transformation

Coding has been an educational trend in Africa for many years, and schools and movements have been created in response to a pressing need and necessity in the digital age. It’s still the case today, except entrepreneurs and companies are now beginning to adopt tools to create applications and develop services that don’t require coding. Those who have taken the plunge are trying to maximize the vast potential of these tools by further educating as many people as possible about them in a continent where the familiarization of digital techniques is not advanced.

Some African entrepreneurs have embarked on a mission to universalize these tools since many ICT professionals report that digital illiteracy in Africa is still a concerning reality.

In its 2021 study on the state of low-code/no-code development around the world and how different regions are approaching it, US cloud computing company Rackspace Technology said that in the EMEA region, the use level is below the global average.

The report shows that the biggest barrier to adoption in this region may be skepticism about the benefits, and of all regions, EMEA is the least likely to say that low-code/no-code is a key trend. It’s also the only region where unclear benefits constitute one of the top three reasons for not adopting low-code/no-code.

“It’s possible that organizations in EMEA don’t have as many models for successful low-code/no-code implementation because EMEA organizations that have implemented it may not be seeing its biggest benefit,” the report says. “Forty-four percent say the ability to accelerate the delivery of new software and applications is a benefit — the lowest percentage of any region.”  

Some West African countries, such as Benin, understand that low-code/no-code tools are innovative and disruptive to the CIO community, but not universally trusted. “The general idea is that low-code/no-code is not yet mature enough to be used on a large scale because of its application to specific cases where security needs and constraints are low,” says Maximilien Kpodjedo, president of the CIO Association of Benin and digital adviser to Beninese president Patrice Talon. “These technologies are at the exploratory or low-use stage.”

However, he notices interest in these technologies is growing among CIOs.

“We have commissions working and thinking about innovative concepts, including a commission of CIOs,” says Kpodjedo. “Even if there were projects, they’re marginal at this stage. This could change in the near future, though, thanks to the interest generated.”

But some other entrepreneurs have taken advantage of it and want others to benefit from what they’ve seen in these tools. Actors and leaders of incubators and educational movements are doing what they can for the sake of those in both technological and non-technological sectors.

Many become coaches or consultants of low-code/no-code for companies while others within incubators or movements lead awareness and training on these technologies.

It’s almost child’s play for some entrepreneurs who use it to automate trivial tasks or create internal software for their companies. They don’t need to be experts in coding or even have deep knowledge of ICT. They sometimes come across a technology by chance and end up adopting it because they see its importance and benefits.

This is a reality described by Kenyan Maureen Esther Achieng, CEO of Nocode Apps, Inc., who got into non-coding technologies by following the advice of Mike Williams, otherwise known as Yoroomie, a friend who built and launched online marketplace community for music studio rentals Studiotime in one night using no code.

“Since then, through constant self-study and countless mentorships from some of the best coaches in the global no code space, I’ve helped hundreds of people get started in technology,” she said.

Achieng has now taken up technology as her “divine mission.” Her company specializes in training non-technical entrepreneurs and start-ups, and she teaches people how to leverage no code technology to launch their applications and websites in hours without writing code or hiring developers.

In the Democratic Republic of Congo in Central Africa, software engineer Bigurwa Buhendwa Dom also discovered no code from a relative.

“I had no idea that such technology could exist or at least be so advanced,” he says. “As a software engineer, setting up a working application or even a demo is a real challenge. It takes months or years in some cases. I was fascinated by the speed with which you can build a prototype or a trial version with such a technology, which immediately reduces costs and allows you to test the idea in the market.”

He now offers independent consultations in his country where he has noticed that most people don’t know what it’s about.

A simple environment for companies

Public and private companies also see an opportunity for these services. In Cameroon, for instance, the land credit authority is banking on an agile platform in low code adapted to the needs of application development, as well as the supply of licenses necessary to implement such a platform, how it’s operated, and the production of reports.

In Senegal and Gabon, the French multinational Bolloré Transports and Logistics uses Microsoft’s Power Platform solution to provide employees who use it with a simple environment to create application software without going through traditional computer programming, according to Microsoft, which supported teams with training workshops beforehand, adding that this low-code/no-code approach has enabled Bolloré employees to develop their creativity by appropriating the application creation tools, and move toward faster, more intelligent and optimized processes.

For Jean-Daniel Elbim, director of digital transformation at Bolloré, these tools allow the operational staff to be given more control, but also to bring more agility to the local teams.

“Obviously, the data must be managed,” he says. “We need to define a framework, and there needs to be a group of experts at central level, available to respond to local issues.”

Evangelization and altruistic services

In Chad, ICT expert Salim Alim Assani is co-founder and manager of WenakLabs, a media lab and tech hub incubator described as a niche of Chadian geek talent. According to him, low code is part of daily life of the group’s entrepreneurs.

“We use this tool to set up websites and minimum viable products for our entrepreneurs,” he says. “It’s a real success on projects that don’t require a lot of customization in terms of functionality, from showcase sites to simple mobile applications, for example. We offer a lot of training in this area too. In the framework of certain projects, we’ve initiated 50 young women to the use of low code, particularly the design of websites with WordPress. In the same context, we’re training 25 digital referents, whose daily professional life will be centered on low code. We also regularly organize awareness-raising events on the issue.”

Sesinam Dagadu also makes extensive use of no code at SnooCode, a digital localization solution in Nigeria. Based in London, he’s the founder and CTO of this alphanumeric system that allows addresses to be stored, shared and navigated, even without internet or cellular access.

“I think the biggest place we haven’t used code is on our website,” he says. “We’re creating systems to allow people who build on top of SnooCode to do so using no-code technologies.”

Going ahead without expensive developers

Dagadu appreciates he could do without a developer to use these tools even though he initially used one, which incurred a lot of cost.

“At first we had to employ a web developer who did a lot of work, but it looks horrible using technology like Square Space,” he says. “In Africa, development costs are very high and can only be tackled by companies with a lot of funding. But with the growth of low-code/no-code, more people with bright ideas can bring them to life without the need for expensive developers.”

He noted that because of the popularity problem in Africa of these tools, people believe that every time they have an idea to implement an application or technology, they have to resort to an application developer. But by coding less or not at all, there’s an easier entry into hard code according to WenakLabs’ Assani. “It’s a way to be visible quickly, to offer your services to the world without resorting to the skills of a developer. Above all, you learn through experimentation.”

He sees this as an opportunity to widen the pathway to digital access and entry across Africa. Indeed, entrepreneurs believe these tools will democratize technology and resolve many issues. “This democratization could allow Nocode Apps to be used to solve the most difficult problems not only in Kenya but in Africa in general,” says Achieng. “African problems need technology because the population is young, tech-savvy and uses the internet a lot, so it’s in the interest of Africans to get on board and have more proactive and knowledgeable leadership, especially in IT, to make wise decisions that reflect the speed at which technology and business are changing.”

Africa, Emerging Technology, Innovation, No Code and Low Code

By Milan Shetti, CEO Rocket Software

In today’s digital world, technology can make or break a company’s outcomes for its customers. As a result, all companies that use technology to meet or solve customer needs should consider themselves a tech company. In order to meet ever-changing customer demands, it’s critical that companies understand why and how to successfully modernize their tech stacks in order to provide a top-notch customer experience.

Too often, businesses make the mistake of blindly following tech trends and jumping from one platform to another without sufficient planning, disrupting operations and struggling to deliver outcomes and revenue. Instead, companies should look to modernize existing infrastructure — including mainframes. While these undertakings are complex, leaders can ensure a seamless experience by keeping in mind a few key points. 

1. Mainframes are still the backbone of many organizations

Mainframes have been the backbone of IT infrastructure for mission-critical companies for decades because of their resilience, security, and data governance. A report from Rocket Software, The State of the Mainframe, showed that these technologies are still the cornerstone of most large enterprises, with 80% of IT professionals agreeing that the mainframe is still critical to business operations. As cloud-based solutions continue to gain popularity, companies that can achieve selective and in-place modernization that combines both cloud and mainframe technology will be ahead of the curve.

2. Modernizing in place ensures a seamless experience

As new innovative technologies enter the market, many organizations are looking to “rip and replace” mainframe systems for cloud technologies. But while the impulse is strong, rip and replace approaches to modernization introduce significant risk, requiring a substantial time, cost, and energy investment with no guarantee of a successful outcome. Organizations must remember that ripping and replacing requires organizations to replace all of their IT infrastructure while maintaining the same level of security, data governance, and resiliency as the mainframe — a nearly impossible task.

Fortunately, with the right tools and technology, any innovative application can be developed in the cloud and then safely and securely connected to the mainframe with little adoption. These hybrid infrastructure models allow businesses to continue leveraging the reliability and security of their mainframe infrastructure while also taking advantage of the latest tools to provide teams with the flexibility and user experience they crave.

3. Hybrid cloud is the future

With 10 of the top-10 companies in the defense, space, banking, and healthcare industries continuing to leverage mainframe technology through hybrid cloud models, it’s clear that hybrid infrastructures are the future. By enabling core infrastructure to continue living in mainframe environments while leveraging APIs that provide teams and customers with access to cloud solutions and web and mobile applications, businesses are providing a modern experience for employees and end-users without taking on additional risk. 

4. Customers are at the core of modernization 

Companies that take the time to understand what their customers really want from their business can take a more strategic approach to modernization. By identifying customer needs and then working backward, teams can more clearly determine where modernization is necessary in order to deliver the desired outcomes. By making customers the central point of modernization efforts, companies not only mitigate disruptions and save time and resources, but also ensure efforts are aligned with what their customers truly want.

As we dive deeper into an age of modernization, Rocket is looking forward to the challenges ahead as we continue our mission to simplify mainframe modernization. To learn how Rocket Software can simplify your mainframe modernization project, visit our modernization page.

Digital Transformation

If there’s one thing the pandemic has taught IT leaders, it’s that their business continuity plans were not as hardened as they thought.

And while no one can fault CIOs for not having anticipated the full extent of the COVID-19’s impact on business, now that they have experienced such an event, many CIOs are getting strategic about planning for future unknown scenarios that may come to pass.

Business continuity plans (BCPs) center in large part around possible known scenarios, such as a major disruption caused by a fire, flood, or malicious attack by cybercriminals. They outline procedures an organization must follow in the face of such disasters, but when the exact fallout of a business existential event cannot be fully anticipated, establishing an organization capable of riding through such a scenario may be just as — if not more important than — having explicit plans in place to marshal a response.

This topic was explored recently during a session at the MIT Sloan CIO Symposium. CIOs who participated in the session further fleshed out in subsequent interviews what they wish they had done differently before and during the pandemic, as well as the technologies and IT strategies they believe will be beneficial in weathering unknowns in the coming years.

Following is a roundup of the common themes these IT leaders see as essential to ensuring future organizational resilience, as gleaned from their experiences throughout the pandemic. Consider it a continuity strategy that goes beyond the traditional BCP, focusing just as much on agility and flexibility and on positioning their organizations as a place where people want to work.

Toward a more proactive IT

“No one had a playbook for COVID but taking time to integrate the lessons learned and exercise your plans will be worthwhile to prepare you for the next unknown,” says Mona Bates, CIO of Collins Aerospace.

The Charlotte, N.C.-based aerospace and defense company has utilized lessons learned from the pandemic to establish a foundational focus on being proactive rather than reactive, especially when it comes to cybersecurity, Bates says.

Mona Bates, CIO, Collins Aerospace

Collins Aerospace

“We are taking proactive approaches to monitoring and measuring our critical [digital transformation] systems’ performance,’’ Bates says. This includes predicting system failure and performance trends, as well as monitoring the user experience and data-driven processes for continuous improvement across digital services and self-service, she says.

“From an architecture perspective, we reevaluated the ways in which we develop and bring to the business our support and applications, enhancing the business value and cost savings.” For example, Collins Aerospace is now taking a cloud-first approach and embracing the agile framework to design, develop, and deliver products faster, she says.

Now is the time to rethink business continuity plans, Bates adds. “Security and compliance [within] the enterprise is the ongoing, enduring work we’re doing to plan ahead,” she says. “It’s something that keeps me up at night.”

The good news is IT has good frameworks, practices, and talent in place, she says. But Bates still constantly asks herself whether the IT organization knows and understands its full architecture and whether they are doing enough tabletop exercises to be able to confidently respond and adjust.

Pushing what-if scenarios another step deeper

Adriana Karaboutis, group chief information and digital officer, National Grid

National Grid

Given the nature of its business as a multinational electricity and gas utility company, National Grid is doubling down on business continuity and crisis management in the wake of COVID-19. Adriana Karaboutis, group chief information and digital officer at National Grid, says it’s of paramount importance for IT leaders to think deeply about the future and conduct what-ifs simulations.

It is expected that utility officials will think about what will happen if there is an event that brings the phone network down. But it’s not enough to say, “we’ll use wireless,’’ she says. “What if that goes down? We have to keep thinking about what-ifs and things you didn’t imagine, so what we are doing within my organization is doubling down on the what-ifs because did anyone expect a pandemic for real? No. So now we have to assume they’re real and let’s play them through with different scenarios.”

IT spends a lot of time building resiliency, security, safety, and measuring into its scenario planning, she says.

Change management as an organizational skill

Of course, you can never imagine all the things you need to account for in scenarios. That’s why it’s important to build muscle and plan for how to manage a crisis, says Karaboutis, who adds that this was among the top lessons she learned as an IT leader throughout the pandemic.

“We all think we’re good at it and whether something like a political or geopolitical [event] or weather hits, we want to be leaders,” she says, “but change management is such an overused phrase and so underappreciated. Change management internally is a skill’’ that includes technologies, processes, and the way in which people work.

“If I could give any advice, it would be study it, learn it, understand the cycles,’’ Karaboutis says of change management. “I’d make it a more formal discipline and [incorporate] capabilities that many companies don’t embrace.”

To do this, IT must also “build dexterity and bring in diversity of thought and experience to your teams.” CIOs must also stay on top of tech cycles, the news, and the business of their business, Karaboutis says.

“The best anticipators of change will be successful in the next unknown that comes to us,” she says.

Accelerating the transformation timetable

With so many organizations having to accelerate digital initiatives to survive the pandemic, IT leaders are also stressing the need to ensure their organizations are primed for continual transformation as a means for navigating future unknowns.

Used vehicle retailer CarMax, for example, was on a path to enable customers to fully buy and sell cars online with the goal of “empowering customers to do everything on their own,” says Shamim Mohammad, executive vice president and chief information and technology officer. In early 2020, the company had rolled out an omnichannel experience to half of the country, Mohammad says.

Shamim Mohammad, EVP & CITO, CarMax

CarMax

What went well for CarMax’s IT group when the pandemic hit was a focus on agility and nimbleness and preparing the company for rapid change, he says. What didn’t work well was focusing too heavily on “culture and adapting and mindset. We could have done a better job getting farther along in [our transformation] journey,” Mohammad says. But this has “challenged us to move quicker.”

During the session at the symposium, Mohammad said IT’s plan was to “refocus on building agility and resiliency. Then we’ll be fine. Unknowns don’t have to always be bad.”

To do this, Mohammad is hiring more engineers and investing more in technologies such as data science and AI to automate and increase the pace at which teams are innovating. More legacy systems are being moved to the cloud at an accelerated pace “because cloud gives you a lot more agility than on-premises [systems].”

This will empower CarMax’s associates and customers and give them “the option and flexibility to do the work they’d like to do where they can add the most value,’’ he says, adding that, when IT teams are empowered for transformation, unknowns can become opportunities.

“As the unknowns become more known and we can see more clearly what’s happening, our teams can really adapt and respond and create the type of experiences customers are expecting,’’ he says. “We can really take advantage of that market-changing or industry- or society-changing opportunities.”

Mohammad credits CarMax IT’s shift from being a traditional project-based organization to a product-based one as key to facilitating the company’s ability to adapt to change, he says.

Before, there were large numbers of tech professionals who worked individually. Now there are cross-functional and small, mission-driven teams that understand the company goals and customer needs and are empowered to test and learn to understand changing customer behaviors, Mohammad says.

Improving the people part of business continuity

IT leaders have also been rethinking the people part of business continuity in the wake of a pandemic that exposed several holes in their plans.

Due to the unprecedented nature of the pandemic, like many other companies, Collins Aerospace, for example, did not have a plan for almost 75% of the organization to work from home, says Bates.

“Our digital organization was running very lean when it came to spare computer hardware and peripherals,’’ she says. “We had to quickly shift our asset and hardware management practices to put hardware in the hands of employees quickly to enable their safety and productivity.” Today, the company is partnering and planning differently with key suppliers, Bates says.

Technology-wise, National Grid’s IT group was prepared to keep its 23,000 employees connected and productive during the pandemic with laptops, video, and other collaboration tools, Karaboutis says, but the group CIDO is looking to go further.

Now, “we’re setting the bar really high and knowing the persona for each [employee]’’ to have a deeper knowledge of each individual’s needs, she says. For example, IT learned about people’s struggles during the pandemic, whether it was employees who were experiencing loneliness because they had no one at home — or those with three kids who now had to be home-tutored and they had no space for an office and needed headsets as opposed to just a laptop with a camera and microphone.

“Knowing those personas and being even more prepared is something I would say we could have done better” during the pandemic, Karaboutis says.

Building in better automation

For many organizations, automation and AI have proved key technologies for navigating the workplace and marketplace disruptions brought about by the pandemic, and many CIOs see both as strategic tools for making their organizations better positioned to deal with future unknowns.

CarMax’s Mohammad is one such IT leader. Mohammad’s plans for AI include automating more capabilities that humans don’t need to be involved with. For example, when global supply chain issues arose during the pandemic and demand for cars skyrocketed, within a few weeks, the company rolled out an AI-based capability through its omnichannel experience called Instant Offer, which gives customers the ability to quickly offer a car for sale without having to talk to anyone, by using the CarMax website or mobile app.

Customers answer a few questions and are given an offer within minutes without any human involvement, Mohammad says, adding that this will help ensure CarMax staff are free to tackle whatever comes next. “If my team can focus on where they can have the most value then I think they’ll be much more open, much more able to change things happening.”

Taking stock of AI

Still, further reliance on AI can also bring about greater risk of the very business existential unknowns for which IT leaders are now bracing their organizations.

While many IT leaders say that cybersecurity keeps them up at night, privacy, risk, compliance, and ethics should be responsibilities that also worry them, Karaboutis says.

As she sees it, AI and machine learning are critical for an intelligent, connected utility, but “there has to be an envelope of ethics, compliance, and security, otherwise, anything good can turn out poorly.”

Even with the constructs and guardrails regulators and policymakers have put in place, organizations need “more belts and suspenders and policies that are commensurate with the data we’re trying to pull together,” Karaboutis says.

For example, smart meters have become somewhat mainstream. Reading them at someone’s home can tell a field worker “whether the toaster or hairdryer is running because all [devices] have a different electrical pull” and a fingerprint, Karaboutis says. But individuals may not want their utility knowing this information and their privacy has to be respected.

“You have to give consent to the ethical portion of this,’’ she says. “That’s why we as technologists as we continue to really leverage for good, frontier technologies like AI, ML, blockchain, and others, we also need to have a view of ethics, responsibility, citizenship, responsible charters and make sure we’re living within the auspices of policy and creating policy as well.”

This requires thinking “360-degrees around the good and the potential risk for harm [with] technologies that are emerging,” she says. Otherwise, organizations open themselves up to potential fallout down the line.

The most daunting challenge: Talent

Industry-wide, IT leaders say there remains a high attrition trend among IT professionals — and not enough people entering the workforce to fill the gaps. The CIOs we talked to all agree that a big part of planning for future unknowns requires talent.

“We are focusing on pleasing the innovator innovating,’’ says Mohammad. “The talent shortage is the biggest uncertainty we all have to face.”

Similarly, the other big challenge at CarMax is making sure the company culture continues to be a place where people will want to work. “That is something we cannot take for granted and we need to focus more and more on that,’’ Mohammad says.

“Without exceptional talent, digital transformation cannot happen and readiness to tackle unknowns will be hindered,’’ says Bates. “We are focused on creative new ways to attract, develop, retain, and engage our employees to remain a preferred employer of choice and a place where people can work, grow, and belong.”

There is no one-size approach to work that will fit all needs, she notes. A hybrid work environment is here to stay at Collins Aerospace, which has defined three personas for employees based on their roles: remote, hybrid, and on-site. Managers work with their employees to decide the best persona fit.

The power, Bates says, is with the employee. So Collins Aerospace is “keenly focused on employee engagement in this new normal, ensuring our employees have a tie to our purpose and mission as a company and fully understand the impact they make on the mission,” she says.

Lowering the barrier to entry will help with the dearth of staff, Bates adds. “Going forward, we have to think differently about how we attract people and take the opportunity to develop them where there are gaps. AI could be a powerful technology to complement humans.” This will require learning how to work in a human-machine world to supplement the workforce, she says.

As they plan for the next unknowns, the silver lining is the culture change brought about by the pandemic and the fact that companies now know people can work from anywhere, anytime, and be productive and safe, Bates says.

“While we learned a lot and it was hard on many of us there’s always the nuggets. Let’s learn from them and apply them to whatever the next unknown is,’’ she said during the CIO consortium. “Know where your critical assets are — not just products, but people — and how you create more resiliency around them” in meaningful ways to keep businesses going.

Business Continuity, IT Leadership