We are so thankful to all who took their time to participate in the 2020 Metis Strategy Digital Symposium. During this period of heightened uncertainty, it was especially encouraging to hear perspectives from global CIOs, CEOs, entrepreneurs, and investors about not only about how they are navigating the current challenges, but also how they are seizing the tremendous opportunities that have arisen.
Here are a few takeaways from the event:
The digital acceleration goes beyond the #WFH pivot. The pandemic forced many companies into to speed up their digital initiatives as they pivoted to remote work, bolstered cybersecurity measures, and began to automate a broader range of business processes.
In a poll of roughly 100 global CIOs who attended the Symposium, 42% said their digital initiatives have accelerated significantly, while 30% said they saw some acceleration. We have heard many CIOs say that digital projects that would have taken years under normal circumstances were completed in a matter of weeks, if not faster.
That acceleration appears poised to continue. CIOs noted that their firms have an increased appetite for transformation as they think about how technology can prepare them to emerge from the pandemic in a position of strength, armed with the digital tools that allow them to seize future opportunities.
This transformation requires more than automating tasks or cutting costs, however. Teams are now thinking about the broader changes across people, process, and technology that will make these transformation efforts stick.
People come first. Speakers noted that it is critical for leaders to openly acknowledge the human element of the crisis and the fact that people at every level of the organization are facing new challenges. Leaders continue to focus on ensuring their teams’ safety while working to create a sense of belonging.
It is critical for leaders to be visible and lead their teams with empathy, speakers noted. Overcommunicating – even to the point of sounding like a broken record – is essential, particularly while managing a largely remote workforce.
As the crisis wears on, many CIOs are also thinking about how to keep their teams motivated and productive, remove obstacles, and unleash their ability to innovate. That includes providing employees with the technologies they need to work productively and creating opportunities to gain skills that will help them thrive in the new normal.
Let customer needs guide new initiatives. A common refrain during our sessions was the need to focus relentlessly on the customer. This is particularly true in IT, where technology sometimes is deployed for its own sake rather than solving a particular customer need. CIOs noted that when they allowed customer needs to be a beacon for new initiatives, payoffs were often more immediate. They reiterated that a solution doesn’t need to be sexy to be effective, as long as it solves a key customer issue.
A customer obsession at the enterprise level, particularly with strong buy-in from the CEO and the rest of the C-suite, can also help break down organizational silos and provide a common cause for teams to rally around. CIOs noted that driving this customer-centric mindset requires a culture shift and new governance structures, but that the work is paying off.
Get the basics right. The quick and massive shift to remote work amid the pandemic changed the way many CIOs think about business continuity and scenario planning. It also created a heightened focus on security and spurred new discussions around the technology needed for employees to do their jobs effectively.
These discussions have driven home the need for companies to have a solid foundation in order for new digital initiatives to thrive. As companies plot their paths forward, many CIOs are seizing the opportunity to make sure the basics are as good as they can be. That includes reassessing enterprise architecture and evaluating systems and partner ecosystems.
Adaptability is a new core competency. Many CIOs noted the remarkable speed and adaptability shown by their teams as they pivoted to work from home and quickly shifted business processes to adapt to the new business landscape. Facing an uncertain future, the ability for organizations to quickly assess changing market needs and shift gears accordingly is becoming a must-have skill.
CIOs noted that in many cases their teams are more productive and moving faster than they ever thought possible. A key question now is how to maintain that momentum in a sustainable manner and ensure teams are chasing the initiatives that help the company meet its strategic goals. To that end, extreme focus and ruthless prioritization are critical, as is broad alignment across the enterprise.
As one CIO noted, it is important that technology leaders gain alignment with the rest of the organization rather than chasing new revenue opportunities for revenue’s sake. A shift to product-centered operating models is helping to drive that alignment, dissolve organizational barriers, and increase agility.
Look for the silver linings. While executives expect it will be many months before a return to some version of normalcy, speakers underscored a number of silver linings, including a renewed focus on strategic imperatives, an openness to new ways of working, and an increased appetite among corporate leadership to drive growth through digital.
While it is difficult to know with certainty what the weeks and months ahead will bring, there is nevertheless a strong push to identify and seize new opportunities.
We are thrilled to announce the 2020 Metis Strategy Digital Symposium. On July 15 from Noon to 3:30 p.m. ET, global CIOs, entrepreneurs, and CEOs will gather virtually to discuss the future of digital transformation and the critical role technology will play as firms navigate an increasingly uncertain world.
An overview of the agenda is below. To learn more or request an invitation, please email steven.norton@metisstrategy.com.
Noon ET
Welcome and introductions
Peter High, President, Metis Strategy
12:15 pm – 12:45 pm ET
Fireside chat with John Chambers, former CEO of Cisco; founder and CEO of JC2 Ventures
John will share his thoughts on the technology trends rising in importance as the world navigates the post-pandemic world.
John Chambers, former CEO, Cisco; founder and CEO, JC2 Ventures
Moderated by Peter High, President, Metis Strategy
12:45 pm – 1:00 pm ET
Panel: Toward an AI-driven operating model
This panel will spotlight how technology leaders are changing the DNA of their organizations to enable data-driven experimentation to drive better customer outcomes. They will discuss refactoring their operating models to spur agility and promising AI use cases.
Paola Arbour, Chief Information Officer, Tenet Healthcare
Chris Gates, CTO, Allstate
Moderated by Michael Bertha, Managing Director and Central Office Lead, Metis Strategy
1:00 pm – 1:15 pm ET
Beyond CIO Spotlight: Timothy Kasbe, President, Zoho
A fireside chat with Timothy Kasbe, who shares his journey from CIO to president of a fast-growing enterprise technology firm.
Timothy Kasbe, President, Zoho
Peter High, Metis Strategy
1:15 pm – 1:30 pm ET
Panel: IT’s role in developing revenue-generating products
Panelists will explore how technology departments are helping to develop new, revenue-generating products and share their strategies for contributing to top-line growth.
George Lee, Chief Information Officer and member of the Management Committee, Goldman Sachs
Clay Johnson, Chief Digital and Technology Officer, Yum! Brands
Moderated by Chris Davis, Vice President and West Coast Office Lead, Metis Strategy
1:30 pm – 2:00 pm ET
Panel: Security in a work-from-anywhere world
Orion and Sarah will discuss the tools that IT teams need to deliver modern and secure employee experiences in an all-digital, work-from-anywhere environment.
Orion Hindawi, co-founder and co-CEO, Tanium
Sarah Franklin, EVP and GM Platform, Trailhead, and AppExchange
Moderated by Peter High, Metis Strategy
2:00 pm – 2:15 pm ET
Panel: Customer experience in the digital age
How the Chief Information Officer can drive superior digital experiences for both internal and external customers.
Vijay Sankaran, Chief Information Officer, TD Ameritrade
Wafaa Mamilli, Chief Information and Digital Officer, Zoetis
Moderated by Steven Norton, Co-Head Executive Networks, Research, and Media, Metis Strategy
2:15 pm – 2:30 pm ET
Beyond CIO spotlight: Sanjay Mirchandani, CEO, Commvault
The former CIO of EMC and former CEO of Puppet shares his journey through the enterprise technology sector and his current role as CEO of the publicly traded data protection and management firm Commvault.
Sanjay Mirchandani, CEO, Commvault
2:30 pm – 2:45 pm ET
Panel: Digital transformation in the ‘new normal’
We will dive into how digital capabilities have been used to shape new customer interactions during the pandemic and explore the evolution of digital strategy in a post-pandemic world.
Keith Fulton, Chief Information Officer for Bank Solutions, Fiserv
Mike Macrie, Chief Information Officer, Subway
Moderated by Alex Kraus, Vice President and East Coast Office Lead, Metis Strategy
2:45 pm – 3:15 pm ET
Fireside Chat with Reid Hoffman, co-founder, LinkedIn and partner at VC firm Greylock Partners
Reid will share his insights on the changing role of venture capital and where the investor community is focused now.
Reid Hoffman, co-founder of LinkedIn, partner at Greylock Partners
3:15 pm ET
Closing remarks and adjourn
Technology executives continue to tackle urgent tasks related to the COVID-19 pandemic, from supporting a surge of remote workers to keeping critical business systems running. But as remote work becomes the new normal (at least for the next few weeks), many CIOs are also grappling with larger cultural questions, primarily how to keep teams engaged and productive while working from home.
Below are a few practices leaders can take to maintain a culture of engagement and prepare their teams to emerge empowered on the other side of this crisis.
This is a time of immense uncertainty for both companies and individuals. Personal and professional routines have changed overnight as people make the shift to working remotely. Regardless of job title, everyone on your team is making an adjustment. One of the easiest ways to help create stability is to acknowledge that adjustment and do what’s possible to help the transition go smoothly.
A small but concrete way to do this is to provide training sessions on how to use various collaboration tools. While an IT team may be proficient in making calls on Zoom or communicating with Slack, others may using the technology for the first time. (One technology executive I spoke with recently said a training session for Zoom drew more than 5,000 sign ups.) Developing these opportunities is a simple way help your teams navigate the change and get to work faster.
“Every CIO knows change is not just about technology, it’s about people, process and technology,” Citrix CIO Meerah Rajavel wrote in a recent blog post. The company’s IT team worked closely with HR to craft the company’s work-from-home policy and develop a list of resources. “We decided to lean in and take a walk in the user’s shoes and collect feedback along every step of their journey that could be used to deliver a superior experience that would enable them to perform at their best.”
When visiting corporate innovation labs in recent years, it has been increasingly common to see a company’s leadership principles hanging poster-size on walls throughout the building, a not-so-subtle reminder of the firm’s cultural tenets. With the switch to remote work, it is now more incumbent upon executives to ensure those principles remain top of mind. Consider posting your team’s strategic priorities in prominent places across virtual channels and reference them when communicating with team members. Doing so can serve as a reminder that just because employees are no longer in the office, the company is still guided by the same vision.
While CIOs should continue to share frequent business updates with their teams, they can also magnify key wins and lessons learned. When working together in an office, it can be easier to see and celebrate victories, or to notice when something doesn’t work as it should. Without a shared physical space, CIOs can help develop cohesion by broadcasting the stories of teams solving challenging problems or otherwise rising to the occasion during the crisis.
Regardless of the message you are communicating, be clear and tailor it to the platform you are using. A request delivered “face to face” via video conference may come across differently than a terse message on Slack. Also, while it may sound dated, don’t be afraid to use the phone. While there is a plethora of communication tools at our fingertips, sometimes an old fashioned phone call can help you deliver a message most efficiently.
It is easy to think about remote work as an isolated activity, but it’s worth considering how it can help create new connections. As Adam Ely, deputy chief information security officer at Walmart, said in a recent LinkedIn post: “I spoke to one company that said this drove (security teams) to have better relationships with people in business lines they didn’t know.” Those teams now have a better understanding of their colleagues’ business processes and plan to work more closely with peers across the business. It is a potential silver lining for IT, where strong relationships with business partners are increasingly critical to growth.
The surge in virtual communication tools can help foster these connections. Virtual coffee chats, lunch breaks and happy hours have sprouted up both inside and outside the office as people look for new opportunities to connect. At health technology firm Cerner Corp., which has 27,000 employees working from home, teams are using collaboration tools in new ways, such as creating specific channels for discussing health-related topics, sharing work-from-home tips or sharing photos of their home offices.
While many companies are still in crisis response mode, it is increasingly important for CIOs to think about how their teams can emerge from the crisis in a position of strength. This presents an opportunity to bring a variety of voices into the conversation, working with colleagues across the organization to research the technologies and trends that are likely to rise in importance over the coming months. Even if your organization is unable to invest in those technologies today, exploring business cases now can prepare you to move quickly when the time is and give people a role in shaping the organization’s future.
As the shift toward remote work continues, leaders will be tasked with creating an inclusive work culture that also encourages productivity and innovation. Prioritizing health and safety, equipping employees with the right tools and fostering new forms of collaboration can go a long way toward making it happen.
The Metis Strategy team was honored to participate in the 2019 Forbes CIO Next conference, where chief information officers, technology and operations leaders, VCs, and artificial intelligence experts shared their insights into the evolution of AI in the enterprise and gave us a glimpse of where things are headed in 2020. Here are a few lessons we brought home:
“Digital immigrant” companies leverage their strengths. Organizations not born in the cloud, often referred to as “digital immigrants,” continue to face challenges that many of their digital native competitors do not. But as legacy firms upgrade their technology environments and make progress on digital transformation efforts, they increasingly are able to make use of their inherent advantages: stockpiles of valuable data, decades of industry expertise, and the scale to enter new markets quickly.
At Rockwell Automation, for example, the convergence of Information Technology (IT) and Operational Technology (OT) and an increased focus on data has helped the company improve its on-time delivery, optimize and automate many internal processes, and shift its business model toward services such as telemetry and predictive maintenance. At insurance firm Travelers, aerial photos paired with geospatial data and claims information help the company quickly assess potential losses and deliver help to customers.
In 2020, we expect digital immigrant firms will continue to use their data and scale advantages to optimize internal processes and deliver tech-enabled products and services that can compete with their startup rivals. New technology investments will focus on business capabilities that truly differentiate companies from their competitors.
New ways of working take hold, but developing talent remains a challenge. The line between IT and the business has all but disappeared as firms embrace cross-functional, agile product teams. Many executives noted that this way of working has allowed them to respond more quickly to market changes and provide better customer experiences. We expect this cross-functional collaboration to increase in the year ahead.
At the same time, the battle for talent shows no signs of slowing down. Conference attendees listed talent as a top priority for 2020 as they look to recruit, hire, and retain new people while re-skilling existing employees for jobs of the future. Executives said they continue to seek and develop “T-shaped” employees who have a breadth and depth of skills that span technology and operations. They also recognize the need to create work environments that promote continuous learning at all levels.
We’re still in early innings with AI. Enterprise adoption of AI and machine learning is accelerating as companies explore new use cases and pursue applications that drive concrete business value. In the year ahead, we expect many companies will work to hone existing use cases and develop mechanisms to scale advanced analytics capabilities across the enterprise. Indeed, as many traditional organizations called themselves tech companies in recent years, some panelists suggested we might start hearing them refer to themselves as AI companies.
But significant work remains to be done. Companies continue to invest in their core data infrastructure, and executives are looking for new ways to measure and communicate ROI for their AI initiatives. There are also fundamental issues yet to be resolved, such as how to create explainable algorithms, how to reduce inherent bias in data sets, and whether certain AI technologies should operate without a human in the loop.
The pinnacle: using data to drive growth. Both winners of this year’s Forbes CIO Innovation Award used their companies’ rich data sets to develop new services and drive tangible financial growth:
As we enter 2020, we expect CIOs to play an increasingly visible role in the development of corporate strategy. Many are likely to expand their purview as organizations look to new technologies to drive operational efficiency, deliver top-line growth, and create a differentiated customer experience. CIOs also will continue to be agents of cultural change as they foster new ways of working and develop technology talent across their organizations. We look forward to the year ahead!
The 2019 Metis Strategy Summit is in the books. At this year’s event, a distinguished group of global technology leaders, executive recruiters, venture capital investors, and others met in Dallas to share their perspectives on the key strategic and technological trends shaping business today.
Among this year’s speakers and agenda items:
For a full list of 2019 speakers and agenda topics, click here.
Special thanks to Xerox, Numerify, and CloudGenix for their generous support for the 2019 Metis Strategy Summit.
\To learn more or discuss potential partnership opportunities, please contact steven.norton@metisstrategy.com.
At the Collision Conference in Toronto, Metis Strategy President Peter High spoke with Capital One CIO Rob Alexander about the firm’s digital transformation journey, which included a major shift to agile development methodologies and a concerted effort to build and grow a robust in-house engineering team. Check out the full interview below:
