Subway restaurants announced that Donagh Herlihy has joined the company as of May 3 as its new Global Chief Digital and Information Officer. In his new role, Herlihy will oversee the company’s global technology teams and initiatives to deliver modern, timely and effective platforms for Subway franchisees and guests.
Herlihy has held technology, digital and e-commerce executive roles at companies like Bloomin’ Brands, Avon Products and the Wrigley Company. His expertise includes digital innovation and strategy, guest-facing technology and international growth.
“We’re thrilled to welcome Donagh to the Subway team,” said Subway Chief Executive Officer John Chidsey. “His extensive knowledge and understanding of QSR brands and restaurant technology will allow us to accelerate our digital transformation, ultimately resulting in a better guest experience as well as revenue growth and operating efficiency for our franchisees.”
Herlihy left his prior post as Executive Vice President and Chief Information and Digital Officer at Bloomin’ Brands in February of 2020, and had been spending time on a portfolio of activities from investing in start-ups and serving on the boards of various companies. He was lured back into a full time role as a technology and digital executive because of Subway’s transformation story which is unfolding, including significant improvements to the digital experience for both guests and franchisees, enhancements to the Subway App & Delivery, the company’s loyalty program, and other digital platforms that will allow Subway to personalize guests’ experience over time. “My most immediate goal, in partnership with the technology leadership team and the broader organization, is to plot that path forward to ensure we meet the needs of our evolving business,” said Herlihy. “That being said, we also need to remain focused on simplifying and reinforcing the core systems that enable our Franchisees to run a smooth and efficient operation—that in itself is a significant effort given that we have nearly 40,000 stores in our system.”
Furthermore his interregnum between full-time roles started at the beginning of the pandemic through to last week. That gave him an opportunity to analyze the reset in consumer behaviors that has happened during the pandemic. As a result, he is a believer in serving Subway customers when, where and how they like, while equipping franchisees with the tools they need to drive traffic to their restaurants. “Before I arrived at Subway, the team drove incredible growth in our digital business with sales increasing over 115% year-over-year, and this momentum has continued as consumer behavior evolves even further,” noted Herlihy. “One component of this growth was the launch of Contactless Curbside Pick Up at over 14,000 of our Subway locations nationwide, at the pace of 1,800 restaurants per week—a massive undertaking from both a technology and broader operations perspective.”
When asked about his plans for the future, he noted that the company’s digital roadmap is focused on the guest with the priority of meeting customers where they are. “That means exciting non-traditional programs in the pipeline, efforts to bolster our loyalty program, which grew considerably in 2020 to more than 27 million, and significant enhancements to the ordering experience that are making it even easier for guests to enjoy their favorite Footlong,” said Herlihy by way of offering examples.
Herlihy has been based in Florida since joining Bloomin’ Brands. He will maintain a home there and split his time between is home office and the company’s headquarters in Milford, Connecticut.
Peter High is President of Metis Strategy, a business and IT advisory firm. He has written two bestselling books, and his third, Getting to Nimble, was recently released. He also moderates the Technovation podcast series and speaks at conferences around the world. Follow him on Twitter @PeterAHigh.
John Hinshaw has held executive positions in technology and operations at a diverse array of companies, from HPE to Boeing to Verizon Wireless. Thus, he has been at high level positions in business-to-consumer, business-to-business and business-to-government companies. He has worked in New Jersey, Chicago, and most recently in Silicon Valley. It was Hinshaw’s last stop at HP, then HPE after the split of the founding company of Silicon Valley, that broadened Hinshaw’s technology ecosystem most dramatically.
In late 2019, Hinshaw added another industry to his resume, as he took on the role of Group Chief Operating Officer and Group Managing Director of HSBC, a global bank with operations in roughly 65 countries and over $500 trillion in payments processed in 2020. Hinshaw had experience in financial services by virtue of his more than five years on the board of BNY Mellon, but he had never been an operator at a bank before. The bank viewed his outsider status as a tremendous asset and Hinshaw notes that collaborating with seasoned colleagues while bringing his own fresh perspective has been a recipe for innovation.
“You certainly need great leaders in key roles who have [deep] financial services experience,” noted Hinshaw. “One of the things I have enjoyed doing is [building bridges with] folks who have 25, 30 years of experience with fresh eyes to look at some of the challenges [the bank faces].” He notes that many of the fintech companies that have emerged as new leaders elsewhere in the financial services industry often are founded by outsiders.
Like those fintech entrepreneurs, Hinshaw is passionate about technology and the ability to enhance customers’ and employees’ experiences digitally with HSBC. In fact, he was convinced to take the role when Mark Tucker and Noel Quinn, HSBC’s Chairman and CEO, respectively, indicated that his mandate was to drive true digital transformation across the company. That means “transforming the bank from where we are today to a digitized bank that is easy to do business with for customers and that our colleagues can have a better experience with,” said Hinshaw. “That would leapfrog a lot of our traditional competition in banking, but [HSBC would] also be able to fend off some of the fintechs that are getting into banking.”
Hinshaw oversees 50,000 technologists and has a budget of over $6 billion. But he has also developed partnerships with fintechs and other startups around the world, which can provide HSBC with new technologies while gaining access to the bank’s platforms, customers, and history “A lot of the new innovative technology is cloud-based, it comes out of Silicon Valley, it comes out of the fintech community,” Hinshaw said. “Bridging those two worlds is really, really important. That is one of the strengths I bring to HSBC, having lived and breathed Silicon Valley for a decade.”
In recent months, Hinshaw helped broker a partnership between HSBC and Google to help detect and prevent money laundering and financial crime using better analytics. “We process trillions of financial transactions per day and figure out which of those might be criminal or fraudulent in nature,” Hinshaw said. “That takes a lot of computing horsepower, it takes a lot of data and analytics.” By partnering with Google Cloud, the company can remove many of the false positives that naturally occur when analyzing trillions of transactions. “We are doing something that no other bank has ever done in looking at that financial crime challenge, and only really Silicon Valley and the way they think, the way Google thinks and technologists think, can help us bridge that gap,” noted Hinshaw.
Hinshaw has pushed the bank to invest in startups as early as in the angel and series A rounds of investment. That way HSBC can influence the evolution of products to a greater extent, which forms a virtuous cycle of sorts. “If we like a technology, we trial it,” he said. “It works well for us, we make an investment so [the startup] can expand.” HSBC can then test the startup’s technology at scale and help it grow, and usually takes on a board or advisory role to do so. “It just builds on itself. They get the advantage of a working product in one of the biggest banks in the world; we get the advantage of helping to guide and direct their capability, and if we make money on the investment, all the better. We will reinvest it in another opportunity.”
Like others, Hinshaw sees the pandemic and quarantine as an extraordinary accelerator to digital transformation. With customers not having a choice but to operate digitally, it led to massive adoption of the company’s digital capabilities. “It really did change the way we look at the digital adoption curve,” he said. “I think we probably leapfrogged three to five years in the digital curve, and it is not going back. Nobody wants to use paper.”
Another learning for Hinshaw is the effectiveness of virtual work. At a time when financial services companies on the whole have been more conservative in their approach to hybrid work in the future, he sees things differently. He noted that the pandemic proved that people could be much more effective and efficient at times working from home. Time in the office, he believes, needs to be purposeful.
“The only reason to come into a headquarters office should be for collaboration, innovation, co-development with your colleagues, socialization with your colleagues, to get to know them because we have not spent time with them. Connecting with customers, connecting live with suppliers [should also be done in person].”
Hinshaw notes that this has been the most interesting among the many executive posts he has held, as it draws upon all of his past experiences in profound ways.
The pace of change is faster than it has ever been, and yet it is the slowest it will be from this point forward. There is a quotation that is often mis-attributed to Charles Darwin that states, “It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent that survives. It is the one that is most adaptable to change.” The father of evolution may not have said this, but it is an important point that applies to companies as much as it applies to species.
As you think about once successful companies like Circuit City, Blockbuster and A&P, each leaders in industries that they played in that no longer exist, each failed to adapt to changes, even though each could have pivoted to where the industry or customers’ tastes were going.
In 1955, the average time a company on the S&P 500 would remain on the index was 61 years. Fast forward to today, and it is closer to 15 years. Since 2005, 52% of the companies on that index have fallen off of it entirely. This is a remarkable tale of creative destruction, but is also is tale of innovation at a pace and scale that we have not seen before as rapidly scaling organizations take the places of the old stalwarts.
To quote Dow’s Chief Information and Digital Officer Melanie Kalmar, “What separates successful companies from those that have faded? Nimbleness.” She is not alone in this focus. When Shamim Mohammad, the Chief Information Officer and Chief Technology Officer of CarMax, was asked about the trends that excited him most looking three or four years out, he responded, “I do not know how the world is going to be in three or four years. It is hard to predict. What I am trying to do…is position [CarMax] so that we are ready to take those changes and be nimble, agile, and responsive: an organization that can move quickly. That is what I do because I cannot predict what is going to happen. I have to position [CarMax] to be that nimble company.”
In my new book, Getting to Nimble: How to Transform Your Company into a Digital Leader, I highlight five themes that are essential to harness to foster nimbleness:
Relative to people, you can do worse than to emulate the great practices of Rob Alexander, who has, for 14 years, been the Chief Information Officer of Capital One. He recognized early the changes that the digital age were foisting upon companies born in an earlier era. He posed a difficult question to himself and his team: “How do you become a great technology organization if you do not start as one?” Alexander set the goal to develop an engineering-centric technology division that would be oriented toward building technology rather than simply buying it and managing it. He wanted the organization to be oriented around a digital-first mentality.
Alexander and his team started by recruiting a core group of engineers who would form a software center of excellence. These people were recruited based on a pioneering spirit that each possessed. They would be the proselytizers for others.
Alexander and his team developed a curriculum to train existing employees on the technologies of the future, noting that learning agility was another key ingredient to cultural nimbleness. Finally, the company developed the gold standard of intern programs, regularly being ranked as number one on Vault.com’s list for internships. By giving great engineering and computer science students meaningful work to do in an innovative environment, the company began to compete with the stalwarts of Silicon Valley for talent, and the intern program allowed the company to get to know a wide swath of would-be employees deeply before handing out full-time offers. The yield on those offers rose, and the best among those new employees were given opportunities to rise quickly through the ranks of Capital One. The company’s nimbleness gave it a reputation as a talent factory that many wanted to join.
Relative to processes, retired four-star general, Stanley McChrystal, has become a guru to CEOs and other leaders on how to foster nimbleness. He recognized that the pace of change was such that if the American military did not modernize, it would not be successful in its critical missions around the world. The military had been silo’d by design, but McChrystal fostered collaboration across the traditional silos, bringing elite members from multiple branches of the military together.
He now counsels companies to do the same, pushing them to foster innovation through better collaboration. Process changes such as agile development, DevOps and the product orientation that many technology and digital organizations have instituted require non-traditional collaboration across silos and ownership of ideas from cradle to grave to a greater extent. Many companies have seen rapid increases in their ideation, throughput, and innovation success as a result.
Relative to technology, Rob Carter, Chief Information Officer of FedEx recognized that the crown jewels of the company were aging to the point where they might be the source of the company’s downfall if a new path forward were not forged. He had the humility to recognize that his team’s work for which they were rightly so proud had to be changed dramatically. His pathway to nimbleness revolved around five steps: first leveraging enterprise architecture to get a full accounting of ones technology portfolio, warts and all. Modernization only begins when a full documentation has been concluded. Second, he established a cloud-first strategy. The clouds flexibility, allowing an organization to scale up and back as necessary was sacrosanct. Third, Carter and his team focused on loosely coupled technology so that changes to one platform would not necessarily require changes to others. The use of microservices and application programming interfaces (APIs) also had many security benefits to boot. Lastly, he focused on standardizing the technology wherever possible. This is easier said than done in a company that is part airline, part trucking company, part logistics organization, part office services enterprise, and more. That said, he pushed for a common core of technologies to set standards to achieve greater simplification while de-risking the organization through minimized complexity.
Competition today is less company-to-company. Rather, it is ecosystem-to-ecosystem. Angela Yochem, the Chief Transformation and Digital Officer of Novant Health has been a model of building ecosystems to marshal innovation at levels beyond what one’s team alone might accomplish. Yochem has an unusual ability to meet an entrepreneur, learn about his or her company and make rapid judgements about potential mutual value that might derive from partnership. An example is Zipline International, the world’s only on-demand drone logistics service. Along with other technology and digital executives, she met with the company’s founder and CEO Keller Rinaudo to hear the story of the company’s genesis and its mission, at the time primarily helping deliver medical supplies to people in need in countries that suffered from road infrastructure issues, for example. Yochem translated what she heard to Novant Health’s business and saw an opportunity especially in light of the pandemic. She and her team became the first organization in the U.S. to be granted a Part 107 waiver by the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to use drones for distribution of medical supplies for Covid-19 pandemic response. The vision is growing, as over the next two years, the partnership plans to expand beyond emergency operations in the Charlotte area, where Novant Health is headquartered, to regular commercial operations to serve health facilities and, ultimately, patients’ homes across North Carolina. Nimble leaders and organizations recognize great ideas, translate their relevance to one’s own company, and build the partnerships that can make a difference rapidly.
Finally, during a time of such rapid change, one might think that strategy is becoming less relevant. There is an African proverb that says, “If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.” One might add to those important words, “and take a map.” The company’s strategy is the map. Especially during times of great change, having a strategy at the enterprise level translated to the divisions and functional areas and to the technology and digital team through to data strategy is even more important. Granted, changes in the economy, the competitive landscape, and one’s own company, to name three of many factors, will require modifications to those plans as the assumptions behind the plans require changes, but having the well-articulated plans is essential.
Shailesh Prakash, the Chief Information and Product Officer of the Washington Post underscores this need. A decade ago, when he joined the company, it was languishing: ad revenues and subscribers were decreasing at an alarming rate. Prakash helped set the strategy that would bring the traditional print and digital sides of the house closer together. In so doing, he set the Post on a path to a better experience for readers and for the company’s reporters and columnists. He discovered through his collaboration with his colleagues that the company’s publishing platform was antiquated and a source of frustration. Prakash set a strategy to improve the platform. In so doing, he leapfrogged the industry to such a dramatic degree that it occurred to him and to his team that the platform, itself, could be a business for the Washington Post. Arc Publishing was born, and it is now on a path to being a $100 million business annually for the Post. Nimble leaders set bold and well-articulated strategies that rally one’s team to drive new value to one’s company.
Please note the examples given: a financial services company, the American military, a courier conglomerate, a healthcare company, and a media organization. None of these are traditional technology companies. They are not digital native companies with built in advantages of a recent founding. These are likely companies yours, each in challenging environments. Each drove change rather than being driven by it. This is essential in a time when change is coming so rapidly. Only the nimble will survive and thrive. Emulate the lessons of these great leaders.
Peter High is President of Metis Strategy, a business and IT advisory firm. He has written two bestselling books, and his third, Getting to Nimble, is out this month. He also moderates the Technovation podcast series and speaks at conferences around the world. Follow him on Twitter @PeterAHigh.
A little less than 20% of chief information officers in the United States are women. That roughly mirrors the percentage of women enrolled in engineering programs at universities in the U.S. Although progress has been made in the roughly 40 years since the inception of the CIO role, more needs to be done to create pathways for women to grow careers in technology.
One of the organizations that has done a remarkable job in mentoring women and working behind the scenes to help women land CIO, chief technology officer, and chief digital officer posts is T200. The group was founded by roughly ten women in 2017, and in less than four years, has grown to roughly 160 members. As founding member, Suja Chandrasekaran, currently the Senior Executive Vice President, Chief Information and Digital Officer of CommonSpirit, noted, “We go past peripheral connections. Since our inception, we connect with depth, diversity and strength.”
Chandrasekaran spoke at a T200 event today to mark International Women’s Day and to announce a new program called the Lift Platform which sets bold goals to foster new opportunities for the next generation of women leaders in the technology and digital realm.
The Lift Platform is designed for women in technology and digital roles who report directly to CXOs. They will be vetted for fit with T200’s principles, and they will represent diversity of industry as well as race, creed, sexual orientation, geography, and more.
The Lift Platform drives networking, mentorship and sponsorship. Mamatha Chamarthi, the CIO of Stellantis, said, “We want to elevate the next generation [of women leaders]. We will identify leaders who have a willingness to contribute and give back; a willingness to volunteer to uplift other women.”
Pizza Hut CIO Helen Vaid went further in saying, “Half of the world is women. Therefore, half of the resumes we see should be from women.”
The group listed the following goals in the materials shared in the kick-off event this morning:
12 initial members of the Lift Mentorship program have been identified, though their names were not shared at the kick-off event. 16 mentors have been assigned, as well. They include the CIOs, CDOs and/or CTOs of American Airlines, Alaska Airlines, Align Technology, Citrix, Zoetis and Clark Hill Law, along with Chandrasekaran, Chamarthi and Vaid, among others.
T200 leaders hope to drive outcomes to include supporting women to thrive in their existing roles, while driving explicit growth and professional learning goals for the mentees, creating visibility for the next generation of leaders for additional opportunities and to progressively improve outcomes each year.
T200 leaders have set the objective to have five mentees become CIOs in 2021. The longer-term objective is to be a driving force for women in technology to grow to parity globally across all industries. Ambitious women who strive to follow in the footsteps of the 160 extraordinary women who currently make up the T200 should take note that there is a clearer path for them to follow!
Whether facilitating a rapid shift to remote work or developing new digital capabilities for customers, the past year has reinforced the mandate for technology leaders to deliver greater value for customers faster than ever before, and to enable that speed and agility at scale.
In a poll of more than 100 technology executives at the Metis Strategy Digital Symposium, 42% noted speed to market as their key measure of their company’s nimbleness, with customer satisfaction coming in second with 27%. The findings underscore the increasingly strategic importance of CIOs and other technology leaders as they enable their organizations to succeed in the digital age.
For example, speed and customer-centricity took center stage at Dow as the company revamped its IT organization in recent years. Led by CIO and Chief Digital Officer Melanie Kalmar, the company re-oriented its work around services, and created product teams that were accountable for delivering those services from end to end. Throughout the transformation, “we focused on the customer experience, the employee experience, and working at the speed of business,” Kalmar said.
That mandate became more acute during the pandemic as many leaders transformed their organizations overnight to serve customers and employees that suddenly faced new, often more difficult, circumstances. “That speed and agility that we’ve always talked about as being important starts to have a lot more meaning when you realize you’re helping your friends and neighbors,” said Kimberly Johnson, Chief Operating Officer at Fannie Mae.
Dow and Fannie Mae are two of many companies born before the digital age that are transforming their people, process, technology, ecosystems, and strategy to seize new opportunities and stave off threats. Throughout our recent conference, leaders from Capital One, CarMax, The Washington Post, Novant Health and many more shared how they have enabled their companies to move quickly by embracing DevOps, shifting to product-oriented operating models, and revamping their talent strategies to bring in new and diverse skill sets.
You can find more insights from the Metis Strategy Digital Symposium on our YouTube channel, including conversations with:
While CIOs continue to prioritize the shift to product-oriented operating models in 2021, companies still struggle to create empowered product teams throughout their organizations. One significant inhibitor is often the lack of progress and investment in DevOps.
Amazon Web Services defines DevOps as “the combination of cultural philosophies, practices, and tools that increases an organization’s ability to deliver applications and services at high velocity.” In this setup, “development and operations teams are no longer siloed… [and] engineers work across the entire application lifecycle, from development and test to deployment and operations”.
DevOps can significantly enable product operating model transformations. It brings agile processes to life through technical enablement, turning processes into automation. Put simply, this often means automating the software development process from start (continuous integration / CI) to finish (continuous deployment or delivery / CD) while also creating empowered developers with a pulse on customer needs.
A successful DevOps transformation enables teams to react quickly to shifting market demands and reduces risk by decreasing the time it takes to get working software out the door. For example, an empowered product team that releases new features daily or hourly can iterate and innovate securely much faster than in the past, allowing for constant validation of product strategy and the ability to scale when they find something that works.
DevOps, Agile, and product operating model shifts are closely linked in successful digital companies. Through our work with some of the largest organizations in the world (both digital natives and digital immigrants), we have found that leaders who closely couple DevOps transformation efforts with Agile and product management transformations are significantly more successful in realizing their goals. Below are four tips to help you do so successfully:
In future posts, we will go into more detail about how to kickstart your DevOps transformation, from examining the key dimensions of the transformation process to exploring creative ways to fund DevOps efforts. Drop us a note if you have any questions, thoughts, or suggestions for future topics to cover!
Nearly a decade ago, Metis Strategy President Peter High coined the term “CIO-plus” to describe CIOs who were expanding beyond their core IT roles and taking on more customer-focused and strategic responsibilities. Fast forward to 2020, when a Deloitte study found that 40% of CEOs see their CIO and tech leaders as the primary partners in driving business strategy, more than all other C-suite roles combined.
CIOs already played an essential role in transforming their organizations to compete in the digital age, even before the COVID-19 pandemic forced companies to alter their strategies and operating models practically overnight. A broad shift to remote work put CIOs even more in the spotlight, giving them a more prominent seat at the table as digital acceleration took hold.
That acceleration shifted CIO priorities and changed the trends on technology leaders’ roadmaps. In conversations with nearly 100 CIOs and technology leaders in 2020 as part of our podcast, Technovation with Peter High, we observed an increased focus on collaboration tools. Technologies such as cloud, AI, and analytics remained top of mind for many executives, but conversations now focused on business and strategic implications.
Below, we take a closer look at the trends and insights behind the data and get a glimpse of what’s to come in 2021.
Digital transformation accelerates
Throughout our conversations with tech CXOs, one thing we heard consistently was that the pandemic accelerated the overall shift to digital. “We have seen a massive acceleration in trends we were already seeing,” said Ed Mclaughlin, President of Operations & Technology at Mastercard. “We felt we were about three years away from digital supremacy, [but] that actually happened this year.”
At MGM International, then-President of Commercial and Growth Atif Rafiq noted that efforts to develop a mobile check-in capability were accelerated by nine months. Meanwhile, at Domino’s, Chief Innovation Officer Dennis Maloney shared that the percentage of sales coming through digital channels rose from 65% to 75% as a result of a “massive movement [of] consumers into digital ordering platforms.”
From internal efforts like the shift to a digital workforce or adoption of best-of-breed SaaS tools to external trends such as the explosion of e-commerce and changing customer expectations, it’s clear that COVID-19 massively accelerated the digital trends that have been gaining momentum for years. Technology executives who recognize that changes they thought were several years away are here today will be the ones best positioned to help their organizations thrive.
Cloud-based collaboration tools explode
As mentioned above, cloud-based communication and collaboration tools exploded in 2020. Less than 4% of technology leaders mentioned tools like Zoom, Slack, or Microsoft Teams in 2019, but in 2020, nearly a quarter of interviewees discussed video conferencing, chat platforms, and similar capabilities. That was certainly the case at Ally Financial, which hit more than a million minutes per day on Zoom during the pandemic, according to Sathish Muthukrishnan, the company’s Chief Information, Data, and Digital Officer.
As CIOs remain focused on empowering remote workforces, we expect to see companies accelerate adoption of cloud-based capabilities while strengthening fundamentals such as security, bandwidth, redundancy, and availability. As the “new normal” slowly emerges, CIOs and digital leaders who have successfully enabled employees to turn their homes into an office will then have an opportunity to help define how technology can differentiate the in-office experience and define the vision for a hybrid work experience.
Data, analytics & AI drive automation
Artificial intelligence continues to dominate the mindshare of CIOs and digital leaders. It was the top tech trend mentioned on the podcast for the third year in a row. At our Metis Strategy Digital Symposium in January, when asked which emerging technology holds the most promise for companies in 2021, 60% of the executives responded with “advanced AI.”
At NetApp, CIO Bill Miller rolled out over 150 software bots to optimize workflows ranging from legal and procurement to HR, supply chain, and customer service. Meanwhile, at Intel, Global CIO Archana Deskus noted how the company is applying data, analytics, and AI to the domains of business outcome optimization, product and service design, and manufacturing optimization.
As the volume of data continues to explode, opportunities around AI, analytics, and automation will only increase. While we encourage organizations to accelerate their shift to an AI-first business model, it is important to do so while considering the strategic, ethical, and societal implications. At Mars, for example, CDO Sandeep Dadlani is looking to leverage automation not to replace workers, but to reduce menial tasks and empower associates to focus on more meaningful activities. Meanwhile, Bank of America Chief Operations and Technology Officer Cathy Bessant led the formation of the Council on the Responsible Use of Artificial Intelligence, in partnership with Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, to explore ethical and policy issues related to AI.
Looking to the future, CIOs and digital leaders who not only understand the technical aspects of data and AI, but also the broader business and societal implications, will be best positioned to lead their organizations’ AI transformation.
We expect more companies to see results from AI initiatives in the year ahead. We are also seeing an increased focus on the underlying tools and technologies that enable these initiatives and increasing occurrences of companies developing data strategies.
Trends likely to rise in 2021
In addition to the major technology trends noted above, there are a few topics noted by CIOs that are worth mentioning, as they show signts of gaining importance in 2021:
This article is part of an ongoing series exploring the ways in which companies are can prepare for a post-pandemic world of work.
Tiffany Jenkins, Mac Connolly, and Yucca Reinecke co-authored this article
In the post-pandemic world of work, flexibility will be key. Our conversations with technology executives suggest that many companies expect to maintain a hybrid working model, in which some employees work remotely, others work primarily at the office, and many move back and forth between the two. More than 80% of executives polled during the January 2021 Metis Strategy Digital Symposium expect either a 50/50 split between remote work and the office or for most employees to work remotely beyond the end of the pandemic. And just this week, Salesforce.com said it would give employees three ways to work, even once it is safe to return to the office: flex, fully remote, and office-based.
In this article, we will explore four key dimensions leaders should consider as they evaluate the people, process, and technology changes needed to enable hybrid work for the long term, including:
A shift toward a long-term hybrid working model requires a major rethink of day-to-day operations. While many changes were made at the peak of the pandemic, including, in many cases, a massive shift to remote work, companies should now build upon the experiences and learnings to date while developing a sustainable operating model that supports these changes long into the future. That means rethinking existing ways of working, scheduling meetings, current employee practices, and the policies that govern daily operations.
An important first step is to assess which jobs will require a return to the office, which ones can be conducted fully remote, and which require a mix of both. In order to answer that question, companies may need to look at jobs from different points of view, including functional responsibilities, type of work performed, and the skills and preferences represented in certain jobs. For example, some companies are experimenting with having groups of employees return for a few days per week or bringing together certain teams on specific days when these teams are expected to engage in collaboration or discussions that benefit from co-location and in-person interactions.
For jobs that will be largely remote, leaders should think about whether those workers will be required to be located within a certain proximity of the office or other work-related physical location, if compensation changes based on employee location are warranted, and other policies that will impact future decision-making.
An operating model fit for a hybrid work environment should also anticipate the new, often more complex, ways in which colleagues will collaborate, over virtual collaboration and communication tools or even across time zones, and how that impacts productivity, employee experience, and company culture. Determining how and where teams will be expected to work together can further influence decisions around technology and real estate investments, as we will explore below.
Companies are placing renewed focus on employee experience as teams adapt to major changes in their work habits. While a shift to largely remote work during the pandemic led to increased productivity at many companies, the new setups also showed remote work’s potentially adverse effects on well-being as employees balanced the demands of work and home. Indeed, many employees’ greatest challenges stem from the physical and emotionally blurred lines between the workplace and their personal or family lives. As one of our executive partners recently said, “we no longer work from home, but we live at work”. Left unaddressed, these challenges could lead to difficulties retaining talent long term.
To that end, it is increasingly critical to invest in an employee experience that balances productivity and employee well-being. Fortunately, most organizations have realized that well-being, productivity, employee satisfaction, and retention are more closely intertwined than they were pre-pandemic and should be addressed in unison. Doing so can lead to higher engagement, and ultimately better business outcomes. A Gallup Study found that engaged employees are 21% more productive, 22% more profitable and score 10% better on customer ratings than unengaged employees. Companies that consider all these factors are more likely to retain talent and, in some cases, may become a more attractive employer now and during the gradual return to the ‘next normal.’
A key driver of employee engagement efforts is providing employees with the tools and support they need to do their jobs successfully no matter where they work. These can range from technology such as laptops, collaboration tools and video-conferencing applications to perks that support health and wellness, from gym reimbursements to subsidized childcare and access to therapy and mental health support.
Several organizations have also begun to experiment with virtual and digital tools that attempt to replicate the social interactions that typically occur in a physical workplace, such as virtual “water coolers.” While not intended to produce concrete outcomes, these social interactions have shown to lead to greater team cohesion, trust among team members, and generally higher levels of employee motivation. However, it is also important for leaders to help employees know when to log off or when it may be best to disconnect from more rounds of video conferences. Leaders should continuously solicit feedback and measure outcomes of these efforts on productivity and perception of well-being.
Putting people first by ensuring that they have the support they need, communicating early and often, and creating new opportunities for learning stands to boost both engagement and productivity no matter what comes next. As Verizon CIO Shankar Arumugavelu said in a recent interview about the company’s pandemic response: “We all have business resilience plans. At the end of the day, what stood out [at Verizon] is the human resilience. That really made the difference here.” As the company develops its post-pandemic plans, the company is taking the opportunity to rethink how things are done for the betterment of customers, employees, shareholders and society.
Several of the organizations we work with have addressed the new realities of virtual work by making it easier – and in some cases even explicitly welcome – to have family members join certain meetings, for example, or by otherwise supporting employees who are exposed to the logistical challenges of co-managing professional and personal lives.
As noted above, enabling a successful hybrid workforce means ensuring employees have access to the technology and tools needed to carry out day-to-day operations. In our conversations with IT teams, we have found that reliable and secure video conferencing, instant messaging, whiteboarding and visualization tools that can be accessed in and out of the office have often been deemed essential.
Rather than attempting to fully replicate the workplace in the remote environment, companies should first assess the digital tools and capabilities that have best supported a remote-first workforce. Firms can then assess how those tools may enable collaboration in an in-office and hybrid working environment and think through the process changes that may be required to do so. Many IT teams we have spoken with have adopted new interactive whiteboarding tools, for example, and companies have invested in the training needed to ensure teams are well positioned to use them.
Of course, simply implementing the needed tools will not lead to greater collaboration. Leaders also must be intentional about driving adoption. Slack or similar communication tools will not improve effectiveness if only a few people use it. Conversely, with deliberate and widespread adoption, the use of real-time communication tools can address the fundamental need for accessibility.
At a recent Metis Strategy Digital Symposium, Comcast CIO Rick Rioboli noted that the pandemic has created an opportunity to completely rethink the physical office. The company now is approaching its offices “not as what we go back to, but rather as what [our offices] can do for us.” Similar conversations are happening across industries as leaders consider how best to use physical office space once it is safe for employees to return.
Often, those conversations include thinking about how to weave digital capabilities that currently serve remote employees across the physical office environment and how to reconfigure existing space to maximize the potential for productive collaboration in a post-pandemic, hybrid world. A workplace intelligence report by global technology leader NTT Ltd. found that 31% of companies are implementing additional creative thinking spaces, while 30% will provide more meeting places and 27% will reduce individual desk space.
Turning the office into a digitally enabled, collaboration-first environment will be critical to enabling a hybrid workforce. As companies seek to create a safe, collaborative, and efficient space for their employees, we have observed a few common practices:
In addition to layering digital tools onto the digital space, there are some design changes that can benefit hybrid employees as well. Among them:
As companies begin to formulate and test hybrid operating models, continued investment and careful strategic planning are necessary to maintain effectiveness and resilience. While reports of increased productivity are reassuring, the next question to ask is how to make that productivity is sustainable over the long term. By adapting your operating model, investing in employee experience, empowering employees with needed tools and technologies, and rethinking the purpose of physical spaces, companies will set themselves up to tackle the changes brought on by a new world of work.
What separates the companies that have succeeded for decades from those that have faded? Successful companies built nimbleness into their DNA.
As established firms face tougher competition from digital natives and an ever-increasing pace of change, fostering that nimbleness is critical. To do so, companies must modernize practices related to people, process, technology, ecosystems, and strategy. This conference will highlight the stories of companies who have done all of the above best, including Capital One, FedEx, Novant Health, and The Washington Post.
The full agenda is below. If you are a technology executive interested in attending, please email steven.norton@metisstrategy.com. We look forward to welcoming you!
Noon – 12:15
Welcome: Getting to Nimble
Metis Strategy President Peter High will share introductory remarks and outline the concept of nimbleness as it relates to digital transformation.
Peter High, President, Metis Strategy
12:15 – 12:30
The Importance of Adaptability featuring General Stanley McChrystal
Drawing on his experience as a general in the United States Army and leader of the Joint Special Operations Command, Gen. McChrystal will discuss how a common purpose, trust, and individual empowerment can help organizations break down traditional silos and move with the speed and agility of their most nimble competitors.
Gen. Stanley McChrystal, retired four-star general, US Army, and leader of Joint Special Operations Command
12:30 – 12:50
People: The Key to Success
Talented and motivated people are crucial to any successful transformation effort. This panel will explore how two leading companies have driven foundational change in IT by rethinking roles, recruiting strategies, and retention efforts.
Rob Alexander, Chief Information Officer, Capital One
Kimberly Johnson, Chief Operating Officer, Fannie Mae
Moderated by Peter High, Metis Strategy
12:50 – 1:05
Entrepreneur Spotlight: The Future of Authentication
This conversation will explore the ways in which companies are moving beyond passwords and re-thinking identity and access management in the post-pandemic world.
Rakesh Loonkar, co-Founder and President, Transmit Security
1:05 – 1:25
Process: An Opportunity to Define your Company’s Future
For many companies, processes are inadequately mapped out and have not been updated to reflect changing times. In this session, we will discuss how process modernization efforts can engage a diverse array of contributors across organizations and literally define the future of work.
Shamim Mohammad, Chief Information and Technology Officer, CarMax
Melanie Kalmar, CIO and Chief Digital Officer, Dow
1:25 – 1:40
Entrepreneur Spotlight: Overcoming Increasingly Nimble Adversaries
As companies grow nimbler, so do the actors who may wish to exploit them. In this entrepreneur spotlight, George will discuss his career in the cybersecurity industry and explore the biggest cybersecurity threats facing enterprises today.
George Kurtz, President, CEO, and co-Founder, CrowdStrike
1:40 – 2:00
Strategy: Harnessing Strategic Alignment to Drive Growth
Without a clear strategy, the advances made by cultivating your people, process, technology, and ecosystem will be difficult to realize. In this session, we will explore how technology leaders can drive strategic alignment across the enterprise.
Shailesh Prakash, CIO and Chief Product Officer, The Washington Post Company
Chintan Mehta, CIO and Head of Digital Technology and Innovation, Wells Fargo
2:00 – 2:20
Technology: Building the Foundation for a Nimble Enterprise
Sprawling technical debt and outdated legacy systems often signal a company that hasn’t built nimbleness into its DNA. This conversation will focus on leaders who addressed technical debt head-on and embraced new technologies and platforms that deliver speed and flexibility.
Rob Carter, Chief Information Officer, FedEx
Steve Randich, Chief Information Officer, FINRA
2:20 – 2:35
Entrepreneur Spotlight: The Rise of Zero Trust
In this discussion, Jay will discuss the rise of Zero Trust architecture and share his perspective on the changing security landscape as we prepare for a world of cloud, IoT, and 5G.
Jay Chaudhry, CEO, Chairman, and Founder, Zscaler
2:35 – 2:55
Ecosystems: Sources of Insight and Innovation
The network you cultivate has the power to shape both the direction of your organization and your evolution as a leader. This panel will explore best practices for cultivating strong and lasting relationships with peers, customers, recruiters, venture capitalists, and other partners.
Angela Yochem, Chief Transformation and Digital Officer, Novant Health
George Llado, CIO, Alexion Pharmaceuticals
2:55 – 3:00
Closing Remarks
Peter High, Metis Strategy
On January 26 at Noon EST, global technology executives, entrepreneurs, investors, and CEOs will gather virtually to discuss topics that are top-of-mind for CIOs in 2021. Our conversations will explore how firms can maintain digital momentum and develop innovative cultures amid a new world of work, scale their data and analytics efforts to deliver meaningful business growth, and create a more diverse, inclusive, and equitable technology industry.
Please see the agenda below. To learn more or request an invitation, please email steven.norton@metisstrategy.com. We look forward to seeing you there!
Noon ET
Welcome and introductions
12:10 pm – 12:30 p.m. ET
Rethinking Employee Experience for a New World of Work
As companies continue to move toward “hybrid” working models that blend in-office and distributed work, they are simultaneously re-examining what it means to deliver an outstanding employee experience. This discussion will explore how technology leaders are enabling employees to do their best work no matter their physical location.
Rick Rioboli, CIO, Comcast
Richard Cox, CIO, Cox Enterprises
12:30 pm – 12:50 p.m. ET
Digital Customer Experience and Innovation
The global pandemic is widely recognized as a digital accelerator and a major factor shaping the future of work. The combination of novel digital capabilities and innovative ways to collaborate will shape employee and customer experiences for the foreseeable future. In this panel discussion, CIOs from Stanley Black & Decker and Verizon will share how they have turned pandemic-induced challenges into opportunities to make lasting improvements that benefit employees and customers alike.
Shankar Arumugavelu, Global CIO, Verizon
Rhonda Gass, VP and Chief Information Officer, Stanley Black & Decker
Moderated by Alex Kraus, Vice President and East Coast Office Lead, Metis Strategy
12:50 p.m. – 1:05 p.m. ET
Entrepreneur Spotlight: Ashok Reddy, Digital.ai
In this fireside chat, Ashok will discuss his journey from firms such as Broadcom, CA Technologies, IBM and Honeywell to his current role at Digital.ai. He’ll also share thoughts on how connecting software development and delivery to strategic business outcomes can help companies achieve their digital transformation goals.
Ashok Reddy, CEO, Digital.ai
1:05 p.m. – 1:25 p.m. ET
Creating a Diverse and Equitable Workforce
Diversity, inclusion, and equity efforts rose to the top of many CIO agendas in 2020. In this panel, we will discuss strategies for developing diverse talent pipelines, creating inclusive and equitable organizations, and becoming an agent for positive organizational change. We will also discuss TechPACT, an initiative that aims to increase underrepresented communities in technology and “create a world where anyone with a passion for technology will have the opportunity to succeed.”
Janet Sherlock, CIO, Ralph Lauren
Earl Newsome, Americas CIO, Linde
Moderated by Steven Norton, Co-Head of Research, Media, and Executive Networks, Metis Strategy
1:25 p.m. – 1:45 p.m. ET
How Data and AI are Transforming Health Care
After a year of massive change in the health care space, leaders will discuss how advanced analytics and other technologies will enable greater transformation in the year ahead.
Ramkumar Rayapureddy, Global CIO, Viatris
Mark Hill, Chief Digital Information Officer, CSL Behring
Moderated by Michael Bertha, Managing Director and Central Office Lead, Metis Strategy
1:45 p.m. – 2:05 p.m. ET
Behind the Scenes: Data-Driven Operations
We’ve all heard the saying that “data is the new oil,” but what does that mean in practice? This panel will explore how technology executives are embedding data and analytics across their organizations to enable a culture of innovation, unlock new efficiencies, and deliver differentiated products and services.
Shaleen Devgun, CIO, Schneider National
Atif Rafiq, President of Customers, Commercial & Growth, MGM Resorts International
Moderated by Chris Davis, Vice President and West Coast Office Lead, Metis Strategy
2:05 p.m. – 2:25 p.m.
Technology and Innovation in Financial Services
Megan Crespi of Comerica and Catherine Zhou of HSBC discuss the technology trends shaping the finance industry in the year ahead.
Megan Crespi, Chief Operations & Technology Officer, Comerica Bank
Catherine Zhou, Global Head of Venture, Digital Innovation and Partnerships, HSBC
2:25 p.m. – 2:40 p.m.
Security in Unprecedented Times
Peter and Shawn will discuss the implications of the SolarWinds attack on large companies, as well as the threats and trends that are shaping today’s cybersecurity landscape.
Shawn Henry, President, CrowdStrike Services and CSO, former FBI Executive Assistant Director
2:40 p.m. – 2:55 p.m. ET
Fireside chat with Daniela Rus, director of MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory
Daniela will share her thoughts on the evolution of AI in the enterprise and shine a light on some of the latest research coming out of MIT, including an initiative to build self-driving cars and enable mobility on demand.
Daniela Rus, director of MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory
Moderated by Peter High, President, Metis Strategy
