641: Casey discusses how her team is driving customer experience and how it is rooted in the employee experience at the company. Casey begins with how she views her role as a technologist within a tech-centric organization like Asurion as well as how Asurion oftentimes lives its customer journey as customer zero. She covers the role technology plays in Asurion’s omnichannel approach, her experience onboarding remotely, and what the future of work looks like. Additionally, Casey gives her perspective on retaining talent during hybrid work, how she draws upon past experiences in her current role, and what the future holds for women in technology.
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This episode is sponsored by Zoho.
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Wesley Story has been named Chief Information Officer of Genesys, a global cloud leader in customer experience orchestration. As CIO, he will balance the day-to-day needs around operational efficiencies and scaling challenges that come from surges of rapid growth with new investments and the build-out of new capabilities that help the company position itself for continued future growth.
The company is going through what it refers to as its “Experience as a Service evolution,” and Story believes that IT has a significant role to play in the transformation to come. “Our Experience as a Service evolution…will be a central area of focus for me,” he said. “That means fostering and supporting our company’s cultural transformation that started a couple of years ago so that it’s genuinely baked into the DNA of our organization. Many companies have ‘values’ that are often printed on the back of their badges, posted on the walls in conference rooms, and perhaps used in annual performance reviews. But that can be a blind spot for an organization when it’s not baked into daily interactions. To me, that’s the goal. Our everyday decisions and behaviors should embody the culture.”
Genesys’ Experience as a Service is a new business model for the company. It was featured prominently in the announcement of the company’s most recent funding round of $580 million for a valuation of $21 billion. The round was led by Salesforce Ventures.
Story also noted the sanctity of data in this transformation, as data drives customer and market insights, providing a deeper understanding of how customers use Genesys’ products, fostering growth through better insights. “It’s one thing to have the data and perform analytics on it,” he said. “It’s another to be able to action the data by presenting it in the appropriate context for our employees, or, in some cases, use the data in a cognitive model to automate decisioning. Actions like this require intimacy with our cross-functional business processes like quote to cash, acquire to retire, and procure to pay, as well as customer experience metrics and business pain points so we can unlock value.” Story underscored that IT is a critical enabler in this regard, and he noted that IT will continue to forge tight relationships with the various functions and business units.
Story will report to Genesys Chief Financial Officer Brian Swartz, who noted in reference to Story, “Wesley is a proven leader with a deep understanding of business process improvements and building high-performing organizations grounded in customer experience and collaboration. As part of his responsibilities, he’ll work closely with product marketing, product engineering and many other functions as we grow and scale our business.”
Most recently, Story was an Enterprise Strategist at Amazon Web Services (AWS), where he was responsible for providing strategy guidance at the Board of Director, C-suite and IT leadership levels to advise clients on their transformation efforts. Prior to AWS, he was the interim global CIO at Sysco Foods, a leader in food distribution.
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.
630: In this interview, Shawn discusses the importance of having a strong and efficient data foundation. Shawn provides an introduction to Splunk’s business and his purview. He explains how the future is shifting to a multi-cloud hybrid approach and the importance of having consistent security and observability on a shared data platform. Shawn tells us how he sees data security as a foundation for innovation, how his company is turning data into doing, and how this real-time data empowers technology teams. Finally, he talks about the evolution of the role of the IT Leader, the role that Splunk plays in the broader technology ecosystem, and trends in technology that he is excited about.
This episode is sponsored by Transmit Security and Cisco.
629: In this interview, Jacqueline goes in-depth on the future of work and what changes in culture will come about as a result. Jacqui begins with her purview as a CIO and technology leader at one of the most influential technology companies on the market and how she has curated her team over her three years in-role. She shares lessons on building a strong company culture and maintaining that culture during a hybrid working environment. Jacqui also talks about Cisco’s Customer Zero program, the future of work, and how the role of the CIO has evolved. Finally, Jacqui shares a personal story about her career journey, discusses improving the number of women in technology roles, and trends in technology as she looks ahead.
This episode is sponsored by Transmit Security and Splunk.
627: In this interview, Praveen discusses the remarkable digital and cultural transformation of the IT organization at CommScope. He shares how he has organized his team at the company and how his diverse experience across various parts of the business has impacted the way he thinks about the value IT can bring. Praveen covers the cultural shift required to bring IT to the center of the business pushing his department to be a driver of revenue, a source of speed and nimbleness while instituting a service-based model. Finally, Praveen looks ahead at the trends in technology that he sees as being drivers of value for IT in the future.
625: Ralph discusses the role of IT in the company’s strategic roadmap. Ralph talks about the areas of emphasis in Lumentum’s current strategy for IT including developing a data strategy, navigating cybersecurity, and improving technological footprint on the factory floor. Additionally, he discusses the changing dynamics in the war for talent and how the relationship between employee and employer has shifted during the pandemic. Finally, Ralph covers the similarities across industries he’s been in, how he built his ecosystem, and how he leverages learnings from the VC community to move on the trends coming out of it.
This episode is sponsored by Transmit Security.
623: Scot discusses the origination of Arc XP and broadening the technology’s applications beyond The Washington Post and the media/publishing industry. Scot tells the story of how Arc XP began within The Washington Post and compares its genesis to that of AWS at Amazon. He then describes the broader possibilities and applications of Arc XP beyond media and how he balances the competitive advantage of the technology and the controversial nature of sharing it with competitors. Scot shares how he leverages his past experiences outside of media to help with these broader applications, how he builds the skill set of his team, and how his vision for expansion is driven by where the talent is located. Finally, Scot talks about the growth opportunities at Arc XP and the advantages of having regular access to someone like Jeff Bezos.
620: Mike Davies discusses the relevance and impact of neuromorphic computing on Intel as a company and the world more generally. Mike gives a bird’s-eye view of what neuromorphic computing aims to achieve and the relationship it has to traditional forms of artificial intelligence and deep learning. He breaks down the near-, medium-, and long-term implications the technology could have on how we think about computing capabilities and the technology and cost challenges that his team is working to overcome. A key component of commercializing this technology is the collaboration with partners, and Mike spends a moment discussing how he looks to curate an ecosystem of academics and corporations to help deliver this technology as well as how he collaborates internally with other groups within Intel Labs.
619: Mike, Diane, and Vijay of Johnson Controls discuss how the three executive roles fit together and how digital and technological innovation are shaping the 136-year-old company. Each explains their purview within their respective roles and how these roles share governance and collaborate with one another. Vijay expands on how his team was built by centralizing various disparate capabilities across the company as a means to create value and discusses the learnings from Johnson Control’s Open Blue platform. Mike shares the strategic nature of technology at Johnson Controls and what the future of work looks like coming out of the pandemic. Diane then talks about enabling the employee experience at the company and expands on the company’s view of the hybrid work strategy. Finally, the executives provide a look ahead at future opportunities to leverage technology and digital at the company.
This episode is sponsored by Transmit Security and Zoho.
608: In this interview, Iddo Kadim, Chief Technology Officer and Director of Olympic Technology at Intel, focuses on the development and application of innovative technology at the Olympic Games. Iddo begins with how his role as Intel’s Director of Olympic Technology functions and the real-time problem solving that comes as a result. He discusses his method of planning for the Olympic Games, the implication of planning so far in advance, and how he takes into account and balances the various needs of multiple constituents. Finally, Iddo explains the technology behind a few of these technologies and provides detailed examples of their applications including 3D Athlete Technology, Mobileye, 5G, and Smart Venues.
