457: Oshkosh CIO Anupam Khare outlines the company’s five strategic pillars, which are being people-first; running digital technology as a business; modernizing and innovating; building advanced capabilities in analytics and process automation, among other areas; and securing the organization in a way that reduces friction and makes experiences better for its employees, customers, and partners. We also discuss how the company has been able to recruit new employees, how the team has mixed retraining with bringing in new people externally, how the Information Technology function has rebranded to “Digital Technology” to change its perception internally and externally, among other topics.
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In this interview, Metis Strategy Central Region Office Head Mike Bertha interviews Art Hu, Atticus Tysen, and Srini Koushik, the CIOs of Lenovo, Intuit, and Magellan Health respectively who have pioneered the shift from a project orientation to product orientation. These CIOs share the challenges they have encountered during their transitions, such as finding product managers with the necessary skills and how to manage traditional perceptions of IT through culture changes. They also discuss the limits of product-based IT in specific situations where there are static goals, among other topics.
Nick Colisto discusses how Avery Dennison’s IT team shows its value to other functions by capturing, reporting, and then communicating how IT is contributing value to the company. This process starts by aligning IT’s goals with other functions and influencing how IT can help the company achieve its key strategic pillars over a five-year planning horizon. Moreover, the team has created an IT-value scorecard, which contains metrics regarding health, delivery, outcomes, and agility. Lastly, the team communicates the value it is providing through quarterly business reviews and a well written annual report that communicates the value across the spectrum. We also discuss the three parts of the company’s digital workplace strategy, the education program that the company has put in place, which has sent leaders to UC Berkeley and looks to improve digital literacy throughout the organization, Nick’s take on IoT, AI, and quantum computing, among other topics.
433: Xerox’s CTO Naresh Shanker discusses the three key elements of a successful digital transformation. Naresh cites bold leadership that has grit as the most exciting ingredient for transformation. Second, he describes the importance of culture in preparing for the future. As the pace of change accelerates, he notes that it is critical to bridge the established culture that sustains companies at scale with the next-generation culture that has the mental muscle of a startup. Lastly, he discusses the need for a team that is passionate, driven, energized, and exceedingly mission-focused. We also discuss the outside-in and inside-out approach Xerox is using to make its digital transformation, how Xerox uses AI and IoT, Naresh’s experience as a board-level CIO, among other topics.
406: CBRE CDO/CTO Chandra Dhandapani breaks down the process of digital transformation through her experience of modernizing technology and rapidly creating agile teams at CBRE. She explains that technology is at the core of any business model, making it crucial to insource the talent necessary for software development and understand the ecosystem of technology trends. Dhandapani describes how building collaboration between product designers and clients yields entrepreneurial services, such as the new flexible spaces and tenant experience lines at CBRE. We also discuss a powerful WhatsApp group for women leaders in technology, the difference between digital and technology, the value of efficient leadership teams, and various other topics.
401: Express Scripts CTO emeritus Phil Finucane details Express Scripts’ integration with Cigna. While Cigna has a strong engineering organization, the two companies have different visions for how to execute a successful integration. Because of this, a large part of Phil’s job was to help Cigna understand how Express Scripts operated, to understand how Cigna operated, and to understand how the combined entity would interface with its business partners. From there, Phil looked to build a path that brought together the best of both worlds by bringing complementary strengths together. We also discuss the lessons Phil has pulled from his time in Silicon Valley, Express Scripts’ approach to eliminating technical debt, his take on artificial intelligence, and a variety of other topics.
396: E. & J. Gallo Winery CIO Sanjay Shringarpure elaborates on the changes the company has made to achieve its transformational vision. One of the major changes has involved transitioning IT toward supporting four verticals supporting each of the business functions of the company. We also discuss the cultural changes necessary to realize this vision, Sanjay’s take on blockchain and the cloud, the Wine OS platform the company has created, and a variety of other topics.
395: Liberty Mutual CIO James McGlennon discusses the company’s agile and cloud transformation, which has included a multi-pronged approach designed to eliminate or refactor legacy technology, send existing employees to coding immersion programs, have 90 percent of teams working in an agile fashion, and move from one percent to 25 percent of technology in the cloud with a goal to reach 100 percent. We also discuss James’ take on artificial intelligence, robotics, and augmented and virtual reality, how Liberty Mutual works with its different customer groups, what the company does at the business unit level versus the enterprise level, among other topics.
394: Schneider Electric CDO Herve Coureil discusses how Schneider has blended talent in the new digital unit. Herve believes the organization needs to balance the internal and external view, Herve does not believe in a digital organization that only includes external digital talent looking in from the outside or an exclusively internal team that is made up of subject matter experts, without an infusion of external talent. To create a mix, Schneider has focused on reskilling, retraining, and learning internally so everybody has the basic skills that go with digital while simultaneously recruiting new talent that can bring subject matter expertise and new digital skills to the team. We also discuss Herve’s take on the cloud, AI, and blockchain, how Herve manages such a large, distributed team, how his experience as a CFO helps him in his current role, among other topics.
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390: LinkedIn co-Founder Reid Hoffman argues that companies should value speed over efficiency. In the modern world of network effects, being the first to scale often provides significant first mover advantages in creating a transformative company. While second place can be a decent consolation prize, Reid believes that if you are third or worse, you failed. However, while speed is important, Reid warns against having a blind adhesion to size as companies also need to determine which components put them in the best possible position. We also discuss the lessons Reid took from SocialNet, a company he founded before LinkedIn, his experience as a founding board member at PayPal, how China is able to move at such an extraordinary pace, among other topics.
