May 21, 2024
12 p.m. – 3 p.m. EST
Advancements in artificial intelligence have opened the door for innovative ways companies can deliver unique and personalized customer experiences. Join us virtually on May 21 for our next Metis Strategy Digital Symposium where global business and technology executives describe how AI has improved their organizations, how they are continuing to foster a customer-centric mentality, and what the future of technology and digital looks like in the Age of AI.
C-level technology leaders, register here reserve your spot and stay tuned for agenda updates. We look forward to seeing you!
(Click here for highlights from our most recent Digital Symposium, and stay tuned to our YouTube channel for videos of our panel discussions.)
12:00 – 12:15 p.m.
Welcome and Introductions
Welcome and introduction to the Metis Strategy team
Peter High, President, Metis Strategy
12:15 – 12:40 p.m.
Customer Experience in the Age of AI
Marty Brodbeck, Chief Technology Officer, Priceline
Bala Subramanian, Chief Digital & Technology Officer, UPS
Moderated by Steven Norton; Co-Head Executive Networks, Research, and Media; Metis Strategy
12:40 – 1:05 p.m.
Driving Digital Innovation Ahead of Disruption
Greg Moore, Chief Information Officer, KB Home
Michael Lucas, Chief Information Officer, Wilson Sonsini
Moderated by Chris Davis, Partner & West Coast Office Lead, Metis Strategy
1:05 – 1:30 p.m.
Shaping the Story: Future-Oriented Talent and Innovation
Monica Caldas, Global Chief Information Officer, Liberty Mutual
Amir Kazmi, Chief Information & Digital Officer, WestRock
Moderated by Alex Kraus, Partner & East Coast Office Lead, Metis Strategy
1:30 – 1:45 p.m.
Entrepreneur Spotlight: CEO of Augment
Scott Dietzen, CEO, Augment
Moderated by Peter High, President, Metis Strategy
1:45 – 2:15 p.m.
Emerging AI Opportunities in Pharmaceuticals and Healthcare
Diogo Rau, Chief Information & Digital Officer, Eli Lilly
Cindy Hoots, Chief Digital Officer & Chief Information Officer, AstraZeneca
Greg Meyers, Chief Digital & Technology Officer, Bristol Myers Squibb
Moderated by Peter High, President, Metis Strategy
2:15 – 2:40 p.m.
Blueprint for AI Organizational Readiness
Praveen Jonnala, Chief Information Officer, CommScope
Tim Dickson, Chief Digital & Information Officer, Regal Rexnord
Moderated by Michael Bertha, Partner & Central Office Lead, Metis Strategy
2:40 – 2:55 p.m.
Closing Remarks and Adjourn
Peter High, President, Metis Strategy
Click here for highlights from our February Metis Strategy Digital Symposium, or watch the panels on our YouTube channel. We look forward to seeing you!
Thank you to everyone who attended and participated in the 14th Metis Strategy Digital Symposium. Highlights from the event are below. Stay tuned to the Metis Strategy Youtube channel and Technovation podcast in the coming weeks for recordings of individual panel discussions. We look forward to hosting the next Metis Strategy Digital Symposium in December – more details to come soon.
As generative AI continues to flood the headlines, technology and digital leaders are busy discerning hype from reality and exploring use cases that can deliver tangible value across their organizations.
While many companies have used AI in their operations for a while, the rapid rise of generative AI has drawn outsized attention from colleagues well outside the IT department. As a result, many CIOs and their peers have turned their focus toward the tools, processes, and skills needed to take advantage of the emerging technology at scale. Tech leaders are also honing their storytelling skills as they paint a picture for colleagues and customers of how AI-based technologies can drive growth and deliver new, value-added experiences.
In conversations with technology leaders across a variety of industries, we have found that those most successful in their AI endeavors so far are driving excellence across four overlapping workstreams: educate, explore, experiment, and expand. The speakers at this year’s Symposium were no exception. In order to prepare their organizations for an AI-driven future, they noted the following priorities:
Building cross-functional AI teams
Many organizations are taking an interdepartmental approach to developing AI strategies, bringing together stakeholders from across the business to prioritize use cases, build solutions and lead change management.
At Total Quality Logistics, CIO Ryan Kean built a Center of Excellence with 12 people across business units to evaluate new automation use cases, assessing whether or not to develop them based on expected value, tangible benchmarks, and reusability across the enterprise. Kean noted that while a decentralized approach may work for some organizations, it could lead to chaos in others if citizen development happens in silos. At TQL, the CoE model has helped to ensure proper governance, monitoring and development of new solutions.
Similarly, at real estate giant Cushman & Wakefield, Chief Digital and Information Officer Salumeh Companieh’s team has developed an AI task force that includes members from departments including cybersecurity, legal and procurement, to name a few. The task force has developed a standardized process that is helping CBRE actively review 200 use cases globally, delivering necessary governance while focusing on driving client value, market differentiation, and delivering unique insights.
Measuring customer and employee experiences
Speakers noted the critical role advanced AI tools can play in enhancing the digital experience for customers, but emphasized the need for a quality data foundation and clear measures to ensure progress is made.
Keeping customers and employees front and center will be key to enabling increased value and competitive differentiation with AI. To do that, technology leaders must continue to measure and assess progress on these initiatives regularly. DXC Technology CIO Kristie Grinnell conducts both employee NPS and external NPS surveys to measure whether her department is providing the tools and data that create frictionless experiences across the board, noting that both of those measurements should go up as the digitization journey continues. Grinnell also uses sentiment analysis to understand how employees are feeling and uses that feedback to guide employee experience initiatives. She noted that embracing accountability and ownership for specific services over the past years has helped push internal NPS scores from the low 20s to the mid 30s.
The most insightful methods that leaders use to gauge internal and external customer satisfaction and experience are Net Promoter Score (NPS/eNPS) and Customer Sentiment Analysis
At the Home Depot, CIO Fahim Siddiqui noted the virtuous cycle between great employee experience and customer experience: “If you take care of your associates, they will take care of your customers, and everything else takes care of itself.” To ensure that he is providing the right digital features and capabilities, Siddiqui provided all 400,000 customer-facing associates with a handheld device that connects them to the data and insights they need to help customers throughout the network. He also noted that this process sometimes involves interacting with a generative AI model that provides natural language responses to associate queries. Siddiqui noted that employee engagement has reached its highest level, and positive leadership behaviors are also on the rise.
Driving strategic automation
Generative AI tools have created new opportunities to automate and enhance a range of business processes. It is shifting the conversation around automation from one solely of efficiency to one of organizational effectiveness and growth.
One of the quickest ways that technology leaders have unlocked value for their customers and employees is training chatbots on company knowledge bases, ultimately reducing the time it takes to access critical information, answering queries in an easy to understand way, summarizing documents, and enhancing internal search and support. During peak tax season, Intuit employs 20,000 employees to provide advice to customers, resulting in 25 million conversations between customer agents and customers. To extract insights from these conversations and increase agent productivity, CIO Rajan Kumar has been employing AI/ML to provide automatic responses. Kumar’s team is now exploring and implementing a similar chatbot and user interface to provide support for internal employees around IT help desk, HR and procurement questions related to the employee experience.
The top generative AI use cases that MSDS attendees are prioritizing are answering customer queries, summarizing documents, and enhanced internal search/support
Driven by accelerated customer expectations, KeyBank developed a virtual assistant, called MyKey, to connect customers to the contact center and intelligently route support questions to staff faster and more intuitively. CIO Amy Brady has already seen value realized from these digitization efforts, including improved revenue, delivering more to clients with self-service, and improving the job of support agents while reducing turnover in support centers. She shared how improving the agent experience reduced uncertainty around automation. “We can be aspirational and get people engaged, driven by the impact,” she said.
Evolving their approaches to talent development
The rapid rise of generative AI has reignited conversations about how technology will change the way we work. It’s early days, but it’s becoming clearer that successful enterprise adoption will require not just new tools and processes, but also new skills and mindsets. Because generative AI doesn’t require users to know how to code, and doesn’t always require technical experts to drive these applications, the talent paradigm is changing. The shift is prompting technology leaders to reassess talent strategies and the skillsets required to prepare companies to be future ready.
Frustrated with many existing corporate education tools, Mars Global Vice President Shubham Mehrish and his team set about rewriting the playbook to create a more digitally savvy workforce. Mehrish is focused on education at every level of the organization, both top-down and bottom-up, and uses a range of educational and storytelling approaches to communicate with different stakeholders. The rise of AI is also prompting him to think differently about what he is looking for in technologists. Some of the key traits that he believes will mark successful candidates moving forward include curiosity, collaboration, and experimentation.
About one third of MSDS participants said that they are focused on general awareness and basic education in their AI talent development programs
Paramount CIO Lakshman Nathan reflected on the possibility that many companies won’t necessarily need data science or machine learning experts to drive AI applications, changing the way he approaches talent strategy. He is also working to increase general awareness of AI across the organization, including re-educating teams on technologies and processes that already exist inside the organization. “Business users are technologists now,” Nathan said. To increase general AI awareness, Nathan’s team set up a central site for everyone at the company to understand the AI process and get on the same page. The effort is collaborative across security, privacy, and technology teams to evaluate and expedite best use cases.
Aligning AI initiatives to business strategies
In order to generate the best value out of AI, technology leaders have to take a strategic approach aligned to business strategy. While there are many potential use cases for AI, technology departments are in a key position to assess the current and future state of AI-enhanced organizations tailored to specific business goals and industry requirements.
Assessing the best AI strategies to generate value requires thinking about the overall ecosystem and value chain. At NRG Energy, Chief Data and Technology Officer Dak Liyanearachchi is having the Data organization and the IT organization pull data together to focus more on the cost-benefit analysis: “will it generate the value we want?” At the same time, Liyanearachchi is evaluating the role that AI and generative AI will play in shaping the energy industry. He said that AI and technology enables his teams to focus more on the demand side of the energy grid and drives services to create better transparency around energy consumption for customers and households.
CIOs have to make sure they have the basics down before investing in new transformation. To prepare for tackling generative AI strategy and change management, Western Digital’s CIO Sesh Tirumala is looking at two buckets: perform and transform. He emphasized that leaders “get the keys to have a transformational agenda only if you are doing a good job in your perform.” After aligning on the fundamentals and the forecasting view, leaders can prepare their organization to be data-driven with action- and decision-making moving forward. “We don’t just manage for today and yesterday, but align on where we need to be [in terms of] talent strategy, outsourcing strategy, and IP […] to think about the problems of the future. How do you prepare and inspire the organization to look 3-5 years out?”
The majority of respondents at the Metis Strategy Digital Symposium indicated that they are either developing/defining AI strategy or implementing AI strategy across some teams
Rising to the C-Suite sits atop the list of career aspirations for many professionals, both inside and outside technology. No two career journeys are exactly the same, and those who have reached the level of the CIO, COO, and the like all have a unique story to tell.
On the Technovation podcast, Peter High, President of Metis Strategy and author of Getting to Nimble, interviews C-level technology executives across industries on a number of topics, including how they got to where they are today and what they see as difference-makers in their careers.
In this video, the following executives share their “secrets to success:”
- Former Medtronic CEO Bill George
- Cardinal Health CIO Michelle Greene
- Union Pacific CIO Rahul Jalali
- AstraZeneca CDO/CIO Cindy Hoots
- Verizon Chief Strategy Officer Rima Qureshi
- Fannie Mae CIO Ramon Richards
- Tractor Supply Co. Chief Tech, Digital Commerce, and Strategy Officer Rob Mills
- NFL Chief Data & Analytics Officer Paul Ballew
- Land O’Lakes CTO Teddy Bekele
- Former Northwestern Mutual CIO Neal Sample
- Wendy’s CIO Kevin Vasconi
See below for the full video and a list of key takeaways.
#1 Find a mentor
Mentors and coaches provide many benefits to professionals during their careers, providing candid advice while also keeping them grounded and on track. Michelle Greene, Chief Information Officer of Cardinal Health, says she has been intentional about having a mentor to guide her in her leadership role and help create a support system for her development and well-being. She notes that we pay for trainers when we want to get in shape, so why not invest in a coach to guide professional development? “If you’re serious about your career development, you have to embrace that.”
Similarly, among many things, mentorship has taught Rahul Jalali, Chief Information Officer of Union Pacific, to set “impossible goals” and work to develop his career beyond what you might have seen for yourself on your own.
#2 Be open to new and unexpected opportunities
“Jump and trust that the safety net will appear,” says Cindy Hoots, Chief Digital Officer & Chief Information Officer of AstraZeneca. She attributes her success in part to being open to the opportunities that were presented to her and saying yes to different roles she was asked to do, even if they weren’t something she “wanted” to do at the time. As she reflects on these roles, they now serve as some of the most pivotal ones in her career.
Similarly, Rima Qureshi, Chief Strategy Officer of Verizon, suggests not rigidly planning out a career trajectory, but rather seeing and taking opportunities as they come. “They take you in a direction that you may not have expected.”
#3 Never stop listening, never stop learning
It may sound obvious, but it bears repeating: leadership requires an ability to constantly listen and learn. In that spirit, Ramon Richards, Chief Information Officer of Fannie Mae, encourages leaders not to hesitate to ask questions. “If there’s something you don’t understand,” says Ramon, “you’re probably not the only one.”
Ashok Srivastava, Chief Data Officer of Intuit, suggests that the ability to listen to each other is a critical way of learning. “We have to be able to accommodate other points of view, and we have to be able to grow from those interactions.”
#4 Focus on people
Within an organization, the single most important asset is talent. People build solutions, interact with customers, and drive the business. Leaders have a responsibility to develop talent and foster a collaborative culture. “Ultimately, 90% of my job is people,” says Teddy Bekele, Chief Technology Officer of Land O’Lakes, “It’s unleashing that power in the people who then can go do the work.”
To be successful in a leadership role, it’s critical that you understand your team and prepare them to operate in a dynamic environment. Rob Mills, Chief Technology, Digital Commerce, and Strategy Officer of Tractor Supply Company emphasizes this point. “That’s what makes a great leader,” says Rob. “Understand the team and how they’re willing to embrace and accept change.”
#5 Find and nurture your passion
The success you find in your career will be easier to attain once you find your passion. “Figure out what elements of your job are not just a job,” suggests Neal Sample, former CIO of Northwestern Mutual. “Figure out what it is that makes you excited about it.” A role that ignites that internal drive will inevitably generate commitment and keep you on pace for success.
Kevin Vasconi, CIO of Wendy’s, agrees, noting that passion comes through in the work product. “If you get up too many days and you’re not enjoying what you’re doing,” he says, “you probably should try to find something else to do, because life’s too short, right?”
For more insights into the secrets to technology leaders’ success and other anecdotes from their career journeys, be sure to check out the full podcast episodes and YouTube channel.
The Future of Work: Navigating Uncertainty, Avoiding Pitfalls, and Emulating Success with Peter High
Metis Strategy President Peter High joined Joel Beasley on the Modern CTO Podcast to discuss why the winning strategies in the future of work aren’t clear yet; why tech leaders should never commit to one-way doors; and how Domino’s avoided becoming the next Blockbuster.
Listen to the episode here:
Check out the Modern CTO Podcast here.
Produced by ProSeries Media
Marta Zarraga is a seasoned chief information officer, having held the post at Aviva, Vodafone, and British Telecom. In February 2021, Zarraga joined Capital Group, a 90 year old financial services company that manages more than $2.3 trillion in equity and fixed income assets for millions of individual and institutional investors around the world. As others who have taken on new posts in the past year during the global pandemic, this has been an unusual experience for Zarraga, as she is operating in quarantine, unable to meet in person with her new colleagues. The situation is even more unusual in that she is, for the time being, based in London, whereas Capital Group’s headquarters is in Los Angeles.
When asked how her priorities changed during the pandemic, Cathy Bessant, the Chief Operations and Technology Officer of Bank of America said, “It’s hard to remember where we were prior to the pandemic!” Much has changed for everyone, but for a technologist who leads a team that numbers nearly 100,000, there are silver linings to the crisis. “We were used to trite sayings, like, ‘We are living in a digital world,’ but it has played out,” she noted. “Now we are.”
Technology has been a savior of sorts. Companies have leaned on their digital revenue streams as physical revenue streams have dried up and leveraged technology to collaborate and remain productive. But it has not been a panacea. “Technology is the path forward, but we have a keener understanding of its limitations, as well,” Bessant said.
In a recent poll of multiple hundred CIOs to understand how many of them anticipated spending levels on “digital transformation” on a par with, higher, or lower than 2019, nearly 80% of responses indicated that they would have a higher spending level in 2020 on digital transformation initiatives. This is remarkable given the need for cost containment in light of the pandemic and the economic crisis that it has created, but it is driven by the fact that those companies that transformed their operations and their ability to derive digital revenue streams earlier are the companies that have done best during this time of crisis. Executive teams of most companies now realize that this needs to be a priority. Cut costs elsewhere but use some portion of that savings to invest back into further digital transformation.
Michael Smith, the Chief Information Officer of Estee Lauder, brought together a group of technology executives for a conference the day following George Floyd’s death. Given the terrible circumstances of his demise and the subsequent protests in the wake of the tragedy, the technology topics that the group planned to discuss did not seem so meaningful. Ralph Lauren’s CIO Janet Sherlock decided this was a good time to talk about how the gathered executives could be agents for change. Inspired by Sherlock’s comments, Smith decided to activate the ideas, reaching out to his network, fleshing out the ideas further. Earl Newsome, the CIO for the Americas at Linde Inc. was a member of the original group and a primary architect defining the approach.
While there is no textbook for leading through a crisis like the current pandemic, one of the things one can do is learn from the wisdom and insight of leaders who have been around longer than us and have a perspective that is broader than ours. While no leader has faced circumstances quite like these, Charlie Feld’s experience leading technology organizations—for some of the most recognizable names in business—over the last 55 years, is a voice worth listening to.
Feld is one of America’s most recognized and successful Chief Information Officers (CIOs) and information-technology consultants. His leadership insights, operational experience, and strategic framework for enterprise success have been developed over the course of his career. Feld is the author of two books on Leadership, including The Blind Spot: A Leader’s Guide to IT-Enabled Business Transformation. To continue his commitment to helping organizations and executives achieve technology-enabled business transformation, Feld founded The Feld Group Institute in 2009.
Last week, IDC presented its top 10 predictions for IT industry for 2021. The report highlights how enterprise IT teams are navigating the challenges posed by the pandemic and seeking to gain competitive advantage in the new normal.
The pandemic has not just spared but has accelerated digital growth. Despite the disruptions caused globally, enterprise IT teams are marching towards what the report refers to as “digital destiny” as most of the products and services today are either based on digital delivery models or require digital capabilities to stay in the competitive playground. The IDC report states, “65% of global GDP is digitalized by 2022, driving $6.8 trillion of IT spending from 2020 to 2023.”