by Peter High, published on Forbes
3-22-2016
From the beginning of her tenure as Intel’s CIO, Kim Stevenson has pushed IT to be a source of innovation for the company. One of my favorite stories from Implementing World Class IT Strategy was a vignette that described how Stevenson polled her new peers in the leadership team about IT’s performance upon taking the job. She discovered that they were largely satisfied. When she dug into the details more deeply, however, she discovered that IT was not being judged accurately. She had the gumption (it would be proven to be foresight) to note that the company needed to set the bar higher in its evaluation of the IT department.
Since then, Stevenson has ensured that the bar has remained high. One of the most ambitious projects that her team has led has been a big data analytics platform that has changed the way in which the company markets and sells its products. Greg Pearson, Senior Vice President, General Manager, Sales & Marketing at Intel confirms as he notes, “We have truly moved beyond looking at big data analytics as a technical project, it is essential to how we run our business.”
Stevenson estimates that it has already produced $1 billion in revenue and productivity gains to date. For this reason, she is the winner of Forbes CIO Innovation Award for 2016. (For an overview of the award and its criteria, please visit this link.)
Peter High: Please describe the big data analytics platform that your team developed.
Kim Stevenson: This project changed the way Intel markets and sells, delivering USD $1 billion from incremental revenue and productivity gains. The solution delivered a personalized customer experience by translating big data analytics from sales and marketing engagements into new revenue opportunities. It leverages visibility into multiple stages of marketing-to-sales pipeline improving sales closure rates. This platform has driven better decision-making in pricing and demand forecasting for manufacturing. This project has changed business processes for multiple groups at Intel; it has changed the way sales, marketing, distribution and demand forecasting teams work together.
High: Is this idea new to Intel and the industry?
Stevenson: Yes. The project started with a proof of concept in 2014. We used a three-phase approach to build the platform solution.