Sanjay Srivastava, chief digital strategist at IT services company Genpact, joined TechTarget industry editor Linda Tucci on Zoom to discuss the state of digital transformation and the role of the CIO as companies enter a post-pandemic environment.
One of the lasting effects of the pandemic is the transition of companies from digitalization to digital transformation. Business leaders now understand that technology is not just a means to automate existing workflows, but the foundation of new business models and a driver of new business value. With digital transformation, “work itself is changing,” Srivastava said.
The company’s acceptance of digital transformation has changed that too Role of CIOs. “The world of the CIO is now becoming less about tech, tech, tech, if you will, and more about integrating technology, data, people and processes and orchestrating change across all four of those dimensions,” said Srivastava. The chief engineers of corporate IT are now helping to set the course for companies.
Srivastava also discussed three major technical challenges facing the CIOs he works with: using data to create business value, using technology as a disruptor, and providing environmental, social and governance leadership (IT G).
The following transcript has been edited for brevity and clarity.
We come from a time where the business, the IT organization, organizational roles, customer relationships, etc. were essentially everything rearranged by a global pandemic. How do you think IT and the role of IT leaders differ post-COVID-19 compared to pre-COVID?
Sanjay Srivastava: One of the biggest changes resulting from this is the transition from what I would call digitalization to digital transformation. And it’s super interesting because at first glance they seem to have kind of a similar idea – the words are close together – but they couldn’t be further apart in that regard.
In many ways, digitalization is about taking over every process – every end-to-end process. [and] break into its individual parts. They take every single part, automate it, digitize it and make it faster. You make it better, you make it cheaper, you make it higher quality and then you have digitized the process. But in the end the process is exactly the same. It’s just quicker, better, quicker, cheaper, if you will.
Digital transformation is something completely different. It’s not just about taking an end-to-end process and redesigning it, reimagining what the value proposition needs to look like, reimagining the customer experience and delivery – and therefore redesigning how that works End looks over.
And once you’ve done that, you now have the opportunity to take advantage of these new capabilities, these new technologies – things that we didn’t have ten years ago when the original value chain was launched, but that we have now. And with the help of these capabilities, you are now able to redesign, reimagine and align the value proposition in a completely different way, in such a way that – once you are done with digital transformation – the work itself changes. It’s not the same work.
So what we’re finding is that this major shift is happening, and it’s on every CIO, every CEO, and every board that I interact with.
Roles must also change to achieve digital transformation. Let’s start with the CIO job.
Srivastava: If you think about it, the CIO has always been an extremely important role. I would like it [in the past] to the role of a flight engineer. You cannot take off if the flight engineer is not on board. He or she serves an all-important purpose – it’s mission-critical, it’s a game-changing operation. It’s about providing a really important capability: keeping the engine running, keeping the plane running, in this case keeping the company running.
We are witnessing a major shift because with digital transformation – and the use of technology to deliver a new business value proposition – the world is now increasingly beginning to revolve around digitalization. And the role of the CIO is changing as he or she becomes more of a pilot or co-pilot, helping colleagues and their stakeholders, as well as the rest of senior management, truly reimagine the business value proposition based on new technologies. And this is a big change that we’re going through because [CIO] The place at the table, the role of the individual, changes completely.
I think another thing that’s happening is that technology is no longer the long shot. What I mean by this is that digital transformation is not just about the technology, but also about the data. You have to harvest it, light it, and make sense of the data, and that’s a whole different kind of ball of wax, if you will. Then there is the article about people, operating model, resources, skills and cross-training. And then there’s the aspect of process, because as I said, the process changes. The way you do digital transformation is you have to rethink what that looks like, what the operating model looks like, etc.
And so the world of the CIO, if you will, is less about technology, technology, technology and more about the integration of technology, data, people and processes and the orchestration of all four dimensions. This puts the CIO in a completely different position and therefore requires completely different skills. You have to have a completely different approach.
You have to be an outsider to bring in new technologies [new] Ideas and the opportunity to leverage the venture community and new research and development projects, etc. And yet you have to be an insider, because these are fundamental fundamental transformations, big complex changes that we want to drive forward. So you need stakeholder approval. You need the participation of all of your conversation partners.
So the role changes, the profile changes, the skills required change, the way you approach the job changes and who you work with changes – so there is a huge change happening in each one Dimension of this CIO role.
You will work with a range of IT leaders, including CIOs and CTOs to Chief Digital Officers Chief Data Officers. What are your biggest technical challenges?
Srivastava: I’ll tell you the top three. Probably the first – and remember [that] When I talk about CIOs and other IT leaders, I’m talking about large corporations, mostly Fortune 500 companies. As we are in digital transformation today, data is now the biggest driver of transformative value.
And so most of these large companies are really focused on the question, “How do you build a data structure?” How do you shed light on the dark data? And by that I mean things that are in unstructured files and PDFs and other things. You need to extract it, classify it and put it into a structured format so that you can actually apply both analytics and analytical statistics, machine learning and other AI functions.
So that’s a big focus and there’s also a technical side. What is the correct big data structure? How do you carry out the integrations? How do you carry out data management and data engineering and how do you maintain your master data? And there is the governance side. At the core there is a set of data, in some cases there is a set at the edge. Does it make economic sense to bring everything into the core, or should it be distributed – and who controls it? What role do you play in handling data? Do you produce the data? Are you submitting the data? Do you use the data or are you a steward of the data? And what rules then apply in connection with the data? What regulations are there? How do I make sure I’m doing the right thing for the company and taking into account the privacy and ethics component of the data? And data has a high priority on every board, partly because it creates so much value.
I think another point that’s particularly important to technology leaders is the question: “How do you use technology as a disruptor?” The job isn’t about keeping the lights on, it’s not about status to maintain quo. The job isn’t about preventing something bad from happening. The job is about going on the offensive. As I said, it’s about reimagining the value proposition. That’s why there’s a lot of focus now on thinking about what new technologies are coming to market and changing the world around us. How do I start incubating, investing, experimenting and inventing in this space?
I think there are three technologies that people particularly care about. AI is one of them. The metaverse is different – it’s about combining it with AR/VR and reinventing how value is created, how customer satisfaction is achieved and how loyalty is brought into the customer experience. And the other topic that people are particularly passionate about is NFTs, which is using NFTs to connect the virtual world with the physical world. Many of the CTOs and CIOs I work with are watching developments closely. We all learn from it. Each of us makes a few mistakes.
So, [in the list of disruptive technologies] AI is #1 – and it’s here more than the other two. Metaverse is #2 and NFTs are #3.
You’ve talked about leveraging data as one of the top three tech challenges for CIOs. Using technology to disrupt the status quo is another possibility. What is the third?
Srivastava: ESG is extremely important – in all its different parameters. What happened in the past is [that] The CIO was on the receiving end [of ESG projects] – “Hey, can you find out what our carbon footprint is?” The CIO is running around trying to do a mapping and someone comes along and says, “What about diversity and inclusion?” How do we determine where are we? How do we set the right standards for ourselves?
I think what’s happening now is that CIOs are shifting gears because the path to value creation in ESG is through technology and data. It’s really happening through technology and data. And through change management. But most CIOs are, if not the best, then the most qualified people on a leadership team to drive large-scale change.
I notice that when it comes to carbon density, calculating a carbon footprint, or setting goals and measures, for example, CIOs are now stepping up and saying, instead of just responding to requests, “Let’s define the framework .”‘ I see many of my colleagues, friends and people I work with going beyond the traditional CIO job and taking a stance on ESG.