I was recently asked to pen an article on the necessity of a Chief Information Officer (CIO) in the growth of a business. Stepping back, I wanted to emphasize on what the role should really attain versus what the role is tagged to achieve. A CIO is accountable for multiple facets in a company; one such aspect is enabling Artificial Intelligence through a digital journey.
Garbage in, Garbage out (GIGO); the phrase does sound unusual, but its meaning is quite straightforward. If the process itself is not well developed, then naturally the output will be flawed. Similarly, when features like Enterprise Architecture, Process Engineering or Data Lineage are not implemented well within the organization, then trying to adopt Artificial Intelligence (AI) becomes pointless. The question then becomes, do you really want to achieve excellence; or do you want to make a show of trying, but not achieving?
When getting answers on what is happening within the organization seems like a mammoth task; it is likely that a simple data lineage does not exist, or there is a lack of architectural perspective.
Understanding what all is occurring would then seem like a rhetorical question. My advice is to challenge the digital landscape of your organization, to see what type of questions it can answer. Can your landscape answer simple questions, like how much manpower you have in your organization, at a click of a button; or will 15 other people have to sit and collate that data?
If we are able to gauge the maturity of the organization, based on the type of questions it can answer, then the journey becomes measurable. Strategies and road maps can be easily created on how to move from one state to another. A CIO typically needs to look into a 5 year growth road map; however, if GIGO is not considered in advance, the strategy is likely to fail.
Leaders in any organization make decision based on the information which is available to them. One such leader I look up to is Bob Benmosche, the CEO of an esteemed organization; with whom I had privilege of working. Sitting at the end of the table, he would ask very simple but effective questions to us. They were extremely straightforward questions, but we would have to run helter-shelter to even try to answer them. At that moment, the one thing we were wishing for was for us to have been great at our digital journey beforehand.
How, then, can an organization improve their digital progress? The answer is to use “ANOVA”, or ‘Analysis of Variance’. This approach involves testing the degree of differences in maturity between two or more stages of the journey, thus eliminating the extremely long time frame before the organization starts to reap the benefits.
Under ANOVA, the digital journey can be broken into four steps: Descriptive, Inquisitive, Predictive and Prescriptive. Each of these can be explained by asking certain questions. For example, the question about manpower mentioned above represents the descriptive journey. Can your digital landscape answer that question? If yes, then great, time to ask the next questions; otherwise try to change your landscape to do so. For the inquisitive journey, the question to be asked is ‘How much time on average does your organization take to onboard a resource; and is your onboarding process streamlined to meet the needs of a project?’. If your digital landscape can answer the questions which includes what- if analysis of various natures, such as which contract has better Return on Investment, or what portion of the manufacturing cycle yields best results; then congrats, you’ve understood the predictive stage. Finally, for the perspective journey, you should check if your digital landscape is adept at helping the business tackle questions about organizational strategy and business growth.
Using ANOVA, if you as a leader are able to create a simple formula tailored to your organization, which can help you understand the state of your landscape; it would easily take the organization to a higher stage of prescriptive analytics. Since one is focusing on answering business questions, the need for adoption of strategy becomes a reality; which is one of the biggest obstacles a CIO can face.
Without a well-developed digital journey to act as a basis, talking about Artificial Intelligence in your organization is futile. Don’t forget – ‘Garbage in, Garbage out’.
Today, the role of the Chief Information Officer is being used interchangeably with Chief Digital Officer, Chief Technology Officer or Chief Information and Digital officer. Along with growing the business, it is also important to drive Innovation, Transformation, Agility and Modernization.
Changing times require new strategies; it’s the CIO’s job to create them.
The author is a technology leader and the author of “Clinch the Deal” & “Deep Emotional Learning Simplified”
