10 ways to accelerate digital transformation
The
pandemic-era
push
to
quickly
boost
digital
touchpoints
and
services
proved
that
transformation
can
happen
fast.
The
pandemic-era
push
to
quickly
boost
digital
touchpoints
and
services
proved
that
transformation
can
happen
fast.
That
has
left
a
lasting
legacy:
Even
as
the
pandemic
recedes,
enterprise
executives
continue
to
expect
CIOs
and
their
IT
departments
to
deliver
transformative
capabilities
at
a
rapid-fire
pace.
If
you
think
you’re
keeping
up,
think
again:
One
recent
study
from
research
firm
Gartner
found
that
the
majority
of
CEOs
(59%)
say
digital
initiatives
take
too
long
and
52%
take
too
long
to
realize
value.
The
pressure
is
on
to
accelerate
digital
transformation,
according
to
CIOs,
researchers,
and
analysts.
They
say
growing
concerns
about
economic
slowdowns
and
a
possible
recession
only
ratchet
up
the
need
for
speed.
Veteran
IT
executives
and
executive
advisors
offer
the
following
10
strategies
that
CIOs
can
employ
to
increase
the
velocity
of
IT
work
and
the
delivery
of
transformative
initiatives.
1.
Shed
the
legacy
mindset
CIOs
have
been
shedding
legacy
technology
for
years,
but
Ken
Piddington,
vice
president
and
CIO
of
US
Silica,
says
it’s
time
for
CIOs
to
kick
the
legacy
mindset
to
the
curb,
too.
That
means
shortening
the
expected
lifespan
on
new
technologies
as
well
as
the
timelines
for
seeing
returns.
In
other
words,
stop
thinking
big
bangs,
seek
out
smaller,
quicker
victories.
Piddington
says
he
accepts
that
some
technology
investments
will
be
short-lived,
that
they
will
be
designed
and
implemented
to
meet
the
needs
of
the
moment
and
deliver
returns
quickly,
and
then
will
have
to
be
retired.
“Understand
that
we
might
have
to
throw
it
away
quickly,
and
that’s
not
a
sunk
cost,”
Piddington
says,
adding
that
as
a
result
CIOs
need
to
get
okay
with
more
churn
in
the
tech
stack
and
truly
embrace
technology
strategies
centered
around
smaller
investments
and
iterative
builds
rather
than
the
big
projects
of
yesteryear.
2.
Go
all-in
with
modern
work
processes
—
particularly
agile
Another
way
to
ensure
IT
can
more
quickly
deliver
transformative
features,
functions,
and
services
is
to
go
all-in
with
modern
approaches
to
work;
more
specifically,
CIOs
say
that
means
fully
embracing
the
agile
development
methodology.
Indeed,
the
majority
turn
to
agile
practices
for
the
speed
it
can
bring
to
enterprise
initiatives:
52%
of
respondents
to
the
2022
State
of
Agile
Report
from
DevOps
platform
maker
Digital.ai
said
they
prioritized
implementing
the
methodology
to
accelerate
time
to
market.
Bobby
Cain
can
attest
to
the
speed
agile
generates.
Cain,
who
started
as
CIO
for
North
America
at
Schneider
Electric
after
serving
nearly
a
decade
as
the
company’s
business
transformation
VP,
says
his
IT
department
adopted
the
Scaled
Agile
Framework
(SAFe),
brought
in
agile
coaches
to
work
with
teams,
and
had
workers
earn
agile
certifications
“so
we
don’t
just
think
but
act
in
agile
terms.”
Cain
points
to
one
recent
project
as
proof
of
the
value
brought
by
this
full
embrace
of
agile.
“The
rebate
modernization
project
is
a
great
example
of
where
we
saved
almost
six
months
in
being
able
to
deploy
a
working
solution,”
he
says,
contrasting
the
agile
project
with
a
previous
waterfall
pilot
where
“we
failed
after
six
months
because
we
designed
it
in
a
vacuum
and
couldn’t
scale
the
solution.”
He
further
explains:
“With
an
agile
team
we
understood
quickly
that
we
needed
additional
data
fields
in
existing
data
requests
and
transfers
with
our
distributors.
Partnering
with
our
distributors
during
the
design
phase
we
quickly
incorporated
VOC
[voice
of
the
customer]
into
our
design
and
it
allowed
us
to
adjust
the
solution
during
build/test
phases
to
quickly
change
on
the
fly
and
ultimately
deploy
much
sooner.
This
will
enable
the
business
to
realize
the
value
and
trace
it
to
the
P&L
ahead
of
schedule.
Equally
as
important,
it
delivers
productivity
savings
to
our
distributors
through
greater
accuracy
and
less
disputes
and
audits.”
Kathy
Kay,
CIO
of
the
Principal
Financial
Group,
is
a
big
believer
in
the
value
of
creating
tools
and
processes
that
can
be
used
over
and
over
to
save
time,
so
much
so
that
she
has
a
cloud
enablement
team
that
builds
and
delivers
such
things
(from
APIs
to
pipelines)
to
other
technologists
who
then
use
them
to
speed
their
own
work.
“So
it’s
easier
for
engineers
to
build
out
new
environments,
it
makes
it
safer
and
easier
to
secure,
and
more
consistent,
and
that
enables
those
teams
to
do
their
work
more
quickly,”
Kay
explains.
Kay
points
to
the
creation
and
use
of
a
principal
design
system
as
an
illustrative
example,
saying
it
is
meant
to
ensure
that
the
company’s
customers
have
a
consistent
experience
when
interacting
with
the
company
regardless
of
where
those
customers
are
located.
The
system
uses
various
AWS
services
that
have
been
designed
and
configured
to
enable
that
desired
customer
experience,
and,
Kay
says,
“When
leveraged,
it
will
allow
an
engineer
to
quickly
build
an
environment
that’s
secure
and
consistent
—
and
to
build
more
quickly
than
if
they
had
to
create
it
for
themselves.”
4.
Educate
your
IT
team
on
key
business
drivers
By
now,
CIOs
everywhere
have
gotten
the
message
that
they
must
align
with
the
business
and
its
strategies.
But
Piddington
has
found
that
keeping
his
team
updated
on
“what’s
really
driving
the
organization,
what
are
the
headwinds
and
tailwinds”
is
equally
important
for
keeping
pace
with
business
needs.
“It’s
my
responsibility
to
make
sure
I
communicate
that
down
to
my
team.
Otherwise,
how
can
they
make
educated
decisions?”
Piddington
asks.
Piddington
shares
such
information
with
his
IT
team,
and
he
also
invites
other
departmental
executives
to
speak
with
his
staff
so
they
learn
about
the
opportunities
and
challenges
that
the
company
is
facing.
That
communication
pays
dividends
when
it
comes
to
speedy
tech
development.
Piddington
points
to
a
recent
exchange
he
had
with
one
of
his
developers.
Knowing
that
the
company
saw
more
customer
access
to
real-time
logistics
information
as
a
way
to
gain
and
keep
market
share,
she
developed
over
just
one
weekend
a
program
that
could
deliver
those
insights
through
Amazon’s
Alexa.
“It
was
about
quickly
showing
the
art
of
the
possible,
the
ease
of
accessing
the
data,”
Piddington
says.
5.
Make
your
business
more
digitally
literate
Similarly,
CIOs
who
have
been
able
to
increase
IT’s
ability
to
deliver
transformative
features,
functions,
and
services
are
educating
their
business
unit
colleagues
on
the
potential
—
and
limits
—
of
emerging
technologies,
says
Kamales
Lardi,
author
of
The
Human
Side
Of
Digital
Business
Transformation
and
managing
director,
Switzerland,
for
Valtech,
a
global
business
transformation
company.
“A
lot
of
times
organizations
like
to
leave
tech
to
the
CIO,
but
that
creates
multiple
challenges.
That
means
the
CIO
is
the
only
one
who
has
tech
literacy,
so
there’s
no
one
else
in
the
room
who
can
help
answer
questions
like,
‘Are
we
aggressive
enough?
Are
we
right
with
resource
allocation?
Is
this
the
best
solution
for
what
we
want
to
achieve?’”
Lardi
says.
Although
CIOs
have
taken
the
lead
in
marrying
technology
solutions
to
enterprise
objectives,
Lardi
says
those
who
can
most
quickly
determine
the
answers
to
such
questions
enjoy
a
true
“collaboration
with
business
leaders
and
board
members
and
the
tech
team.”
6.
Make
IT
training
a
priority
In
another
nod
to
education,
transformative
CIOs
likewise
say
continuously
building
up
the
IT
team
skills
is
essential
for
the
ability
to
move
fast.
Ramon
Richards,
senior
vice
president
and
CIO
of
Fannie
Mae,
says
it’s
about
“investing
in
the
right
training
to
make
sure
people
have
the
right
skills
to
support
the
digital
capabilities
we
think
are
important
for
the
business
we
support.”
This
may
seem
obvious,
but
it
requires
CIOs
committing
adequate
resources
to
identify
what
skills
will
be
needed
as
the
organization
moves
forward,
paying
for
the
teams’
training,
and
carving
out
time
for
teams
to
get
that
training
done,
Richards
says.
For
Richards,
that
has
meant
training
sessions
to
ensure
his
workers
know
how
to
use
cloud
infrastructure
tools
and
services
to
an
optimal
degree
“so
they’re
efficient
in
building
software,
and
so
we
are
able
to
deliver
software
faster
and
can
deliver
more
resilient
software
with
more
controls
in
place
to
protect
us
from
cyber
threats.”
He
adds:
“It
is
about
changing
and
modernizing
how
we
work
across
our
technology
and
processes
by
making
sure
our
people
have
the
right
skills
to
operate.”
Richards
knows
firsthand
the
speed
such
training
can
bring,
sharing
that
he
lacked
enough
skilled
workers
on
prior
transformative
projects
and
had
to
go
to
the
consultant
and
contractor
market
to
find
the
needed
talent
—
a
process
that
added
time
to
the
project’s
delivery.
“We
learned
early
on
in
our
journey
as
we
scaled
digital
capabilities
that
if
you
don’t
have
enough
people
with
the
right
skills
it
will
slow
down
your
progress,”
he
says.
7.
Invest
in
modular
architecture
In
addition
to
talking
about
process
and
people,
transformation
leaders
also
focus
—
not
surprisingly
—
on
the
third
part
of
the
PPT
framework:
technology.
More
specifically,
they
focus
on
investing
in
the
right
core
technologies,
architecture,
and
design
to
enable
their
technologists
to
quickly
deliver
whatever
transformative
tech
the
business
needs.
According
to
the
2022
State
of
Digital
Transformation
report
from
IT
service
management
company
TEKsystems,
87%
of
“digital
leaders
agree
that
their
organization’s
ability
to
compete
in
the
market
is
greatly
dependent
on
the
flexibility
of
their
technology
architecture.”
This
goes
beyond
adopting
cloud
computing
and
software-as-a-service,
they
say.
Rather,
it’s
about
building
an
IT
infrastructure
that’s
as
nimble
and
responsive
as
the
organization
itself
aims
to
be.
It’s
about
being
“modular,
open,
and
agile”
and
building
microservices
so
teams
can
configure
and
reconfigure
as
quickly
as
business
needs
change,
says
Samsara
CIO
Stephen
Franchetti.
“We
need
architecture
that
can
keep
up
with
the
rate
and
pace
of
business
change,”
he
says.
“So
we
have
to
step
back
and
consciously
build
that
architecture
[where
it’s]
easy
to
connect
and
easy
to
access
data.”
Franchetti
has
seen
how
that
speeds
up
work.
“We
essentially
use
these
microservices
as
Lego
building
blocks,
being
able
to
quickly
rearrange
them
to
enable
outcomes
for
the
business,”
he
says.
For
example,
Samsara
IT
quickly
brought
together
microservices
around
customer
and
product
usage
information
to
enable
more
real-time
invoicing,
payment,
and
product
delivery
information
on
the
company’s
website.
IT
then
used
those
same
services
to
enable
the
company’s
go-to-market
teams
to
have
better
data
around
customer
usage,
support
cases,
and
interactions
with
the
company
website.
“We
were
able
to
achieve
these
outcomes
in
a
fraction
of
the
time;
using
the
legacy
approach
would
have
taken
many
[more]
months
to
achieve,”
Franchetti
says.
8.
Speed
up
access
to
data
Another
critical
component
for
speed:
ready
access
to
high-quality
data.
Many,
if
not
most,
transformative
efforts
—
such
as
automating
processes
and
personalizing
user
experiences
—
rely
on
data.
So
it’s
imperative
for
CIOs
to
break
down
remaining
data
silos
and
build
a
data
architecture
that
supports
immediate
access
to
needed
data.
Getting
that
work
done
means
agile
teams
won’t
have
to
pause
and
wait
for
the
data
they
need
in
the
middle
of
projects,
explains
Thomas
Randall,
advisory
director
at
Info-Tech
Research
Group
and
its
SoftwareReviews
division.
“There
can’t
be
independent
silos;
there
needs
to
be
integration
across
data
portfolios,”
Randall
adds.
“[Departmental
executives
need
to
ask,]
‘How
might
we
capture,
store,
and
leverage
data
for
the
benefits
of
other
departments
as
well?’”
Samsara’s
Franchetti
says
CIOs
often
struggle
on
this
front
due
to
the
sheer
volume
of
challenges
around
data.
His
approach
has
been
to
tackle
it
bit
by
bit,
leaning
on
a
quote
(attributed
to
South
African
Anglican
bishop
Desmond
Tutu)
about
there
being
“only
one
way
to
eat
an
elephant:
a
bite
at
a
time.”
“I’ve
struggled
across
companies
to
get
full
investments
to
eat
that
elephant
all
at
once,
so
to
make
it
successful,
I
attach
data
initiatives
to
business
outcomes,”
he
says.
“And
by
building
out
these
strategic
use
cases,
doing
each
one
in
the
right
way,
ensuring
we’re
building
the
architecture
in
the
right
way,
we
build
out
these
bodies
of
work
that
get
us
to
where
we’re
in
a
position
to
expand
and
expand
more
rapidly.”
This
incremental
approach
to
data
then
produces
a
flywheel
effect,
he
explains,
allowing
each
subsequent
initiative
to
move
faster
by
building
on
the
work
already
done.
“It
comes
down
to
success
breeds
success,”
Franchetti
says.
9.
Deal
directly
with
customers
Another
way
to
speed
transformation:
Ditch
some
of
the
intermediaries
that
exist
between
the
CIO
and
the
customer.
“I
would
challenge
any
CIO
on
how
much
time
they
spend
with
their
customers
and
how
much
direct
knowledge
they
get
from
their
customers.
In
most
organizations
the
touchpoints
with
customers
are
the
product
development
teams,
marketing
and
sales
teams.
CIOs
rarely
have
that
touchpoint,”
Valtech’s
Lardi
says.
“But
one
way
to
accelerate
transformation
is
to
understand
who
the
target
audience
is
today
and
tomorrow,
what
problems
you
are
trying
to
solve
for
them,
and
what
experiences
they
want,
so
you’re
building
solutions
for
your
customers
rather
than
building
solutions
to
be
sold.”
She
says
CIOs
and
their
IT
teams
have
a
plethora
of
data
that
they
can
access
to
gain
insights
about
their
customers.
She
also
says
CIOs
should
find
ways
to
directly
engage
customers
—
something
that
fits
well
with
the
modern
work
processes
(such
as
agile
development
and
human
centered
design)
that
leading
CIOs
have
adopted.
10.
Align
IT’s
pace
to
each
business
unit
Yes,
CIOs
do
indeed
have
to
move
as
fast
as
the
business
needs.
But
at
the
same
time,
they
don’t
want
to
be
so
fast
that
they
outpace
them,
Piddington
says.
“You
really
have
to
be
in
tune
with
your
organization,
because
everyone
says
they
want
something
yesterday.
But
not
all
things
in
all
business
units
need
to
have
the
pedal
to
the
floor.
There
are
different
levels
of
speed
needed,”
he
says.
That’s
why
CIOs
must
understand
the
pace
of
the
various
business
units
and
their
individual
needs,
Piddington
says.
He
uses
that
insight
to
prioritize
projects,
thereby
ensuring
he
can
deliver
speed
where
and
when
it
will
make
an
impact.
“Even
if
IT
can
build
[something]
quickly,
if
the
business
isn’t
ready
to
use
it
then
it
will
sit
on
the
shelf.
So
we’ve
created
shelfware,
and
I
could
have
used
those
resources
to
deliver
something
elsewhere
more
quickly
that
could
have
delivered
an
ROI
right
away,”
Piddington
explains.
“It’s
about
understanding
the
timing
of
the
investment
to
maximize
its
return.”
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