role of cios in the era of connection

Role of CIOs in the Era of ConnectionInnovating America’s Future

The Role of CEOs in the Era of Connection: Innovating America’s Future 2

3 Executive Summary

4 Customer-centric innovation

5 CIO: What is the Chief Information Officer?

7 AEC/O big data opportunities

8 Responding to the new AEC/O digital business landscape

10 Fighting tomorrow’s war with yesterday’s lessons and attitudes

12 CIOs in the era of connection—connecting big data to business strategy

12 Final summary and key takeaways

14 Appendix A – CIO Survey results

Contents

3

Executive Summary

Chief Information Officers (CIOs) will face dramatic changes

in the next five to seven years, as architecture, engineering,

and construction and owner-operated (AEC/O) firms come to grip

with the massive amounts of information being generated by all

things digital. They will face new technology, redefined business

processes, and shifting customer demands, both internally and

externally. Leading this evolution will be critical, as CIOs are the key

company decision makers and leaders within AEC/O firms, deter-

mining the success of a firm’s growth and business strategies by

understanding the intersection of information and business value.

Role of CIOs in the Era of ConnectionInnovating America’s Future

CIOs cannot ignore the major issues

facing them in today’s business climate:

customer-centric innovation; a new “era

of connection”; big data; and fighting

tomorrow’s business wars with today’s

technologies. The next industrial revolu-

tion will be a “connected era” where

big data, created by connected devices,

power decision-making, and above all -

strategy. This generation, who are both

users and customers, will share and use

this information as normal currency and

expect those who provide services to

them to work in a similar manner. The

era of connection will be vastly different

from previous generations—when many

AEC firms were educated and trained to

provide services. Half of this new 86+

million generation doesn’t own a vehicle

and over 60 percent are urbanites.

Imagine the impact to the configuration

of our cities.

The results of our survey of CIOs

of major AEC/O firms are telling, and

the need for action is apparent: 62

percent of survey respondents stated

the biggest challenge going forward is

outdated tools and technology. But with

75 percent focusing budgets on busi-

ness as usual, the case to make new,

key technology investments for innova-

tion and business differentiation must

be made. How will CIOs not just cope

with, but capitalize on, these changing

times? To better understand this pending

transition and companies’ areas of focus,

we collected insight from AEC/O CIOs.

The results of that survey are intended to

identify what CIOs need to do business

wide over the next several years, not just

to stay relevant but to lead in this era of

big data. Following are responses to the

survey and outcomes of the CIO sympo-

sium where these issues were discussed.


Customer-centric innovationThe intersection of information and

business value is becoming a critical area

for CIOs as the business world comes

to grip with the massive amounts of in-

formation being generated by all things

digital. CIOs (both public and private)

will be faced with profuse changes in

technology and business processes in

the next five to seven years: BIM and its

future; 50–75 billion connected devices;

the future of project management;

shifting O&M data strategies; changes

in how things are made; and the impact

of cloud, mobile, social, and big data

on firms’ future and current business

strategies. Understanding how CIOs will

address these issues is a critical step in

all AEC/O firms’ business strategies, as

the role of the CIO as a key company

decision maker rises in importance and

influence.

As discussed in the book The Age

Curve: How to Profit from the Coming

Demographic Storm by Kenneth

Gronbach, each product and service

has a “best customer” that sustains a

business. And the built environment

industrial revolution will be a “connected

era” where big data, created by con-

nected devices, powers the Gen Y, who

will share and use this information as

normal currency and expect those who

provide services to them to work in a

similar manner. It will be vastly different

than that of previous generations, when

many providing firms were educated

and trained to provide services. The new

Gen Y professionals think differently—

their opinions on social, economic, and

environmental issues are different, and

that will influence our future. With more

of this generation living in urban centers

(60–70 percent), their influence will

shape the mobility requirements of those

cities for coming decades.

Our CIO survey aims to identify areas

of focus and create near-term goals to

help CIOs stay relevant in the industry

(without being run over by big data). This

report includes the responses to the sur-

vey and the outcomes of the CIO survey

symposium where these were discussed.

serviced by AEC/O professionals is no dif-

ferent. CIOs will be a key contributor to

deciding what technology is needed to

collect the information and knowledge

to make this shift, while ensuring data

security. CIO’s are standing on a gold

mine, but are so distracted by security

that it is incredibly difficult for them to

grasp the opportunity, let alone grab

the influence within their firms that they

need to have. The upcoming Generation

Y (echo-boomers) are the largest genera-

tion in history—some 86+ million—thus

dwarfing the last large generation, the

baby boomers at 78 million. Today’s Gen

X are only 69 million strong.

With the much smaller Generation X

(many of us) coming to our end of the

buying cycle like the baby boomers

before us, dramatic shifts are pending

in our built environment and what is

important, what it looks like, and what

we prioritize. It will be Gen Y and their

ideas that will shape our future, just

as the baby boomers shaped it dur-

ing our industrial revolution. This next

“ It will be Gen Y and their ideas that will shape our future, just as the baby boomers shaped it during our industrial revolution.”


CIO: What is the Chief Information Officer?The responsibilities of the CIO are

changing. According to the survey

results and the discussion that followed

during the symposium, a chasm exists

between their traditional tech focus

and the coming leadership role that

will be required of them—one that

goes beyond IT to business develop-

ment and strategy. This leadership role,

one that gathers, handles, distributes,

interprets, and makes decisions about

information, is going to be powerful in

driving future strategy.

As CIOs get more involved in strategy

and business development, they must

balance this new area of responsibility

with that of the traditional IT execu-

tive role, without stifling innovation.

However, when “the lights go out”

or data is breached, they still have to

be on top of their historical IT func-

tion. This leads to a broader ques-

tion: In today’s data-centric era, do

we need a new “C” title—a CSO, or

Chief Security Officer? The discussion

focused on the fact that the role of the

CIO has changed fundamentally in this

era where security is more than bits

and bytes, it is both critical and truly

something else—a pathway into a firm,

or clients’ secrets that need to be 100

percent protected, day and night.

Survey responses were noticeably

light on the value of social media or

SMAC in general (social media, mobili-

zation, analytics, and cloud) in a CIO’s

strategy. With 90 percent of project

overruns coming from non-communi-

cation of non-agreement (that is, failed

discussions among stakeholders) this

statistic resonated with attendees as an

area that is low-hanging fruit for SMAC

to address and improve. Building and

implementing a social network success-

fully requires buy-in, commitment, and

participation of corporate leadership

at its highest levels. But the effort of

crowdsourcing information from across

the company can increase harmonization

of internal communication and help

create a culture of sharing.

In 1996, a federal law that made IT

a priority in the federal government

and mandated agencies to create the

CIO position truly changed the game in

raising the status of the CIO to a C-level

executive. The corporate world took

note and followed suit. Originally, the

CIO was under the purview of the CFO,

as the power of controlling the technol-

ogy budget made the CIO defer major

decisions until the CFO signed off. More

recently, this has changed in many

innovative firms as the role of informa-

tion (versus just IT budget) is rising in

importance in all strategic decisions

and is now required for sound business

strategy. This shift, however, requires

that key priorities must be addressed

to ensure the CIO as a visionary type of

leader versus someone who runs the

day-to-day. Respondents stated that it

takes the complete support and buy-in

of the CEO, who views information at

all levels, to transform a company’s

business model and the objective of

the CIO.

It is critical to know that the mission

of the CIO is still grounded in its origins

from 1996. What was important in the

‘90s is just as important today, but with

more sophisticated tools. Priorities back

“ It is critical to know that the mission of the CIO is still grounded in its origins from 1996. What was important in the ‘90s is just as important today, but with more sophisticated tools.”


then included customer satisfaction,

employee engagement, and security

of employees and of internal systems;

those priorities have not changed. CIOs

need to understand the needs of the

company, and for that they need to

know the needs of customers, both

internal and external. What role does

(or can) technology play in getting

what the customers want? How to get

that message back to the leaders of

the company is crucial to understand

as the pace of technology increases.

The biorhythmic cycle of the informa-

tion technology realm is often 10 times

faster than in the AEC/O space, so

keeping pace can be challenging.

Attendee discussion at the symposium

around employee engagement and its

connection to customer satisfaction

revealed one of the ways to keep pace:

use internet protocol (IP) that exists

within the company—not IP in the

sense of technology, but IP in the sense

of employees. While this strategy may

be obvious to some firms, it is clear in

the discussion of the CIO survey at the

symposium that responses to the survey

(Appendix, page 20/chart 1) were

noticeably light on the value of social

media or SMAC in general.

CIOs stated the focus on another

“I”—as in “Internal” relationships within

companies—is certainly important and

the platform for building those relation-

ships needs to be broad enough to cap-

ture the breadth of the human experi-

ence in those relationships. However, if

successfully done, that platform allows

for not only better internal commu-

nication through open sharing and a

sense of community regardless of place

or seniority in the organization, but a

company that can better respond to

the changing and challenging needs of

their clients by utilizing all employees to

tackle a client project and challenges,

not just the select few project man-

ager/client agents. This crowdsourced

company approach enables information

to be used to drive innovation both

internally and externally, and the CIO

is best executive positioned to make

this happen.

believe their top business priority in the next 18–24 months is strategy transformation to new business models. 2015 cio survey

44%


AEC/O big data opportunitiesAs we know, the intersection of informa-

tion and business value is becoming a

critical role for CIOs in the age of big

data. But with this knowledge comes

the question of what or where the

opportunities are. In discussion with

CIOs about the one recommendation

they would pass along to peers in order

to understand the opportunities to use

big data to create value (e.g., innovate),

the following suggestions were made:

•Give a human face to big data

Integrate people into big data plat-

forms by including features that organi-

cally generate engagement (which can

be utilized for work benefits) rather than

by promoting the platform directly as a

purely professional tool. This reinforced

the fact highlighted from the survey that

building and implementing a social net-

work successfully requires buy-in, com-

mitment, and participation and putting a

human face on big data helps to accom-

plish this. And crowdsourcing information

from across the company helps increase

harmonization of internal communication

and create a culture of sharing.

• Create a case study

A case study (or studies) with dem-

onstration projects including industry-

backed research could help motivate

others. Building a team with appropri-

ate risk tolerance to try an innovative

approach—or mitigating the risk to

individual enterprises by aggregating it at

an industry level— means the team can

undertake a project that explores a specific

context and generates a concrete/tan-

gible result that can be shared. For

example, projects might look at sources

of big data, how those sources of data

can be used in innovative ways, and

what unrelated/unanticipated insights

emerge from the exercise.

• Intersection of big data and the finan-

cial bottom line

Because CEOs and executives are often

preoccupied with saving money or mak-

ing new money based on advantages

uncovered by analysis on profit, focus

on identifying opportunities in big data

with a financial bottom line perspective

in mind. Identify lessons learned and best

path forward and document these as

supporting business case metrics to apply

in a wider fashion across the company.

•Appoint a “Chief Librarian”

For AEC/O enterprises, especially

large companies, someone needs to dig

through and identify the range of data

sources, organize the information, and

develop approaches to curating it so

useful insights can be extracted. It will

be incredibly useful to have a dedicated

“Chief Librarian” to lead the charge to

uncover and knock off what is valuable

to your industry. A case in point was

“ Building and implementing a social network successfully requires buy-in, commitment, and participation and putting a human face on big data helps to accomplish this.”

“ Because CEOs and executives are often preoccupied with saving money or making new money based on advantages uncovered by analysis on profit, focus on identifying opportunities in big data with a financial bottom line perspective in mind.”


discussed. One development company

did an analysis of all their project design

documents sitting on a server and dis-

covered that they had used over 12,000

different types of walls over the past 10

years. This was driving up their costs,

and steps could now be taken to reduce

reinventing each project. This issue

never would have come to light without

looking at a large range of data sources.

Responding to the new AEC/O digital business landscapeThe pressures to focus on the right way

to increase our built environment—by

taking into account new processes

that use the power of the cloud both

computationally and collaboratively—set

the context for creating strategies to

answer the big challenges demanded of

our generation. Given today’s onslaught

of information, CIOs need to know what

kind of data to collect, how to package

and share that data within a firm, and

how to use this knowledge to influence

the firm’s future strategy leads to

understand where new business

opportunities lie.

It is clear that success varies by firm

size and service industry, but it starts

with the vision set out by the CEO using

the business and data insight of the CIO.

Big data is a phrase most commonly

associated with the finance and retail

sectors, but now for the first time in the

history of AEC, we are starting to capture

large amounts of highly trustworthy

information using Building Information

Modeling (BIM) technology and related

systems. The question is, what might

A/E/C/O organizations do with such

capabilities?

Today’s decisions can no longer be

made in silos, with limited insight. The

good news is that this explosion in digital

content is proving to be a stimulant for

innovation, to remove traditional barriers

and shift to outcome-based approaches

in order to deliver the highest lifecycle

return versus lowest lifecycle cost of the

built environment. And that’s poised to

change the way we all think about, plan,

design, build, finance, operate, and

maintain our built environment.

Using big data analytics to drive down

the number of mistakes made in the real

world, in everything from asset design

to operations and maintenance, is key;

it’s far cheaper to get it wrong virtu-

ally than in reality. The phrase “if only”

should disappear from the lexicon of

project planning, design, and delivery—

think of the boost this could deliver to

your productivity. The not-so-obvious

is what such an environment might do

for responding to the boom-and-bust

effect on the talent pool. How do you

get people up-to-speed quickly? Might

such environments provide an alternative

way to accelerate new recruits through

the process of acquiring knowledge and

being industry-wise by ‘learning in the

context of the real world’?

“ Big data is a phrase most commonly associated with the finance and retail sectors, but now for the first time in the history of AEC, we are starting to capture large amounts of highly trustworthy information using Building Information Modeling (BIM) technology and related systems.”


In the Making the Grade Report, 45

AEC/O companies got together to talk

about how, as a national imperative, we

promote regaining America’s infrastruc-

ture leadership through a renewed com-

mitment to infrastructure development,

both civil and social, for the long term.

It is a high-level strategy, and a starting

point to rekindle the foresight, initiative,

investment, innovation, and hard labor

that went into developing a national

public infrastructure that has served as

the foundation for economic expansion,

prosperity, and opportunity for succes-

sive generations of Americans. Part of

accomplishing this goal is using informa-

tion and knowledge to deliver on the

promise of what big data could provide

for that process. Now is the time for us

to define what big data means, not to

finance or IT, but to the A/E/C profession-

als and firms who are the ones to deliver

our future built environment.

CIOs stated the data boom represents

an opportunity to completely transform

how firms design, construct, and operate

buildings and infrastructure. While most

agreed with this, the survey showed only

42 percent use big data always or even

sometimes in planning of business and

customer strategy. The remaining 58

percent use it seldom, if at all.

In discussions, some of this lack of

using big data comes from the fact that

with anything new there are barriers that

must be overcome. Issues like interoper-

ability, reliability, and accuracy of the

data, and—of course, of prime concern

to a CIO—privacy and security. Beyond

the internal view, the external view must

be taken into account. Some CIOs noted

that it’s a trust factor for the most part.

Consultancies using data for customer

strategies in particular, like data-driven

planning, design, or operations, may

require their client to open its data books

or allow greater access to its employees

or its customers for feedback. If this

is a public client, the sensitivity can be

tenfold.

Even with this required change and

concern around security, there was

consensus with many on some aspects

of what big data means to AEC/O

organizations. It was agreed that big

data is only useful when it can:

• Be converted into knowledge

• Combine analyses of different sources

of big data, leading to better decisions

• Produce actionable intelligence, mak-

ing connections and patterns that you

would not have otherwise have made

• Lead to new business and client

opportunities

It is critically important for firms

to have an overall strategy for big

data—but how and what are the tough

questions. The executive branches of

many firms want to see technology as a

commodity, but this is focused on the old

way and will not drive the innovation op-

portunities previously discussed. It has to

be connected to new opportunities and/

or streams of revenue from outside or re-

duction of costs and operating expenses

inside. A case in point: imagine being

able to sell information about everything

from rivets to optimal structural construc-

tion approaches based on size, risk, and

cost from a thousand-odd projects to

potential developers? As this new age

of connection arrives, the distinction in

products changes, and firms are now

A National Six-Point Plan

to Regain America’s

Infrastructure Leadership

”Never doubt that a small group of committed people can change the world. It is the only thing that ever has.”

—Margaret Mead, Anthropologist

Makingthe Grade Report Out

Making the Grade Report: A National Six-Point Plan to Regain America’s Infrastructure Leadership. Download whitepaper.


giving technology and innovations (IP)

away so that they become advertising

and marketing, positioning these firms as

thought leaders and innovators.

Big data in decision making involves

first securing a commitment within a

company’s internal teams and then

with external customers, partners, or

organizations, then working as a holistic

team, reinventing internal and external

processes in order to organize behavior

to this new approach. This skill set is

not new to many CIOs, but few have

exercised those muscles to such a wide

potential audience.

Fighting tomorrow’s war with yesterday’s lessons and attitudesHow do we handle real-time analytics,

social media analysis, growing volumes

of video, and staggering volumes of big

data assets? How is an explosion of digi-

tal content driven by 50–75B connected

devices changing everything we know

about how everything is made? Under-

standing these questions and ensuring

current tools and technology can handle

the answers will unlock the potential to

drive future strategy and business model

transformation.

CIOs have always considered keeping

the company—and, by extension, its

data—safe as the top priority. A state-

ment often quoted by CIOs is “You’ve

either been hacked already, or you just

don’t know it yet.” In today’s world this

is an unfortunate but true statement,

and with the upcoming deluge of con-

nected devices by 2020 (the 50–75B),

there will be many more potential

points of entry (or sources of leaks) to

be secured. With the main concern of

security aside, 63 percent of the CIOs

who responded to the survey indicated

that they see modernization/innovation

as their top priority, with cyber security

coming in second at 13 percent. Clearly,

this shows a forward direction; CIOs

understand that securing their company

and client data is paramount, and they

have a good understanding of how to do

that. The next step is to harness and use

that information for business innovation

and to modernize how they drive new

business and business models.

We are on the brink of the biggest

change in civil and social infrastructure

since the industrial revolution. Technology

is rapidly changing how all AEC/O firms

design and make things. Additionally, 56

percent of the surveyed CIOs noted capital-

izing on internal data as the area in which

they see the greatest potential for produc-

tivity growth. Some of these opportunities

that can innovate processes by capitalizing

on internal data include:

•Using cloud computing to access vast

amounts of processing power on de-

mand—the so-called “infinite comput-

ing”—so that even the most complex

analytical challenges will become routine,

so that eventually a design or commercial

change can be seen in near real time.

•Using infinite computing to automati-

cally explore the infinite range of design

possibilities and land on the “best”

solution—a process called “generative

design”—enabling us to generate ideas

from algorithms, and to analyze intercon-

nected solution sets to improve building

performance and infrastructure strategies

to envision buildings and infrastructure

that can better meet client and society’s

needs and be constructed efficiently

and effectively.

“ We are on the brink of the biggest change in civil and social infrastructure since the industrial revolution. Technology is rapidly changing how all AEC/O firms design and make things.”

agree that modernization /innovation is the top priority. 2015 cio survey

63%


• Searching for patterns horizontally

across your portfolio of projects, or

vertically through your historical proj-

ects, together with other data sources

in order to identify everything from

early signs of stress in your supply

chain, to better strategies for material

hedging, to the best way to optimize

cash flow, to the root cause for overes-

timation in your bids.

CIOs noted there is much that can

be learned by using the vast amount of

information contained in their project

files (Appendix A, page 13/chart 2). They

also agreed that new technologies and

processes have evolved for the design,

engineering, construction, operations,

and maintenance of our built environ-

ment that are superior to previous ways.

These new technologies and processes

help us approach the built environ-

ment as integrated, networked “smart”

systems rather than isolated building and

engineering projects.

With 62 percent of survey respondents

stating the biggest challenge going for-

ward is outdated tools and technology,

it is clear that the methods, standards,

and approaches that have served AEC/O

firms well for many decades are now

becoming outmoded and can actually

stifle innovation in developing future

buildings and infrastructure that can

ultimately save money and time and

improve public outcomes. The following

list is not exhaustive, but it illustrates the

issues that require equal participation

and commitment by companies and their

clients, including government agencies at

the federal, state, and local levels:

• Siloed people, workflows, applications,

and processes that cause redundancy,

reduce productivity, and result in

information conflicts and increased

project costs

• Limited private investment in public

infrastructure projects due to a track

record of inconsistent performance

in meeting project time/budget goals

and a lack of transparency about the

project pipeline process

• Increasing data from smart technologies

overwhelming our current infrastructure

systems and, with no funding to

address it, preventing the

extraction and application of the

newest and most valuable

“ 56 percent of the surveyed CIOs noted capitalizing on internal data as the area in which they see the greatest potential for productivity growth.”

“The methods, standards, and approaches that have served AEC/O firms well for many decades are now becoming outmoded and can actually stifle innovation in developing future buildings and infrastructure that can ultimately save money and time and improve public outcomes.”

Internet-based technologies

• Equally important, public policies at all

levels of government that lock-in out-

moded approaches to overall project

delivery, including design and

engineering, construction, as well

as asset management of public

infrastructure projects

The three key areas that emerged


from this discussion were security; internal

data mining; and updating tools

and technology.

In an increasingly connected world,

economic imperatives and resiliency im-

peratives are coming together. Leaders in

the AEC/O industry, including CIOs, have

spent much time thinking about how

innovative strategies in planning, design,

and maintaining the asset can develop

modern, resilient buildings and infrastruc-

ture. Already, advanced technologies are

available across the entire spectrum of

development―from the opportunities

big data provides to analyze more com-

plex risks and problems to avoid wasting

time and money, to BIM processes that

can stretch investment dollars through-

out the design and construction phases,

along with introducing predictive asset

management approaches to prolong the

asset life once built.

CIOs in the era of connection—connecting big data to business strategyIt is clear from listening to the CIOs’

discussions and from the responses to

the survey questions that connecting big

data to their business strategy is key to

success. And we must make sure that

this process has a “human face” to it:

big data must be useful and invite use,

acceptance, open collaboration, and

knowledge sharing, internally as well as

externally, so it can foster innovations

in client projects. Today all manner of

things interconnect and relate to each

other and other systems, both physically

and digitally. We are on the brink of

the biggest change since the industrial

revolution. These changes are not only

dramatic, but they are happening fast.

More changes are coming in the next

decade than many have experienced in

their entire lifetime, and the CIO is right

in the middle of these changes—and in

some ways in the driver’s seat.

CIOs must look at big data operating

across three axes: business data opera-

tions; project and engineering disciplines;

and external reference data of clients.

In this coming era of connection, the

internal operations of what a CIO does

remain the same, namely keep the

lights on and the costs down while

executing on a business strategy that

connects and balances the needs of

different departments.

The objective, of course, is to keep

the business relevant by constantly

improving. More and more, CIOs will be

experiencing expanded external facing

roles and responsibilities. These include

client facing, managing relationships, and

managing competitiveness by innovating.

For CIOs to really hit their stride in leading

this change during the era of connection,

as a group they need to start building

discipline about what sources of data are

relevant and how they perceive buckets of

information and what they relate to, and

connect all of the data sources to find

out what value/meaning is out there to

be utilized.

Final summary and key takeaways The availability of large amounts of

data and computing power (the cloud)

means you can find expertise virtually

and no longer physically, leading to

the emergence of younger, lighter,

nimbler competitors that can do things

more quickly than their incumbents.

This business transition is from inside

to outside, where some of the best

CIOs now come from the operations

side instead of the technical side of

businesses—a fact that demonstrates

“ It is clear from listening to the CIOs’ discussions and from the responses to the survey questions that connecting big data to their business strategy is key to success.”


the expanded role expected of CIOs. The

ability to use the cloud infrastructure

and big data will you give you a short-

term competitive advantage over those

that don’t. It will be brief, however.

While more must be figured out, here

are some of the initial takeaways, and

initial best practices, from CIOs that are

good starting points to enter this era of

connection and help connect big data to

business strategy:

•Aggregating data and making the

correlations—it’s the key to big data

• Emphasis on the social aspect of

social media: humanizing colleagues

as crowdsource contributors beyond

their designated role

•Gamification—the use of game

technology to drive collaboration,

to encourage people to buy into the

system and engage

• Strategic big data priorities backed

by and originating with the CEO but

driven by the CIO

• Engagement not determined as much

by the platform or the technology so

much as the culture

• Skills search—find similarities with

clients, coworkers, and teams and

map that talent

• Generalizing demographics: In most

enterprises today, deep technologi-

cal sophistication is a characteristic of

younger generations, yet these young

people are nowhere near the CEO or

boardroom. Look at ways organizations

can work to fully grasp the opportuni-

ties of these internal “technologists”

when developing strategy and

high-level decisions.

• Take old structure and apply it to

new technology to speed integra-

tion and adaptation. For example,

BYOT started as “bring your own

telephone,” changed into “bring your

own tablet,” and now is evolving into

“bring your own laptop” for certain

staff. This paradigm is enabled by

the cloud. The organization can use

existing trends as a way to mitigate

the costs/impact of rapid techno-

logical obsolescence; under a “bring

your own” paradigm, the enterprise

avoids procuring successive waves of

hardware that become obsolete in a

very short time, while extracting value

from the devices that employees are

buying for personal use anyway.

• Borrow with honor. It is important for

CIOs to be partially outward-facing

and engage with customers: your

customers often have good ideas/

practices regarding information and

technology challenges that you also

face, and they can be a source of

solutions that you can “borrow

with honor” and implement in your

own company.

“Look for the one innovator all the time— someone, or something, that gives us a competitive advantage. Our CEOs are focused and listening to us.”

• In this high-touch environment, there

is sharing of information and systems

we never expected to share before.

Identify who are the key sharers and

use them as evangelists, internally

at first but externally as well, to help

keep the momentum of change.

The overall best advice for CIOs who

want to lead the change for our firms

and our industry in this era of connec-

tion was stated by one CIO in the dis-

cussion: “Look for the one innovator all

the time—someone, or something, that

gives us a competitive advantage. Our

CEOs are focused and listening to us.”


Appendix A – CIO Survey results

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