Business Technology Roundtable

The emergence of Generative AI (GenAI) represents a pivotal moment in business technology evolution, with early enterprise adoption showing promising results according to PwC's latest Global CEO Survey . While much attention has focused on potential future impacts, concrete productivity, and revenue gains are already materializing across industries, suggesting we're at the beginning of a transformative wave in how organizations operate. Current State of Enterprise Adoption The PwC research findings, drawing from 4,701 CEOs worldwide, reveal encouraging early returns from GenAI tools and associated use case investments. Notably, 56 percent of CEOs report that GenAI has improved employee time efficiency, while about one-third have seen increased revenue (32 percent) and profitability (34 percent). These performance metrics, while slightly below initial expectations, demonstrate that organizations are finding practical ways to extract value from the latest technology. Perhaps most...

Are your board of directors and executive team ready to transform your business with the latest technology, or will you be left behind as your competitors accelerate their adoption? The transformative power of Generative AI (GenAI) applications is impacting industries across the globe, promising not only enhanced efficiency but also new avenues for value creation. According to the latest research by PwC , a significant 70 percent of CEOs anticipate that GenAI will fundamentally change how their companies operate in the next three years. Let's explore the key insights from PwC's report, focusing on the GenAI "Value Realization Flywheel" and its implications for businesses seeking to harness this methodology. The Promise of GenAI Across Industries Generative AI is poised to revolutionize various business sectors, with software companies potentially seeing a 20 percentage-point increase in their profit margins. Even industries with modest projected gains, such as transp...

We’ve apparently reached an inflection point with the development and execution of Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) corporate policies. The role of business leadership in sustainability issues around climate change has received increasing attention from companies and their key stakeholders. But over the past year, something changed for CEOs worldwide, and sustainability talk turned into action. Continued disruption -- including upheaval and disruptions from the global COVID-19 pandemic -- has society at large calling for a new approach to economic advancement and business priorities. According to a recent survey by Oxford Economics, when it comes to optimizing opportunities and delivering business value, some CEOs have discovered an additional step. These savvy CEOs report deliberately integrating their Sustainability and Digital Transformation efforts. Digital Transformation and ESG Drive Growth For organizations with a clearly defined sustainability strategy and the right ...

Multinational enterprise CEOs, and others within the most forward-looking progressive organization C-suite, look to their CIO to inform and guide them on digital transformation best practices. The global COVID-19 pandemic, and the associated economic impact, have provided CIOs the opportunity to increase their influence on strategic planning. According to the latest research by Gartner Inc. , CIOs now have the attention of the executive leadership team in a very compelling way. The enterprise's path to the future is made possible by IT-enabled innovation, and both boards of directors and CEOs now acknowledge the role that business technology has on Digital Growth. Building on Strategic Digital Business Initiatives These key strategic relationships have given CIOs the platform to address their next big challenge in the coming weeks and months of 2021 -- digital business acceleration. Savvy CIOs can convince senior business leaders to modernize their IT and network infrastructure to ...

Now more than ever, CEOs and their leadership teams must counter the threat of digital disruption. Within the evolving global economy, debate and analysis about business technology adoption must result in purposeful action. Even the trailing organizations are prepared to learn something actionable from their trailblazer peers. The following statistics and insights are excerpts from the IBM Institute for Business Value (IBV) Global C-suite Study (19th edition). IBM’s latest worldwide study draws on input from 12,854 respondents across 6 C-suite roles, from 112 countries. The C-suite is evenly divided on whether the focus in the future will shift from established markets to new ones. In two areas, however, C-suite executives stand in close agreement: how they will change their value propositions and scale their value chains. Sixty-eight percent of C-suite executives expect organizations to emphasize customer experience over products. Sixty-three percent believe that most organizat...

CEOs across the globe now view business technology as a key component of their growth strategies. That’s why the role of today’s Chief Information Officer (CIO) has become increasingly challenging. Mounting pressure to innovate has left many CIOs flat-­footed -- essentially playing catch­-up trying to integrate new technologies, rather than driving them. A recent International Data Corporation (IDC ) study examined CIO and Line of Business (LOB) executive perceptions of IT organizations, the changing role of IT leadership from being a traditional operational player to becoming a strategic partner in digital business transformation scenarios. According to the IDC study, the way in which CIOs view themselves has a direct impact on how they envision their evolving IT leadership job and their relationship with key LOB executives. Business Technology Innovation Disconnect Of the 150 CIO survey respondents, 40.7 percent viewed themselves predominantly as custodians of operational inf...

Today, CEOs in all industries and geographies recognize that in 2016 they'll have an important choice to make, regarding the development of a cohesive digital business transformation agenda -- either be empowered by superior cloud-enabled innovations, or risk being disrupted by more progressive market leaders. The savvy business technology application leaders are already moving from proof-of-concept cloud computing environments to trusting these platforms with their mission-critical workloads. According to the latest worldwide market study by Cisco Systems, this pervasive trend continues to accelerate as demand for cloud resources increase exponentially. The Cisco Global Cloud Index (2014-2019) forecasts that global cloud computing traffic will more than quadruple by the end of 2019, from 2.1 to 8.6 zettabytes (ZB), outpacing the growth of total global data center traffic, which is forecast to triple during the same time frame (from 3.4 to 10.4 ZB). Several factors are driv...

As 2009 comes to a close, a recent editorial in CIO magazine sums-up a nagging issue -- "Despite the emergence of improved IT management tools over the past decade, CIOs continue to grapple with the same IT challenges they dealt with five and even 10 years ago. Which can make a CEO wonder: when are we going to get there?" Forrester Research believes that CIOs have typically run "the tech factory" for their firms -- responding to business needs with solutions and operations from both internal and external sources. These IT leaders have pursued operational maturity to optimize solution delivery. Forrester says that CIOs won't ever get away from delivering on operational maturity. But as technology becomes pervasive -- more stable, standardized, and available as a business-centric service -- it's inevitable that business executives will take greater direct control over technology investment decisions. Forrester calls this evolutionary transition the shift from...

The anticipated benefits from adopting managed cloud services have reached the executives suites of many corporations. Proactive CEOs and CFOs are pushing their IT leadership team to seek out actionable information and guidance. There's also a constant stream of service providers announcing new offerings -- and the momentum is becoming a global phenomenon. As a result, Forrester Research has witnessed an expanding number of client inquiries around cloud computing. The acceleration in market development has been building for some time now. Forrester analysts responded to more than 264 client inquiries about cloud computing between January 2008 and April 1, 2009 from companies of all sizes and industries. IT Teams are Adopting Cloud Strategies Once considered a niche business technology where awareness was viewed as optional, Forrester now says that knowledge of cloud computing has become an IT organization necessity. Interest is fueled by expectations of major cost savings, scalab...

Do you have your head in the clouds? Well, if so, then you're surely not alone. In breaking news, eWeek reports that Cisco Systems is pulling together key pieces of its data center and networking portfolios to create a blueprint for building a cloud computing infrastructure for service providers. Is this yet another business technology hype-cycle, or is there something truly remarkable occurring that builds upon the escalating widespread adoption of IT managed service and hosting service offerings? Cisco's Simon Aspinall provides the context for the launch of the Unified Service Delivery solution , as he shares an analogy that explains why innovation sometimes requires starting the design process from a totally different point of view. The cloud computing phenomenon is generating a lot of interest worldwide because of its potential to offer services on-demand -- at lower cost than current options, and with significantly less complexity, greater scalability, and wider reach. Mo...

All business has become global. Companies of any size can now market products and services worldwide over the Internet. At the same time, competition has intensified because customers can investigate global competitors with ease. To compete effectively in the global networked economy, companies need new capabilities: Global procurement and sales 24 hours a day. Integrated internal and external business processes. Up-to-the-minute access to sales, order processing, production, and other business critical information required for informed decision making. Flexible processes that can adapt dynamically to changes in the business climate. The application of Business Technology is now a primary enabler of strategic advantage. However, chief executives have become impatient, as their companies have failed to keep pace with these advances. There are alternatives, for those who choose to act. The managed services model can be applied to accelerate this much needed change. Review the following ...