Business Technology Roundtable

As artificial intelligence (AI) reshapes the business technology arena at breakneck speed, a fascinating paradox emerges: the more sophisticated our AI tools become, the more crucial human skills become in determining organizational success. The latest Fortune AIQ Advisory Board survey reveals that forward-thinking companies are investing in AI tools and fundamentally reimagining their approach to talent acquisition, employee development, and organizational culture around AI capabilities. This shift represents more than a technological upgrade; it's a fundamental transformation in how businesses conceptualize competitive advantage. The companies that will thrive in the AI-driven economy are those that recognize AI proficiency as a core competency, not merely a nice-to-have technical skill. The New Enterprise Hiring Paradigm The survey data paints a compelling picture of this transformation. An overwhelming 69 percent of respondents consider AI skills either "very important...

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...

As stewards of your long-term competitiveness, are you boldly harnessing the artificial intelligence (AI) potential as a strategic catalyst for superior digital business growth? In an era of modern commercial disruption, harnessing AI technology is rapidly becoming the defining factor separating bold industry leaders from the fearful global market laggards. AI is a quintessential technology that, like past shifts such as the internet and cloud, will unlock transformational opportunities across every sector. For enterprises, strategically capitalizing on AI has become an imperative for reinvigorating competitiveness. While many companies have initiated AI pilot projects and limited use cases, haphazard and siloed efforts will not suffice. Boards must aspire for more -- catalyzing an enterprise-wide embrace of AI to reinvent their core business and uncover game-changing innovations. Realizing this vision requires AI leadership to extend from corporate strategy to ethical governance. It i...

Some executives have taken the lead, while others sit on the sidelines. The global business landscape is undergoing a seismic shift driven by Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI). New GenAI tools, with their ability to produce human-quality text, code, and multimedia content, present a once-in-a-generation opportunity for you to propel your organization toward unprecedented innovation and value creation. The Gap Between Leaders and Laggards is Widening A recent McKinsey report paints a concerning picture: companies with robust digital and AI capabilities are already accelerating ahead of many traditional competitors. These leaders boast total shareholder returns two to six times higher across sectors. This isn't simply a coincidence. It's a testament to the compounding advantage gained by those who've invested in building a comprehensive AI arsenal. These organizations have transformed themselves into AI powerhouses. From crafting strategic roadmaps to cultivating spe...

As founder of the Business Technology Roundtable, I can advise senior executives on rapidly emerging technologies and their potential impact on digital business transformation. One of the most significant and potentially disruptive technologies today is Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI). Powered by advances in machine learning, this technology refers to AI systems that can generate new content, such as text, images, audio, video, and more in response to prompts from humans.   The pace of advancement in Generative AI has been astounding. Since the public release of ChatGPT in November 2022, tool capabilities have continued to grow at breakneck speed. Business interest has followed suit – attracted by the vast potential to drive efficiency, productivity, innovation, and digital business growth. However, along with the enthusiasm, important questions remain regarding effective adoption approaches, risk management, workforce retraining, and ethical implications. To better...

Digital Transformation has become an essential part of modern businesses, and the COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated the pace of change. With the continued rise of Remote Work and the adoption of a Distributed Workforce model, leaders have aspired to re-evaluate their digital strategies and invest in technologies that allow them to remain competitive. Business Technologists play a crucial role in this ongoing transformation, as they are the ones responsible for identifying and implementing technology solutions that can improve business processes and drive meaningful and substantive innovation. What is a Business Technologist? Business technologists are professionals who have a deep understanding of both commercial operations and business technology. They are responsible for bridging the gap between these two areas, helping savvy leaders leverage technology to achieve their goals. This change management process can include everything from identifying new technology trends to designing an...

Business technology can be the great enabler that differentiates an enterprise from their mainstream peer group. Make no mistake, delivering digital business value at scale can be achieved. The essential change management process begins with fearlessly embarking on a bold initiative. Granted, implementation has many steps and takes time. In fact, successful business transformations can take several years to complete. According to Boston Consulting Group ( BCG ) latest research findings, they require drawing on three key enablers: ensuring C-Suite alignment, developing the necessary capabilities, and maintaining always-on execution. Executive leaders who establish these key enablers will scale digital business solutions successfully and also embed digital transformation approaches and ways of working into their operating models. They will become the established market leaders in their sector to benefit from superior value creation. Leveraging Cloud Computing Services for Digital Growth ...

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...

Forging a viable business technology strategy for today’s Global Networked Economy is a high priority for most forward-thinking CEOs across the globe. Their guidance to CIOs is to create the fusion between existing IT infrastructure and modern cloud services. Moreover, the shift to a Hybrid IT model must support the organization’s key commercial expansion objectives. The savvy leaders who have a superior approach can extract greater value from their legacy IT investments, and launch new initiatives based upon public and private cloud computing services. This is the new normal -- CIOs must create the optimal blended environment for purposeful technology-enabled innovation. Primary Motivation A global study of 500 hybrid cloud decision makers revealed that organizations are increasingly integrating cloud computing and storage resources with traditional IT infrastructure to accommodate dynamic needs and specific business priorities, according to a market study by the IBM Center for...

While the decisive CEOs have a digital transformation agenda, those companies executing plans to re-imagine their business models are in the minority. And yet, the early-adopters now using cloud computing are enabled to respond quickly to changing market conditions. In contrast, the laggards are undecided and risk falling further behind. This is a global phenomena, where the industry and local market leaders are able to enact their transition with limited interference or threats from more traditional competitors. Just consider the current status-quo within the United Kingdom, as an example. The transformation of UK businesses is still relatively immature. Many organizations are aware of the potential of open hybrid cloud adoption, but they fail to actively address the technical debt that defines their legacy IT environment. Besides, they tend to narrowly focus on a small snapshot of the bigger picture. Clear Motivation to Overcome Inertia While some British leaders have progres...

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...

Does your CEO have a bold goal for 2016? Does the goal include the word ‘digital’ or ‘transformation’ in the description? Well, if so, they’re not alone in their quest for a superior IT-­enabled competitive advantage that positions their organization for the future. Business technology investment related to digital transformation (DX) projects will constitute the majority of growth in IT­-related markets over the next five years, according to the latest IDC assessment. "The disruptive impact of digital transformation is about to be felt in every industry as enterprises 'flip the switch' and massively scale up their DX initiatives to secure a leadership role in the DX economy," said Frank Gens, senior vice president and chief analyst at IDC . "In the next two years, two-thirds of Global 2000 CEOs will put DX at the center of their growth and profitability strategies. By the end of this decade, IDC predicts that the percentage of enterprises with advanced DX s...

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...

Most forward-looking CEOs have already made their move to prepare for the future that they foresee – where business technology is a key deciding factor for them to attain ongoing commercial prosperity. This new digital-propelled environment will profoundly change business processes, along with the need for accelerated tech-savvy human capital development across all industries. Those leaders that catch the next wave of Internet-driven market development will reap the rewards of the expanding Global Networked Economy. They’ll achieve a quantum boost in performance. And they’ll reach their lofty goals by harnessing the unique competitive advantages of cloud computing services , mobile enterprise applications and other targeted business technology investments. Welcome to the Internet of Everything Worldwide IT spending is forecast to surpass $3.9 trillion in 2015 – that’s a 3.9 percent increase from 2014. Business technology spending will be driven by Digital Business practitioners, ...