CIO CIO

Many companies are already using AI to assist with their mainframe modernization efforts, and many plan to run AI on big iron as well, survey says. source

Perez, who has been CIO of Salesforce for over two years, also sits on the board of directors for The Hershey Co. He sees leadership increasingly expressing the need for different business results, and “they are clinging to technologies to drive those business results. Of course, some of that push is coming down to the CIOs,” he observes. From Perez’s perspective, two major problems with those expectations. First, CIOs — like so many in the IT industry — lack the experience to know what gen AI can actually do. CIOs view gen AI as a technology that is here to stay, and they are excited about innovating with it, but it will take time and extensive experimentation to deliver value from AI responsibly. Top brass, however, wants to see outcomes faster. Perez says he’s fortunate because his team is learning quickly what works and what doesn’t as they implement AI directly into the company’s CRM offering. Many other enterprises are juggling to innovate and deliver value to the business without industrywide guardrails or proven methods for implementing responsible AI. source

Oracle inks deal with AWS to offer database services September 10, 2024: Oracle’s partnership with AWS follows similar deals with Microsoft and Google over the past 12 months. Oracle CloudWorld 2024: What to expect August 30, 2024: Oracle CloudWorld, one of the tech industry’s signature events, began September 9th. The event, known as OpenWorld until 2020,  is a significant gathering for IT professionals, developers, and business leaders looking to explore the latest advancements in cloud computing.  Oracle’s $115 million privacy settlement could change industry data collection methods July 23, 2024: In addition to the payment, Oracle has agreed to stop tracking users in various ways. Privacy advocates applauded the settlement. source

From an enterprise CIO’s perspective, Schadler said, “I would rather you use mine. I want to maybe use yours but I want to know the pricing implications first. How about if we use your (consultant) platform but you do not charge me for the delivery of that?” Schadler said that not every CIO has focused on the implications of genAI consultant offerings, but that they need to do so right away. “Should you rethink your service provider strategies when dealing with genAI produced output? The answer is yes, you should absolutely do so.” In some cases, he said, the best strategy is to backburner the genAI issues and instead focus on pure ROI. “Have high incentives on the part of your partner to just get what you need to get done,” as cheaply, quickly, efficiently and cost-effectively as possible, Schadler said. If the partner can best do that using its own AI systems, that’s fine. But let the numbers and the deliverables dictate, or at least strongly influence, that decision. source

Organizational design is a forgotten art and science. This oversight is having a negative effect on today’s corporations. Sherlock’s Law states that “structure enables results.” I’ve opted to take the positive spin on this concept, but the reality is, poor structure can cripple results. What I’ve seen is that, to address the rapid change and complexity in today’s business environments, leaders have created overly complicated organizational structures. Teams, leaders, and employees want and need clarity. They’re clamoring for it. One of the major issues today is overlapping executive roles. My research reveals lack of clarity across overlapping functions has a negative impact on the workplace climate and reduces productivity by 22%. To increase efficiency, we have to place greater focus and consideration on organizational design. Peter Drucker famously said, ‘Culture eats strategy for breakfast.’ The best formulated strategy typically can’t be executed when employees aren’t engaged or there is pervasive negativity in a corporate environment. I build upon that adage by saying, ‘Structure eats culture for lunch and dinner’ because lack of organizational clarity destroys culture. Infighting, turf wars, budget wrangling, and competition are often the source of cultural discontent. If you heed Sherlock’s Law, a clear, coherent structure can support the culture, strategy, and results. source

Customers seek a hybrid future It’s unclear to what extent SAP can help customers with their digital transformations given its strict cloud strategy. No one at DSAG disputes that the cloud is a key driver of business transformation. “From DSAG’s point of view, cloud and cloud enterprise resource planning systems are the right way to go for many use cases and industries,” said DSAG CEO Jens Hungerhausen.  But from DSAG’s point of view, on-premises systems will also remain highly relevant for SAP customers for some time to come, DSAG’s leader made clear. This applies, for example, to industries with high process complexity, or under specific legal or data protection framework conditions or requirements. “The future will therefore continue to be hybrid,” Jens Hungershausen is convinced. “Simply jumping into the cloud doesn’t work.” As for that future, SAP users still have many questions. For example, to what extent can they make use of the added value and flexibility of the cloud? They must also have greater clarity on the costs associated with increased cloud usage and what could be incurred through use of downstream services.  source

Impact on vendor trust and certification verification This case highlights the vulnerabilities that organizations face when relying on third-party certifications. The fraudulent certification raises serious concerns for CIOs and IT leaders who depend on certified data centers to ensure fault tolerance and security for critical data. “With this episode, organizations will have to go deeper to verify the reported credentials, including certifications, of a new vendor on the block. A cursory check and balance on the name of the certifying authority will help to know the likely authenticity of the certification claim,” said Abhishek Gupta, CIO at leading Indian satellite broadcaster DishTV. CIOs often rely on multiple sources when evaluating new data center partners. Client references, physical site visits, and informal validation through the CIO community are part of the process. “Even today, IT leaders try to evaluate the actual performance of a new prospect before onboarding as a data center partner,” Gupta added. “While certifications are important for evaluating the level of fault tolerance, additional measures, such as verifying the certifying authority’s legitimacy, are likely to gain more importance​.” “Tier certifications for data centers have long been used as a benchmark for reliability and resiliency,” said Saurabh Gugnani, director and head of cyber defense, IAM, and application security at Dutch professional services firm TMF Group.​ “However, if a certified datacenter fails to meet the promised levels of service or experiences a major outage, it could affect the credibility of these certifications.” The certification authenticity forms a smaller part of overall final decision-making, said Gupta. According to him, this episode shouldn’t change the evaluation methodology.  source

Third, and most importantly, the AI avatar became an extension of the business user — a human worker who became digitally augmented and increased the productivity of that individual. Effectively, a self-learning, digital twin was born. Even though still in its infancy, with age it will gain the maturity to independently execute many tasks that will be delivered in an increasingly autonomous fashion, while all the time preserving the integrity of, for instance, its owner’s mannerisms, speech and nuanced uniqueness.  About two years into the genAI journey and about 20 years in for AAA, 2024 is the year in which the convergence of the digital and human worker is truly beginning. If this is indeed the launch pad, how will multitudes of proliferating business avatars of real individuals — not fabricated talking heads — mature with time?  AI digital workers…at scale Aside from the business impacts of cost, efficiency and productivity that are becoming a familiar refrain in any analysis of genAI’s future, its lateral influences are less-common subjects of study. The expectation that some manner of convergence of digital and human staff in most corporate settings will grow exponentially is accepted, even though not all of this relates to digital ‘versions’ of real executives and employees. Enterprise CIOs, CEOs and, indeed, CHROs/chief people officers will be less prepared to deal with the many millions of executive avatars that could be performing on office screens, bringing valuable content, opinions and decisions to bear, driven by the small language models of their human owners.   source