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In an era when employees work from wherever they happen to be, providing an excellent digital employee experience (DEX) is a key strategy of successful companies. Workers must have streamlined, secure access to data and applications to maximize their productivity and sense of accomplishment. Anything less may impede their effectiveness and erode corporate competitiveness. In short, great DEX is critical. “Organizations that deliver the kind of DEX that employees expect and deserve typically have a high level of digital workplace maturity — the ability to proactively manage and optimize user experience, whether in the office, remote, or hybrid,” says Sid Bhaskara, product marketing manager for DEX at TeamViewer. “Proactive management means fixing issues before the end user experiences them.” DEX challenges for IT On the path to implementing world-class DEX, many IT teams stumble. The major reason: failure to fully understand the tools they are using and the ways employees interact with the digital world. “When organizations focus on deploying tools rather than understanding how the tools impact daily objectives, they are likely to fall short,” says Ahmed Elattar, TeamViewer product marketing manager for Tensor. “For example, they might misconfigure security tools, causing them to miss vulnerabilities and fail to understand whether a breach is due to user error or ineffective tools.” From reactive to proactive The most important step IT teams can take is shifting from providing reactive support to remote users to delivering proactive optimization of the end user experience. “Remote access is phase 1. Phase 2 is AI-driven insights and recommendations — what is going on and what can we automate to fix it?” says Bhaskara. “Implementing a self-healing digital environment enables organizations to shift from reactive ‘firefighting’ to optimizing the digital worker experience.” The importance of automation can’t be overstated. When configuration, security, or licensing issues can be detected and fixed before the user knows there was ever a problem, help desk calls can be eliminated, saving the time and energy of employees and support staff alike. Workers avoid frustration, work more efficiently, and can dedicate precious hours to higher-level tasks. Automation is also important for scalability, which can spell the difference between success and failure for growing organizations. Compliance with end user policies for licensing, access, and security must scale up as an organization grows. If not, IT support staff will be overwhelmed by an endless stream of updates as users and devices are added to the network. However, it’s important to note that even with automation, there is a human element. Rather than have an organization taken over by processes that run entirely on their own, automated tasks create notifications so that managers can review them and make corrections if necessary. And end users want to be treated as people, not just senseless nodes on the network. Even here, however, automation can help. “Real-time visibility and sentiment analysis bring to light friction points that cause end user frustration,” Elattar asserts. Detecting such signs of trouble and acting to correct them before users suffer from them is a hallmark of true digital workplace maturity. At a time when employees can work from anywhere, it’s a key element that separates successful companies from also-rans. To learn more about creating a superior digital workplace, view our webcast here. source

Salesforce’s announcement that it intends to acquire Informatica is more than a strategic M&A play. It’s a signal that enterprise applications are being fundamentally reshaped for the AI era—and that the battleground isn’t app features or UX polish. It’s data. We’ve entered a new phase in enterprise technology—the era of the data-first architecture for systems of context. The next generation of value won’t come from dashboards or mobile-first interfaces. It will come from autonomous agents, co-pilots, and AI-powered workflows that act, learn, and reason in real time. Siloed SaaS Applications are not the system of context for these operational, agentic orchestration flows. These Agentic systems are best run on a multi-application data context to deliver the benefit of the multi-modal cause-and-effect correlation that the AI models are designed for. This holistic context comes from data: unified, real-time, machine-understandable data that spans key data concepts such as customers, products, suppliers, transactions, and everything in between. That’s what the Informatica acquisition is really about. Salesforce recognizes that to survive in the age of AI, it must move down the stack—owning more of the data, not just the application surface. But that move raises some crucial questions for all of us. Is Salesforce about customer agility or platform lock-in? To be clear: investing in better data infrastructure is smart. The problem is when consolidation leads to more complexity, not less. Anyone who’s lived through a large-scale software integration knows how long and hard that journey can be. But beyond integration timelines, here’s the real issue: what kind of future are we building? One where data flows freely across the enterprise as an interoperable asset to fuel intelligence and automation everywhere? Or one where your data becomes even more siloed, locked into a vendor-controlled ecosystem? Salesforce is already showing signs of the latter. Their recent changes to Slack’s API now prevent companies from using Slack data to train their own AI models. Bulk exports are blocked. You can only search Slack using Salesforce’s Real-Time Search API. This is your data, restricted inside someone else’s sandbox. For enterprises racing to unify fragmented systems and accelerate AI across the business, this is a red flag. Reltio AI needs more than access. It needs understanding Here’s the truth: AI can’t thrive on disjointed, app-specific, siloed data. AI is best at understanding the cause-and-effect correlation (i.e., if something negative happened in Support, then how does it impact a currently ongoing Sales cycle, or uncovering a fraud scenario that is based on a sequence of events across multiple engagements across lines of business and functions). AI needs a unified view of the data that provides this context. It requires a data foundation built for context, not just collection. That’s why the data layer matters more than ever. Not just any data, but trusted, connected, and interoperable data that reflects how your business works. In this new reality, enterprises can’t afford to hand over control of their data foundation to vendors who are optimizing for their own platforms. What we need is an application-independent system of context—a Switzerland for data—that cuts across lines of business, works across every function, supports all applications, and not just one vendor’s suite. Your competitive edge is your data strategy This shift changes the rules. Your company’s competitive edge will no longer come from choosing the right CRM or marketing automation tool. It will come from building the real-time data intelligence layer that feeds every business operation, every engagement, every agent, and every insight across your enterprise landscape. That means moving beyond batch pipelines and brittle point-to-point integrations. It means real-time data quality, semantic context, and cloud-native scalability. And it means saying no to systems that lock your data behind APIs designed to favor the vendor, not the customer. At Reltio, we’ve been building for this future from day one. We believe that AI will only be as powerful as the data you feed it—and that the foundation for that data must be trusted, open, and able to scale enterprise-wide. The stakes have never been higher This is a pivotal moment. The application stack is being reimagined faster than ever before. AI is no longer a bolt-on feature. It’s the core of the next-generation enterprise. And the foundation it runs on—your data—will either empower you or hold you back. The question is: Who controls that foundation? With every new announcement, it’s becoming clear that legacy vendors are repositioning to own your data layer. But ownership doesn’t guarantee openness. And control isn’t the same as enablement. The companies that win the AI race won’t be the ones with the most tools. They’ll be the ones with the best data—and the freedom to use it across every system, team, and use case. The future is being written in real time, and the rules are changing. Let’s make sure your data isn’t just a footnote, but the backbone. Explore the new rules of intelligent data. See how industry leaders are unifying trusted data to stay ahead in the AI era. source

It’s 2pm on a Tuesday. You were supposed to be working on your important project. Instead, you’ve been testing the latest AI tool you discovered on LinkedIn for the past three hours. “Just trying it out,” you thought. Now you’ve spent $50 on credits, lost the afternoon and the project is still on hold. This scene is repeated every day in countless offices and home offices. AI tools promise to make us more productive. But for many people, they become the biggest obstacle to productivity. What starts as harmless experimentation quickly turns into a time and money pit that costs both individuals and companies millions. As the author of this article, I must admit that I, too, have fallen into this trap. This month, I was shocked to discover that I had invested a large four-digit sum in AI tools. The many small investments — 20 euros for credits here, 50 euros for a premium subscription there — added up to an eye-opening total at the end of the month. source

In an environment where policy can move faster than platforms, Indian enterprises must revisit an uncomfortable yet critical question: Do we truly control our cloud infrastructure, or are we renting it under someone else’s legal terms? This isn’t alarmism. It’s a new reality. The rules are shifting, so should your questions On 7 August 2025, the United States imposed a blanket 25% tariff on Indian exports: a policy recalibration with ripple effects across procurement, pricing, and ecosystem stability [1]. Around the same time, U.S. export-control rules restricted the use of advanced AI chips and GPU cloud access in over 120 countries [2]. Indian companies—especially those in AI, manufacturing, and research—were forced to rethink not just compute sourcing but also where and how they hosted their AI workloads. Meanwhile, 144 countries now enforce national data protection laws, many requiring strict data localisation [3]. IDC estimates that 65% of enterprises will mandate data sovereignty clauses in new cloud contracts by the end of 2025 [4]. And yet, the majority of Indian enterprises still rely on cloud service providers (CSPs) governed by foreign jurisdictions, assuming availability and neutrality in a world that’s proving neither. These developments should prompt every Indian CIO to pause and ask: Are we building our digital future on foundations we truly own, or just access temporarily? Five questions every CIO should be asking today 1. Who can legally switch off our cloud? Many CSP contracts defer to the laws of their home country. If those laws change—via sanctions, export restrictions, or diplomatic recalibrations—the provider is obligated to act in compliance, not in partnership. This means Indian businesses could lose access to services, data, or infrastructure not because of a breach, but because of foreign political decisions. It is essential to examine contract clauses on governing law, jurisdiction, and service termination triggers. 2. Where does the control plane reside—and under whose law? It’s not enough to know that your data is stored in India. What matters equally is where the control plane—the orchestration logic, metadata, and management APIs—resides. If this sits outside Indian jurisdiction, your organisation’s ability to act during a crisis is constrained. Data localisation alone is no longer sufficient; control locality is just as critical. 3. What is our CSP’s plan for sanctions-related disruption? We routinely test for disasters such as cyberattacks or outages. But few organisations ask their providers how they would respond to geopolitical disruptions. What happens if foreign policy decisions force the CSP to suspend service? Does your provider offer local continuity protocols, dual key management, or sovereign operational zones? If these conversations aren’t happening now, they’ll arrive too late when it matters most. 4. If access is denied, where will we go for legal redress? In the event of a dispute or service suspension, your path to legal recourse must be local. CSPs that operate solely under foreign law—and expect arbitration in overseas jurisdictions—leave Indian enterprises with little leverage during a crisis. Legal recourse that begins twelve time zones away may not arrive in time to restore mission-critical workloads. Contracts must be structured to ensure Indian jurisdiction applies to service interruptions and dispute resolution. 5. Do our cloud workloads match the sensitivity of our data? Not every workload needs sovereign cloud hosting, but some absolutely do. Board minutes, payment data, personal health records, and government projects cannot be treated the same as development sandboxes. Proper workload classification—public, restricted, confidential—is essential. Without it, sensitive data may be exposed to jurisdictions that do not offer the same legal protections or assurances as Indian law. Rethinking cloud decisions through the lens of sovereignty Sovereignty is no longer an optional design principle—it’s a strategic imperative. For Indian enterprises, the sovereignty conversation must move beyond compliance into the realm of control, continuity, and risk containment. The global landscape is no longer neutral. Cloud environments are increasingly shaped by the politics, policies, and priorities of the countries that govern them. And when those priorities shift, it’s not infrastructure that takes the hit—it’s your business. This is why cloud decisions today cannot be based solely on performance metrics or feature parity. They must be based on ownership of control, jurisdictional alignment, and business resilience. Indian CIOs and boards have a responsibility to ensure that the cloud supporting their mission-critical operations is governed by Indian law, hosted within Indian borders, and operated by entities legally accountable in India. It is time we placed sovereignty on par with scale, cost, and innovation. Because when the next shockwave arrives—not if—it’s this dimension that will separate those who stay online from those left negotiating terms. Learn more here. Sources Deccan Herald, ‘US tariff: Why all is not unwell,’ 4 Aug 2025 U.S. Federal Register, ‘Framework for Artificial Intelligence Diffusion,’ 15 Jan 2025 IAPP, ‘Global Privacy Laws 2025: Interactive Map,’ Jan 2025 IDC Future of Trust 2023 Predictions Cisco ‘2025 Data Privacy Benchmark Study’ source

“We are seeing the AI cost optimization tool landscape evolve rapidly, with vendors converging from both the Kubernetes management and FinOps domains,” Oakey says. “On the management side, these tools continuously monitor real-time pod utilization, learn from historical usage patterns, and automatically adjust resource requests, node sizing, and even the balance between spot and on-demand instances.” FinOps vendors, meanwhile, are now integrating AI and ML capabilities to enable proactive cost control measures. “While not all of these capabilities represent AI in its most advanced form, we are seeing a clear shift toward embedding greater intelligence and automation across the entire toolchain,” Oakey says. “This convergence is creating a more sophisticated, proactive approach to Kubernetes cost optimization — one that blends operational control with financial accountability.” source

To reverse the slide, Basalla recommends cutting the fluff and focusing on a single flow. “Find the process with the biggest pain-to-payoff ratio and fix that first,” he advises. “If a digital tool saves someone time, they will use it, but if it takes 10 extra clicks to do the same task they were doing in Excel, it’s a hard no.” People, Basalla explains, vote with their time. 6. Faulty execution Digital transformations often falter due to a lack of disciplined execution or insufficient focus and commitment from the top of the organization, says Karthik Krishnamurthy, chief transformation officer and CFO at Smith and Howard, a tax, accounting, and business advisory firm. Without strong executive sponsorship, it’s difficult to sustain momentum, he observes. “You’ll begin to see key deadlines slipping, results falling short of expectations, and diminishing engagement — especially from senior leadership.” Krishnamurthy recommends periodically validating the transformation’s original assumptions and benefits to see whether they’re still relevant. “If they are, it often comes down to re-engaging leadership,” he says. “When a CEO or business unit leader actively owns the initiative — tracking progress daily or weekly — the organization typically responds, and momentum can be regained.” source

Clean, relevant, and connected data  Aligned processes and governance  Empowered, skilled people  A digital leader understands the importance of people, process and data for any technology to bring in transformational results. The transformation doesn’t just come by implementing some technology tool like AI, but it requires a transformational shift in the way people see and use these tools. Unless these tools create value in the user’s daily life, the transformation fails. Digital transformation is people transformation. They work across silos to ensure that the right capabilities are developed internally and that culture supports experimentation, agility, and accountability. Example: A digital leader may realize that the operations team lacks data context. Instead of pushing an AI dashboard, they first run a “data bootcamp” for ops leads — improving digital literacy. AI alone doesn’t transform. Thoughtful use of AI does When you say, “AI will make it better,” you are outsourcing your future to a tool. source

Individual, organizational, socio-geographical and other contexts shape how employees and leaders perceive reality, behave and form expectations. Recognizing these contexts enables timely identification, addressing and prevention or resolution of issues, such as via targeted mentoring, coaching, training and other interventions, whereas neglecting them can cause adverse consequences such as misalignment, friction, poor morale, reduced performance and higher turnover. Drawing on scholarly research and personal anecdotes, while putting a special focus on the IT sector, I want to examine key contextual factors in this article. When I first moved, from overseas, to work in the highly culturally diverse U.S. tech industry, where roughly 40% of the software developers are migrants, mostly from China and India, countries with very different workplace (or general) cultural norms compared to the U.S. or The West, as will be further established, I encountered a range of workplace behaviors that, at times, struck me as unusual, even frustrating. These reactions were rooted in differences in cultural norms—something I only came to understand in hindsight. It’s likely my behavior or expectations also seemed misaligned to others. Where I came from, for example, it was not uncommon for a junior employee to challenge a top executive during an all-hands meeting. In fact, I witnessed a junior colleague do exactly that; he is now a senior manager at the same company. However, in other organizations I’ve worked in, even managers hesitated to speak up and challenge leadership openly. A behavior viewed as bold and constructive in one culture can be perceived as disrespectful or disruptive in another. source

Brian Shield, CIO, Safe-Guard Products International Brian Shield “Maybe in the past CIOs could be successful by being pretty good at what they do, but now they have to be thought leaders. So you want to be able to have connections to other CIOs and industry leaders so you can learn from them,” Shield says. He also believes in the value of having mentors — more than one, he stresses. “These are people who I can turn to to understand the current state of tech and where it’s going, people who can help with leadership skills and who can help with my team,” he says. 8. Create a community Creating a community for oneself is another common strategy these CIOs have employed throughout their careers. Shield landed in Boston in 2013 to become SVP and CTO at the Boston Red Sox, following a stint as CEO of Shield Consulting Group, EVP and CIO at the Weather Channel, and other executive positions. source