At insurance coverage enterprise The Hartford, the technology initiatives and company techniques that are on faucet for 2023 are 1 and the very same, according to Deepa Soni, the company’s CIO. Cloud deployment, AI, analytics, a present day knowledge ecosystem, and digitization of a lot more business enterprise processes are at the best of the agenda to simplify interactions for clients, brokers, and brokers and to carry the electricity of electronic resources to staff. For illustration, underwriters utilised to toggle concerning practically a dozen tools to get their position carried out — now they use a person streamlined tool with all related facts at their fingertips to make much better conclusions though comprehension pitfalls, Soni states.

Deepa Soni, CIO, The Hartford
The Hartford
With new systems poised to reinvent enterprise procedures and disrupt full markets, Soni says she and her CIO counterparts should enjoy a pivotal position guiding the enterprise to assume about factors in another way even though recognizing prospects to harness technological know-how to produce answers for organization partners, consumers, and staff. A single of the far more major adjustments at The Hartford has been to embrace agile methods, not just in the IT area, but as a companywide small business observe. “We’re now structured all around buyer-centric value streams that start with the item entrepreneurs in the small business and extend into engineering,” she clarifies. “The possibility to leverage information and technology is expanding so we have to produce capabilities faster to be able to far better capitalize on long run possibilities.”
Leveraging info, innovative analytics, and AI is top priority across the board. Thirty-four per cent of IT leaders responding to the 2023 State of the CIO study called out details/business analytics as a significant tech initiative driving IT investments, next only to protection and hazard administration (38%). Equipment learning and AI have been also higher on the checklist, cited by 26%.

Foundry / CIO.com
With information and analytics a vital motor for driving business technique, Dow Inc. blended its facts and analytics teams into a person group past calendar year, elevating a new dedicated management role. Chris Bruman, Dow’s very first main facts and analytics officer, experiences straight into Melanie Kalmar, a company vice president and Dow’s CIO and chief electronic officer.

Chris Bruman, main info and analytics officer, Dow
Dow
In his dual purpose, Bruman leads a centralized data and analytics group, but also has accountability for creating a facts and analytics tactic for the whole business, to both permit advancement and empower productivity. On his view, Dow has updated its facts working design to a hub and spoke solution, is setting up a details platform and info catalog that can aid the total organization, and expanded the facts initiative to harness both of those structured and unstructured information. Bruman’s team has also invested time and assets in data literacy, launching a companywide application to upskill the organization in the language of details and how to acquire edge of data and analytics.
“Because analytics are so substantially far more important in how we do work each individual day, we really don’t believe a absolutely centralized workforce can hold up with the desire,” he points out. With the federated or hub and spoke tactic, the electrical power of leveraging analytics rests in the company functions. “It’s about facts democratization and empowering the spokes to do more on their have,” he says.
The CIO-as well as purpose normally takes shape
In addition to the concentration on info, Dow has also invested considerably in excess of the earlier number of decades to put electronic platforms in place, which includes people aimed at increasing and rushing up the speed of innovation and delivering a far better electronic obtaining practical experience on Dow.com though increasing immediate connections with consumers. Dow is also operating to digitize its production internet sites, channeling facts to the discipline the place it is needed to push selections and increase operational efficiency, working willpower, safety, and trustworthiness, in accordance to CIO and CDO Kalmar. “Digital at Dow signifies a organization technique, not just an IT method,” she states.

Melanie Kalmar, CVP, CIO, and main digital officer, Dow
Dow
Other CIOs, like Kalmar, are expanding their roles and oversight tasks past IT as digital approaches transfer entrance and center in the business. Several are using on new revenue tasks — a go cited by 68% of IT leaders this 12 months, up from 65% in the 2022 Condition of the CIO survey. As section of the go, 44% of IT leaders are taking care of a team tasked with new earnings-generating capabilities, when a quarter are users of this sort of a team, the study identified. As portion of this expanded income charter, IT leaders are automating company and IT processes (47%), making new merchandise and products and services (40%), and creating knowledge more accessible (34%).

Foundry / CIO.com
Andrew Ho of Global Technique Team (GSG) now has ownership of both of those the IT and places of work solutions corporations — a transfer precipitated by the synergies concerning the two areas. With hybrid get the job done now a mainstay, Ho’s twin function guarantees he has accountability for evolving staff experience and engagement from performing equally remotely and in-workplace. For illustration, when reconfiguring business office space to accommodate hybrid get the job done, it’s unachievable to separate technology requirements from building specified the want for immersive audio-visual applications, Zoom rooms, and hoteling capabilities, says Ho, senior vice president and head of technological innovation and workplace expert services for GSG, a investigate, communications, and general public affairs company.

Andrew Ho, SVP and head of technological know-how and business office products and services, World-wide Approach Team
World-wide Strategy Group
In addition, Ho suggests the office environment expert services team is also ideal positioned to tackle the entrance-end specialized aid for the business specified they are usually in office and preserve a sure connection with workers. “The lines have blurred with what is amenities as opposed to what is know-how, and all of that falls below IT,” he claims.

Foundry / CIO.com
Sastry Durvasula, who holds both of those the CIO and consumer support officer titles, came into TIAA a 12 months ago in component for the CIO-additionally possibility. From a technological know-how perspective, Durvasula’s 2023 roadmap balances transformation via a digital-very first agenda developed about knowledge and AI for hyper-customized experiences though at the exact same time, modernizing the core platforms and processes by harnessing automation and orchestrating hybrid, multicloud migration.
On the Client Companies entrance, Durvasula’s emphasis is also on AI and automation to rework the way TIAA does every thing from front-office environment customer engagement to fraud management and client assistance solutions. “Our essential perception is that Client Products and services would have a important advantage to have proximity to know-how as they would be the most important beneficiary when it comes to AI, automation, and the digital products and services we are investing in,” Durvasula clarifies. “It would make a good deal of feeling to carry them together.”

Sastry Durvasula, CIO and consumer service officer, TIAA
TIAA
Durvasula, who’s held CIO-additionally roles with oversight of IT and electronic items at other corporations, firmly believes technology’s entrance-and-heart position in organization system has changed the activity and established IT leaders on a new class. It’s not a subject of switching concentration between technological innovation initiatives and business enterprise tactic, he suggests, it is a balancing act that requires an equivalent concentrate on both of those.
“Now that know-how is front and heart in organization technique and not a back-close enabler, that adjustments the CIO role quite a bit,” he claims. “Technology is disrupting company in a whole lot of strategies and this is the finest time to be on the CIO job route. The branches are large open up.”