Presentation at CIO Summit

1. Exploring the Future of the IT industry
and the Next Generation CIO
(In just 30 minutes)
April 2013
Jessvin Thomas
Vice President, Blackstone
http://www.linkedin.com/in/jessvin
All opinions presented in this presentation are personal views of the author only

2. The Digital Revolution is now
Its an exciting time to be in digital technology
I really believe that we are undergoing a digital revolution
Anyone remember the 1993 AT&T You Will ads?
Have you ever borrowed a book…
… from thousands of miles away? Paid a toll… Sent a fax …
… without slowing down? … from the beach?
We are doing it NOW!
(except for the fax part)
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3. But sometimes it feels like we are being outpaced
Technology IT
Cute Kids love it
slow
Fast everywhere secure Endangered
species?
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4. My Background
I’ve seen it from a few angles:
Inside IT at a large organization
Inside a B2C Web Operations technology
Running Enterprise Security
Running Cloud, Automation & Tools
(supported by that Nokia IT)
At Blackstone I’m working on driving
an IT organization into
a customer facing organization
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5. My Beliefs
A digital revolution is taking place
1 on the scale of the Industrial & agricultural revolutions
IT should be natural leader in this change,
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however a re-engineering is required
3 Consequences for not adapting
Are extremely high.
If you don’t believe me ask these people:
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6. BTW – That AT&T Ad. It got one thing wrong:
It ended with “And the company that will bring it to you, AT&T”
No one expected these guys
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7. To be fair …
AT&T Wireless delivers the network on which many of these devices operate
But who would you rather be?
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8. Takeaway #1: Who do you want to be? The Next Gen CIO will Focus on Distinctive Capabilities
Ownership of Technology cannot be the sole purpose of an IT organization
Technology is now ubiquitous
No one can “own” it
The successful CIO will need to
ANSWER the question of what VALUE you ADD
FOCUS on DISTINCTIVE capabilities
And still KEEP the trains on the tracks.
The future of IT is about innovation (with technology)
Not administration of technology
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9. We’ve been saying that forever. What’s different now?
The Value Proposition Has Changed
Traditionally IT projects have been: Now Technology can be
• Capital Intensive • Variable Cost in many cases OPEX
• Generally complex and time • Iterative
intensive to do right • More distributed broad based skills
• Required a highly specialized skills
Leads to Decentralization
Led to Centralization • Pay for what is needed, when its needed
• Pool upfront costs • Technical Fit for purpose
• Avoid distractions to “real business” • Use Case specific skills
• Pool Resources
We have to prove that our value in driving IT is the innovation we can bring
Not just because its cheaper
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10. Take Away #2: We need to be leaders in Smart Innovation
As smart innovators we need to be able to:
1) leverage technology adeptly
2) balance control and freedom
3) support the ability to change at a moments notice
4) focus on front office, outsource back office
5) have a keen understanding of monetization offerings of our solutions
That sounds true no matter what
Yes … but we need to be honest with how good we are at it
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11. Which of these are examples of Smart Innovators in the Consumer Space?
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12. Take Away #3: Successfully focusing on distinctive capabilities means being detail oriented
This is the story everyone knows:
What about these ones?
Chung Mong-Koo, Chairman Hyundai
Fastest Growing Automotive Brand in the US
Put Product Excellence first
Roger Ailes, President of Fox News
Whatever you think about him, he built a
powerhouse on distinctive reporting
Still is in the details all the time
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13. Very much related to Consumer expectation
This is not OK anymore
Neither is this
Even the boxes have gotten better
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14. Summary for the CIO
1) What got us here isn't going to be what takes us forward.
• The instincts, skills and ways of working that brought us success in the past not only don't work in the future
• IT traditionally has systems administrators, network administrations, SAP administrators etc. We administer things.
• The role of the future is not to administer but to innovate, wire together and then hand off.
2) We an need an entrepreneurial spirit not just an engineering spirit
• Individuals who have done the same tasks for years continue to perpetuate existing ways of doing things
• Our focus has been as engineers to make things work technically.
• We need to think like entrepreneurs: how do I get value that will survive in the market place.
• What tradeoffs do I have to make to be good enough and fast enough to complete.
3) Quality must become a serious concern.
• With focus on cheaper we have skimped on forcing things to be better (or sometimes faster).
• Many significant technologies we rely on have poor user interfaces, serious bugs and other issues we learned to put up with.
• Consumer Grade is the new Enterprise Grade
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15. People - So you're ready to build the next generate IT organization
You need the team
Finding talent is hard
keeping talent is even harder
There are a lot of technical people out there
Finding good people seems to get harder every day
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16. Take Away #1: People are attracted to start up culture. Its not the just the shares …
smaller teams vs. big teams
interconnected vs. hierarchy
nimble planning vs. complete waterfall
results in weeks vs. months or years
visibility vs. reporting
value driven vs. task driven
self managed vs. top down
multi functional vs. specialized
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17. This is not sandals vs. suits….. Real business is changing
Not only are consumer industries being shaken up
Typical Enterprise Technology Vendors are being disrupted as well
And Consumer Grade solutions are scaling up to enterprise
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18. Take Away #2: Productivity was driven by Innovation under constraints
Startup Companies developed a mix of productive team behaviors
Because they had no choice
#1 – Lean and highly capable
focusing on distinctive capabilities means a small tight group of people
#2 – Cross discipline
Everyone has multiple hats and the team can execute the
mission themselves
#3 - Adept with tools
Everything managed through software
Example: Cloud took off not because VMWare got more mature
But because companies like Google and Amazon pioneered how to scale
Their teams had to figure it out to survive
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19. Take Away #3: The best Talent look for highly Capable Peers first
Commitment to a Systematic Approach
Componentized technology solutions  working across multiple technologies that are knitted together by apis
Analytical & Metric oriented
We have Data now. Use it!
Technical & Detail oriented
Every team member needs to be able to follow technical conversation down to the details.
Curious And Experimenter
Best operations members are constantly watch their systems and tweak
Communicator and "convincer"
Explain the broad picture and then give those details in context.
Self directed and takes Ownership
In a small team everyone needs to be a leader in some way.
Corollary: You MUST act on negative behavior
from team members
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20. People Summary: Hiring and Keeping the best people is all about team dynamics
Drive Culture: From infantry to army
The challenge is not unlike the organization
shift the army made from 1970 to 1990
Air, Sea and Land
People are excited to join the organizations that can
innovate under constraints and solve problems with
multiple skills as a team
A players attract A players, B players attract C players
When the team is small and everyone depends on one
another, you have to hire the best
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21. Service Model: Its not one size fits all
The service model for your organization will be custom to your needs
Most importantly Next Generation of Services Delivered
Must be cognizant of the “digital” revolution we discussed in the beginning
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22. The good old days:
IT sets standards Employees follow Boss always gets an exception
(but doesn’t use technology much anyway)
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23. Today
Boss always gets an exception
(But is now using a lot of technology)
Employees use
everything
IT tries to keep up
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24. Its not just consumerization: It’s the convergence of multiple trends leading disruptive change
Five major foundational elements that have come together:
1. Everything managed as Software with hooks to manipulate it programmatically
2. The Internet and inter networking connectivity
3. Ubiquity, low switching cost and personalization of personal computing
4. The commoditization of large resources of compute & storage (cloud etc)
5. Digitization of the physical world (mapping, ecommerce, 3d printing)
Drives Critical Considerations in the Services Delivered
1. Need to interoperate in an ecosystem of best in class solutions
2. Need to be able to work “cross borders” Security becomes a first class concern
3. Solutions designed to easy to use and comfortable for people
4. Low upfront effort required
5. Everything needs to tie to the real world
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25. To recap (if we made it this far)
Changes comes from the top:
The IT organization of the future needs the CIO of the future
We are a knowledge worker industry:
Even with the best technology it’s the innovation of our teams that is key
Employees expectations are radically changing
In 1985 it was OK to have blinking 12:00 on your VCR, In 2013 my 2 year old son uses an iPad
(and so do my parents)
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26. Blackstone’s Mission
We are dedicated to driving outstanding
results for investors and clients by
deploying capital
and ideas that help businesses
succeed and grow.
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27. An Extra Example: JIRA
Self Managed: Pull Tasks
Visibility: A living roadmap
Small Team
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