Ghada Ijam
Piyush Chowhan
From meeting CEO expectations, accelerating value creation, maximizing customer impact, ensuring maximum returns on digital investments, and supporting sustainability, in 2023, how do CIOs plan to leverage originality in thinking, practicality in planning, and acute focus on impeccable execution to enable what’s best for the business and the planet?
Contributors
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- Ghada Ijam, Chief Information Officer, Federal Reserve System
- Piyush Chowhan, Chief Information Officer, Panda Retail Company – Savola Group
Transcript
Sanjog Aul [00:00:00]:
Hello and welcome to CTN. To learn more about this show, please visit CIO talknetwork.com and today’s topic is The 2023 CIO Agenda. Well, so we have been covering the CIO agenda for so many years now. What’s new here? So we got CEO expectations that are shifting because there was a lot of turbulence. You wanted as a business, as a CEO, that we accelerate the value creation. We are supposed to maximize the impact on the people we serve. You want of course, best results and returns on the digital investments because we made a ton of them and then also take care of the planet, which means become more sustainable. Well, that is a loaded plate for a CEO and also the way the directive is coming from him or her.
Sanjog Aul [00:01:01]:
How are the CIOs in 2023 using the current and the new muscles? Whether it is originality and thinking, practicality and planning and basically an amazing impeccable execution which is what they focus on to get the very best and deliver on the promise. So to discuss this, I have made Ghada Ijam CIO with Federal Reserve System. Hey Ghada, how are you?
Ghada Ijam [00:01:34]:
Hello, good.
Ghada Ijam [00:01:35]:
How are you?
Sanjog Aul [00:01:36]:
Very good. So quick question for you. If you had to work on this agenda that CEOs are talking and you’re from a Federal Reserve System, how are you dealing with because this is quite a multi pronged agenda.
Ghada Ijam [00:01:56]:
Great question Sanjog, and thank you for describing our lives these days before I jump into answering the question, let me give you a little bit of an additional context or additional responsibility, a layer of expectation and responsibility given my role at the Federal Reserve System, many people may not know that the Federal Reserve System processes $4 trillion of wholesale transactions daily. 50% of the US ACH transfers happen on our what we call our payment rails. We process $4 billion of U.S. treasury transactions per day. We work with the Treasury Department to raise debt almost over $10 trillion. And we supervise make sure that the financial banking system is sound and safe
Ghada Ijam [00:02:50]:
so we supervise DOL institutions within the country spanning from really large banks all the way down to community banks. So that’s the portfolio that we manageaAnd therefore on top of everything that you said, Sanjog, reliability, resiliency and security of the financial systems for this country is an additional responsibility that we carry within the technology as well as the business lines within the Fed. So to answer your question, when I read the prep work for this session, the visual that I had in my mind and I don’t know if you remember, I remember watching the show with my kids The Ninja Warrior obstacle course show where people are going through obstacle courses and on top of that there are side people that are throwing balls at them to distract them and this is how we’re feeling, at least I’m feeling in the last three years between Covid response to economic recovery to as you mentioned, expectations from the CEOs to maximize the value and the return on IT investments and driving a digital agenda and transformation. That’s what we’re going through is we’re going through obstacles course through a natural CIO agenda but at the same time the environment around us is changing very fast and responding. So I mean really for me it starts with the what’s the business strategy and technology usually supports the business strategy and having great conversations with the business leaders to say where are we going and the technology bringing to the table what’s the art of the possible is really the way we’ve been working it within the Fed to respond to this
Ghada Ijam [00:04:39]:
changing environment, changing expectations, changing ecosystem, so complicated, lots of obstacles, lots of ball being thrown at us from the outside and the agility and the nimbleness to duck and move and maneuver to get to the end state is really the trick in the next few years.
Sanjog Aul [00:05:00]:
And we also have Piyush Chowhan who has joined us. He’s the CIO with Panda retail company at Cevola Group. Hey Piyush, how are you?
Piyush Chowhan [00:05:10]:
I’m very good. Thank you Sanjog for having me. It’s a pleasure to talk to you again.
Sanjog Aul [00:05:15]:
Thank you. Now quick question based on what Ghada mentioned, that it’s a complex environment and then given that you are part of the retail outfit, there are economic pressures, there’s talent shortage and there is a total disrupted supply chain. What is the world looking like in your camp?
Piyush Chowhan [00:05:39]:
Sure, I think. Let me give you a context for people listening out. I am in the middle east in the GCC region which is the largest, which is the Walmart of Saudi Arabia as I would call it is the largest grocery retail chain out here and obviously whenever I speak to my friends all over the world, things are not as gloomy as maybe Europe or other places but there are sure many challenges as we see. And since we are very customer facing organization and it should do about 100 million transactions every year, we are seeing that inflation is hitting, people are getting challenged with the rising prices and all other aspects. It is putting windows pressure now as this is coming out of the covid inflation is now becoming the biggest hurdle and bottleneck for consumers to kind of develop and then do things better for them, for themselves and their lives. So the business is asking for more.
Piyush Chowhan [00:06:51]:
If I want to put my CIO had the Chief Digital Officer hand, what business is looking for is doing more for less. And I think the previous guest was talking about possible and that is the moment that we are living with at this point. How can you make sure that you are able to deliver within the limited resources that you have, deliver at a pace that you have not done in the past to show that there is real value and real ROI for everything that they are spending in today’s environment.
Sanjog Aul [00:07:29]:
Ghada, do you have that problem of less resources because you guys control everything?
Ghada Ijam [00:07:34]:
Yeah. We don’t literally print money at the Fed. Definitely have the same problem that every organization has in the last two years because of the pandemic and because of the fact that we had to go fully digital and everything that we do because we shipped everybody home to work from home. We did pump a lot of dollars and investments in IT infrastructure to enable larger network pipes, collaboration tools, et cetera, digitization of business processes, etcetera. So the IT budget got inflated in the last couple of years and right now we’re at this inflection point, to Piyush’s point, either show me the value of a continued level of investment at the same rate that we’ve done in the last couple of years or shave things down to a more reasonable run rate and I think the question that we’re facing right now is what is a reasonable run rate given that now we have a new set of expectations, people now understand what digital capabilities could do for a business. So the appetite and sort of the imagination of the art of the possible happened in the last couple of years and now business leaders are asking, to Piyush’s point, are asking for more capabilities, but the organization is saying yeah, but we have budget pressures that we have to meet.
Ghada Ijam [00:08:55]:
Balancing act of what is a reasonable growth rate for IT tied to show me the value of these investments and make sure that you do them well and you do them right. That is the equation that we’re trying to balance as we look at this year’s and the next three year budget cycles.
Sanjog Aul [00:09:15]:
Piyush, is it same old for you from last year? Because what you said what happens with retail company and yes, we had been in and out of covid for a few years now. So did you literally copy and paste your 2022 agenda and brought into 2023 or you have some unique things that you plan to do?
Piyush Chowhan [00:09:34]:
No, obviously it’s not a copy because I believe that this is a very important and an introduction year from IT perspective. Obviously as was mentioned, that the quarter at least the IT spend was excellent for all the good reasons. And we I think as it has did a good job to make organizations more IP resilient. So I think we all as a community did a pat on the back and said that yes, you did a good job with this increased expenditure. The focus on ROI was reliance in the last two years I was disappearing. My CFO, he is much more stringent in busing any capital expenditure going forward and saying that is it really going to impact customer experience? Is it really going to impact my supply chain cost and so on and so forth. So it’s no longer saying that, okay. Now just because everybody believed that digital is the need of the hour, there was a relaxation in terms of all the scrutiny on the gambit spending.
Piyush Chowhan [00:10:44]:
On the other hand, when your revenue and operating expense, which obviously were exponentially growing because of the increased bandwidth that was needed, more focus on a lot of difficulty tools trying to make sure that collaboration is there runs. So all those tools are brought in as far as gov8 have actually created a big hole as far as operating resistance. So the CapEx is one your operating expenses have gone on which is directly impacting your financial performance and when the curve is turning on the other side, the CFOs are saying show me the money and since to me that is the moment for a CIO to stand up and say that look, I can deliver the ROI that you are looking for, to me, understanding the business requirement, translating that into ROI is the needle and looking at things, how can we continually increase our spending as we did in the last two years?
Ghada Ijam [00:11:46]:
Sanjog, if I may, to build on Piyush’s point, the ROI is not necessarily just an IT part of the formula, working with the business leaders to say if we provide these digitizations and these investments in technology, how are you changing your business model? Are you creating more revenue? Are you optimizing your operating costs? Are you minimizing your capital footprint to save dollars and create efficiency? So I think that joint conversation, the business conversation of technology and the business model evolution is an important part of the next three years because we’re changing how business is done, we’re changing the pace of business outcomes because technology allows us to sort of expedite revenue generation, expedite sort of supply chain processing, etcetera. So there is a level of value that the business leaders need to help articulate as part of this ROI equation.
Sanjog Aul [00:12:52]:
So Ghada, when you look at the specific capabilities that an organization must have is a 2023 year of same old tinkering, incremental improvement, continuous improvement, or are you in for some more cool yet effective disruption in terms of capabilities or what you’ll bring to the table?
Ghada Ijam [00:13:17]:
I’m going to give you the consulting answer. It depends but no, seriously, there is a level of effort that we initiated post pandemic that we felt is an important strategic initiative for us which is really starting to look at cloud enabled technologies as a catalyst for change as a lever that allows US to minimize CapEx, optimize OpEx and provide more flexibility and agility in delivering business value. I believe that continues on because the job is not done and right now where or where it’s going to start exploring value with our business leaders is about more of the data analytics, AI, machine learning because that’s really where the opportunity is given. Again the role of the Fed, we are a data rich organization.
Ghada Ijam [00:14:11]:
The data and the research is sort of vital to our mission and now we’re exploring pushing the envelope on some of those capabilities. So those are the not the same old. These are conversations about how do we innovate in that space. The same old is more about how do we introduce new technologies, new talent, new ways of working to provide us with that agility and nimbleness to respond to changing environment and changing business needs.
Sanjog Aul [00:14:40]:
So Piyush, when you are working on this capability development, I’ll ask the same question, but differently. Retail anyways, across the world has had issues when it was dealing with E commerce and that’s why at a business level you had to rethink Omnichannel and many other ways to use data, AI and other capabilities to get an edge to that end in your specific industries. Is there a mandate from the CEO to create something which would give you, your organization, a quantum leap?
Piyush Chowhan [00:15:20]:
Absolutely. What is coming out of the DM as the great digital divide? What I mean by that is there is this old large state monolithic world which means there are really heavy applications which require huge amount of Capex to be deployed, huge amount of OPEX to be maintained, a huge amount of effort to be changed
Piyush Chowhan [00:15:49]:
and that is the one that a lot of large enterprise out the large enterprise is new and what Covid did is it has shaped that whole paradigm saying that look, that is not which you will take you which will make you agile. Rigidity and the resilience have been there as one setup quite a while. But during covid enterprises realized that although people were trying to talk about HP processes and things like that, but the whole enterprise architecture is not built around that and that is a big realization and so as Dada was talking about is that is that there is this divide which needs to be moving towards more towards solutions which are much more value added, like analytics, AI, ML. You need to keep on building capabilities on that so that you kind of don’t look at linear returns, but you look at exponential returns. So for example, if I have a Choice As a CIO, I have a choice that’s another $5 million to spend on my terric system to upgrade a version or to look at, let’s say, something in which I could build a new, much more cloud enabled data ransom. I have a choice which is very geared to me.
Piyush Chowhan [00:17:15]:
New cloud platform will obviously have a much faster and a bigger ROI than looking at upgrading a system which is not going to deal with that much at all. So these are the kind of discussions and choices that I’ve seen are coming up as volumes for leaders and digital leaders to value and template. Even if the choice is on the other side, be more value creative, work with the business and deliver that value, I think then that is the organization which will be kind of moving in the right direction going forward.
Sanjog Aul [00:17:48]:
Ghada, you mentioned about cloud and people moving to cloud definitely makes sense. But then we also heard a lot of not complaints, but revelation, speculation that infinite compute doesn’t mean finite money. There’s a lot of overspending happening and it was accidental and people were getting huge bills and everybody was taken by surprise.
Ghada Ijam [00:18:13]:
So luckily we’re not the trailblazers in that space. You’re right, Sanjog. I mean the team started with the cloud journey and to your point, somebody in the research department spun up a cloud instance trying to process lots of data to analyze and forgot to shut that instance down and we got the bill and it was, oh shucks, what happened. And that put a spotlight, not necessarily from an IT perspective only, but also from a business user perspective to say, hey, with cloud comes a financial responsibility and a fiscal responsibility that in the past you did not have to watch. I mean in the past we stood up the infrastructure, IT supported the infrastructure. We had to go justify our spend and tell our story and why is your cost going up? Well, because you need more space for your data and we’re growing servers and we have to explain that but with the cloud, the bill comes to IT and the user, which I think is a good thing because now people feel responsible for their spend.
Ghada Ijam [00:19:21]:
It’s just like us having a checkbook and we’re looking at our bank account and saying, okay, this month I cannot afford to do X, next month I can afford to do Y. That transparency is good but to your point, Sanjog, there’s a discipline around finops, around cloud cost and analyzing the cloud cost. There is a discipline around teaching people to shut down some environments that they stood up temporarily to do special projects or special processing. So there’s a lot of culture shift that needs to happen. So technology is easy. That’s always been my mantra and I tell my team, technology is easy.
Ghada Ijam [00:20:00]:
It’s the people and the process that takes a lot of time to change and that discipline is a discipline that we’re focused on not only within IT, but also with our business partners that are starting to use some of those clouds enable technologies. So I think ultimately we will be in a good spot because we’re creating the discipline, we’re creating the awareness, we’re creating the skill required to manage that discipline. And we’re learning a lot from our peers. I talk a lot to peers that have gone through that journey before and share some of those learnings proactively.
Sanjog Aul [00:20:37]:
Piyush what specific initiatives that you’ve seen, either the CEO and CFO are volunteering to fund or when you take it to them, they don’t have an issue or rather they’re excited that you’re doing specific capability development, specific initiatives which will support the company. Which ones are really getting funded?
Piyush Chowhan [00:21:01]:
The one thing which is common across all the departments is data led transformation initiatives in which people have now realized that particularly in our industry where we have to be very real time in terms of customer experience, data, customer touchpoint data and so on and so forth. The dynamics of the market can only be maneuvered by the business when there is data which is democratized, which is easy and which is nimble in the hands of the users and Sanjog, any initiative that we have put in and I remember I was speaking to a colleague of mine that four years back I had this how can we target transformation program. At that time the business was not very focused and be around it. But in 2023 I see that there’s a big pull from the business to say that how can you make each and every part of my decision making data and those are the initiatives which very easy to kind of pass through the changes the so called cyber on apparent particularly in our industry. There was a big cyber on E commerce which is actually black. I think people have realized that stores are not going anywhere, people are not coming back to the stores and hence Omni building is hybrid model between the store and the online commerce. Those things are taking more rather than just pure informal solutions.
Piyush Chowhan [00:22:47]:
So these are the core tech things where I see there is a share and there is a tremendous pressure and as we covered earlier that OPEX had actually staylocked because of new ways of working, several new organization structure, remote renewal working and so on and so forth. Now each of those costs are being looked at very strongly and I have task force within the team to look how we look how identified areas where there is benefit of dealing those OPEX which certainly kind of used as part of the Covid initiatives.
Sanjog Aul [00:23:29]:
Ghada, I will ask you a question but then we’ll take a quick break and come back but I wanted to lay it out for you.
Ghada Ijam [00:23:35]:
Cool.
Sanjog Aul [00:25:08]:
Welcome back. So Ghada, data related initiatives are happening all over, but there are equally reported struggles in making them successful. What’s your plan in 2023?
Ghada Ijam [00:25:33]:
Fascinating question and it seems like you were sitting in our meeting yesterday as we were talking about some data initiatives within IT but before I answer that question, Sanjog, one thing that you asked Piyush what gets funded more automatically without a lot of questions and given some of the advancements in cybersecurity and cybercrime etcetera, investments in ransomware readiness, cybersecurity, resiliency, reliability technologies are things that usually bubble to the top. It’s not an automatic approved, but definitely bubble to the top. Given the world that we live in, we definitely have geopolitical uncertainties that’s happening around us, which triggers a lot of bad actors to do things around the globe. So that’s something that is a primary focus for many organizations, I believe, based on my conversations with peers in the industry. Back to your question about data and it’s brilliant question because it’s a challenge. Exactly for the reasons that you articulated Sanjog. They would cost a lot of money, it takes a long duration and then we may not hit the mark with them.
Ghada Ijam [00:26:55]:
What we are doing to sort of break that cycle is we’re looking to talk to business users or business leaders to say can you give us a use case that we can prove out in a three to six months duration and work together to demonstrate not only the technology, the underlying technology that can deliver that capability, but also the actual business use case and the value delivered from that use case. And that’s getting a lot of momentum because people in the business have real pain points related to data. They’re trying to find solutions, they can’t find solutions. So having that partnership where the IT and the business team working hand in hand, we box the solution to a three to six months type problem statement that we can work on to advance and showcase the outcome, we’re seeing momentum and wins in that space. I was visiting the New York Fed last week and the team delivered a capability within the market’s operation that allowed them to save almost like 50 hours a week of effort, manual effort that they used to expense and they’re getting better analytical data that they’re using to make decisions in their space. We showcase those, we market those successes which then creates that momentum and generates sort of the idea ideation by other business leaders to say, oh yeah, I have a similar business problem here, let’s identify those. So we’re time boxing it, we’re working very closely and identifying the use cases that have the high probability of outcome and high probability of success and then we’re marketing the outcome so that people can connect and relate to.
Ghada Ijam [00:28:55]:
Oh yeah, I have a similar scenario. Let me raise my hand and let’s partner. That’s how we’re doing it. We’re not funding a huge program, which is typically what IT does is okay, give me a zillion dollars to go do a three year effort and I’m gonna go hide in my corner and come back and the outcome is not what you expected. We’re breaking it into small pieces and we’re starting with the business problem first.
Sanjog Aul [00:29:23]:
Piyush, did you get a chance to crack this whole data problem because you guys are fundamentally dependent on data for almost everything you do in terms of a customer experience, attracting them and retaining them?
Piyush Chowhan [00:29:36]:
No. Absolutely. And I think the approach is more or less similar. I want to emphasize on the used case and I’ll give you a very simple problem in which pricing is very dynamic in today’s context and there are frequent price changes for whatever reasons in the last three, four years, first because of covid and then because of inflation now and the supp constraints everything is very volatile and dynamic and hence the prices of the community commodities impact the prices of the goods and hence your pricing become very unstable over a period of time and sometimes the competitor does very, very kind of surprising elements which you need to reenter and focus. Pricing was found as a problem and then we okay the problem with we need attention, but it is something which has to be dealt in multiple phases. First you need to look at how do we price dice so that you are able to analyze pricing decision based on your competitor so that you’re able to understand what is happening in the markets.
Piyush Chowhan [00:30:44]:
Then once you have understood that, then is the next step in terms of how do you build price optimization algorithm to do some more things which are happening and then once you do that, you first do it in a more controlled and a manual environment. There is a huge intervention which is there and then in the final stage, you build a sophisticated price algorithm and a price optimization in our models which can then predict to a very high amount of accuracy. Now when business comes to us with this kind of a problem, we sit down, we kind of ask the. The scientists in my team does ask very kind of thought provoking questions to say that look, this is the step towards reaching that final goal. And we can reach that goal until we work very closely with each other understand because analytics is a part of discovery and we will uncover and discover a lot of new things as we move along. So as Ghada was mentioning, we bring that problem into multiple 6 months, 3 months, 6 months, 9 months delivery timeline so that the first will deliver this start using, learn from ends and then we continue to build on top of it.
Piyush Chowhan [00:32:00]:
And this is how it is much better that businesses engage B we find out what is not working very early in the game. So fade early, learn early and then once we have done that the adoption of the whole change we are looking at is far more easier as compared to something that you deliver after the end of maybe two years, one year or three years and this is how we are trying to solve this as a problem.
Sanjog Aul [00:32:28]:
Ghada, when we talk about influence, which is what function of leadership, it doesn’t only mean the people who report to you. It also means even more so in today’s day and age when it is supposed to lead the charge and help people figure out how to maximize as the use of these technologies. That is, you got to lead upwards, you to lead sideways. In terms of your business counterparts and your executive management, what approach have you taken or what all approaches have you tried and what worked, what did not work because if that doesn’t happen, whether it is sponsorship and support or an ongoing ability for you to have their departments follow suit, that would be undermined.
Sanjog Aul [00:33:16]:
So what’s the current state, if you will, of your ability or an IT leader’s ability to lead the business counterparts and executive management? What are you seeing and what are you experiencing yourself?
Ghada Ijam [00:33:31]:
So you’re not seeing my face. I was smiling because and sort of having some horror memories when you asked the question, I’m going to say tell a story about something I did in my early career and then I’ll answer the question. As a result, in my early career I was tasked with a project, went through the analysis and walked into a room filled with my primary stakeholders. And when I stood up, I presented the case, which really made a lot of stakeholders look really bad in front of their peers because I was highlighting all the gaps and the issues that I discovered as a result of my analysis and proposing an alternative way to solve the problem. So that’s not how you win friends and influence your stakeholders. So the lesson learned from that, which was a very painful lesson, was one, you have conversations with people and make sure that you create a level of alignment, a level of balance in the viewpoints that you’re presenting. You don’t trash somebody else’s business, you work with them collaboratively to identify the opportunities and sort of the art of the possible. How can I help you solve the problems that you’re trying to solve within your business? So to answer your question more specifically, how do I influence? I mean, the first thing is listen.
Ghada Ijam [00:34:59]:
The business leaders are there, leading businesses, they know their space and listening to what it is and how it is that they’re doing their work and what do they need and at the same time challenging with a lot of probing questions. To understand are we pushing the envelope enough technology can help in these spaces. How can we sort of push the envelope jointly to get better outcomes for the organization and then stacking hands to move forward with the idea or with the proposal? Now, it’s not a smooth sailing journey. There are times where I go to my peers and they don’t want to talk about it, or I go to my peers and they don’t agree with me. And the other lesson I learned as I was growing up, there are times when the proposal is not at this time the right thing to do and there is another time which is the right time. So being patient and persistent in your conviction towards a solution is another important thing. So if I talk to you and Sanjok, you say no. And right now my business is not ready to do this.
Ghada Ijam [00:36:10]:
Don’t give up. If it’s the right idea for the organization, I’ll come back to you maybe three months and have a conversation about it. And six months later we’ll have a conversation about it and ultimately we’ll get it lined up and moving forward.
Sanjog Aul [00:36:25]:
So Piyush, I’ll ask a similar question but in a different way. If we have no conflict, that means relationship isn’t prospering. But if you have a conflict, then that could also reduce your influence and your ability to get things done. What’s your middle ground or what’s your secret recipe of getting the relationships built and also get the right things done even though there may not be always an agreement?
Piyush Chowhan [00:37:00]:
Yeah. And I think to be honest, one of the things which has happened post Covid is people realize the importance of digital in their core businesses which means that you moving from enabling organization to the whole business, you are now having a seat on the table. Which means this natural shift is happening where leaders in the other core functions are realizing that this is a real good partner for me to work with. So that opens a very different relationship equation between the core business functions digital variety function as you may. And hence it is a wonderful and once in a lifetime opportunity for IT leaders to kind of capture this as a moment of growth and say guys, we are no group partner and we can work with you to solve their problems until unless we show that leadership to say that I understand your pain, I understand your problem and then come, let us work together to solve a problem outcome and that is the leadership style which the business is looking at.
Piyush Chowhan [00:38:23]:
If you go with that and I’ve seen across some other enterprises and I’ve seen leaders who are not able to scale up to that vision and need to be a true business partner. That is when the conflict starts arising because the expectation from the business is extremely high as of now as we’re coming out of covid people have very high expectations. Everybody wants to be the most agile, nimble cloud native organization which the digital world is already and somehow that transition has to happen 99 with the business. So if we are able to meet up with that expectation, your relationship with your peers is going to be extremely good. If you are still laggard in terms becoming that much of business oriented and not able to speak the language of the business while embedding digital into their their ways of working, you will kind of be seen as somebody who is not delivering to what they’re expecting. So which is where the conflict starts in which people start believing that this is an organization which is not helping me deliver to the goals which is set up by my board and so on and so forth
Piyush Chowhan [00:39:41]:
so. Time for IT leaders to rise up, stick on the table. Very common and a clear discussion to say come I’m willing to help and solve the problem but you also need to extend your arm to come with me so that we are able to solve the problem together and this is the only way that you’re able to mutually symbiotic relationship which can take the organization much more digital than what it is today.
Sanjog Aul [00:40:14]:
So in 2023 Ghada, would you rather be right, nice or kind to be most effective in your role as a CIO ?
Ghada Ijam [00:40:26]:
CIO and nice I don’t think is a good recipe because sometimes CIOs have to say no. Sometimes CIOs have to shut down programs that are not healthy. So I would not say nice however I would say respectful and collaborative. That is also a very strong word. I think I would strive to be aligned and strategic and develop the right answer for the organization versus me personally being right is really working with the organization to define and align and articulate the right answer for the organization and then be bold to drive that change forward and not be nice when I’m seeing something that’s not working and failing and we shut it down or we see a security or a resiliency gap and address it or we see people that are not willing to change and address that part of the organization as well. So I think it’s developing the right answer for the organization is the right agenda for the CIOs. I mean we heard from Piyush and your question Sanjog, it’s going to be a challenging year.
Ghada Ijam [00:41:47]:
It’s going to be a hard year and working very closely with the business and the C suite and the board to formulate an answer that makes sense for an organization that balances the unlimited demand, huge appetite for technology, constrained budgets, talent shortage and an environment that’s ever changing because of geopolitical technology disruptions, pandemic and whatever else happens around us disruptions that would be my agenda for 23.
Sanjog Aul [00:42:22]:
So Piyush the mindset at an organizational level and the culture. What is it that you feel it should be for you to be able to get this organization, the one which you belong to currently get most out of the investments that you are able to help make and facilitate?
Piyush Chowhan [00:42:43]:
The only mindset which can allow organizations to excel in today’s era is agility. To my, to my view and when I say agility it is all across. I know when some people talk about it delivery agility, which is obviously need of the hour. But I think the ways of working of the business also needs to be aligned this new agile ways of working and that organization adopts agile mindset which is started out with realistic expectations. I think that’s the best recipe that any organization can build. As a culture we kind of create a very good environment for innovation which creates a great environment to experiment new things. And until unless you experiment new things, you will never be able to innovate faster. So in my view, creating nimble agile ways of working, we allow you to experiment and sail equally with due amount of respect is the best culture that I would look for in an organization.
Sanjog Aul [00:43:54]:
So Ghada, what leadership muscle are you personally trying to build or tone to best prepare for 2023 specific one.
Ghada Ijam [00:44:05]:
So toning is a good word. I think it’s making the hard decisions and again it’s the nature of the environment that we’re going to be operating in going forward. Again, I described it demand, budget pressures, talent constraints and hard work. It’s going to be difficult. We’re charting new territory. So the muscle that I’m toning is really making the hard decisions. It’s saying, you know what, we have a finite number of dollars and Therefore we want 20 projects. We can only afford 10 projects.
Ghada Ijam [00:44:39]:
So 10 projects, you go stand in the side and having the negotiation power with the business to say hey, not now, later is a muscle that I absolutely have to tone. That’s what the organization is expecting from us this year is to really be focused on the top priorities and then doing them very well. So we have this concept that we learned in two months ago through an organization and I can send you the name of the organization Tyrion interested but talking about the hard conversations so we talk about the hard conversations, but there’s that last mile of the conversation which is the toughest part of the conversation that people usually avoid to have. And having that last mile of a conversation to get to the right answer is the muscle that I’m exercising a lot this year.
Sanjog Aul [00:45:33]:
Once again, thank you so much Ghada and Piyush for sharing your insights about what the CIOs are going to do or should be doing to make 2023 a stellar year in spite of all the challenges we know we are going to face. So thank you so much.
Ghada Ijam [00:45:48]:
Thanks for having us.
Sanjog Aul [00:45:49]:
And listeners please connect with us on social media. Subscribe to our podcast. Once again, thank you for listening to CTN. This is your host Sanjog Aul signing off. Till next week, take care and god bless.
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