CEO Steve Bandrowczak’s playbook for CIO success today

When we consider the lots of CIOs who have actually risen to other executive management functions, Steve Bandrowczak’s course is rather distinct.

In addition to working as CIO at Avnet, DHL, Lenovo, Nortel, and HPE, he’s likewise supervised sales companies, run company procedure outsourcing (BPO) organizations, and led international service services. He handled brand-new obstacles throughout his profession– in some cases taking an action back to get indispensable hands-on experience in various locations of service– all of which caused him being designated CEO of Xerox.

Dan Roberts and I narrated much of it in our book,Confessions of a Successful CIO(Wiley), and just recently I had the satisfaction to visitor host Roberts’Tech Whisperers podcastwhere Steve and I dug much deeper into his simple roots, his ruthless drive to prosper, his increase to the CEO function, and his point of view on the IT arena today.

We took a couple of minutes after the podcast to set out his sage suggestions for CIOs– created by his present view from the CEO perch, along with his own “in the trenches” experience as an IT leader throughout several markets. What follows has actually been modified for length and clearness.

Brian Watson: What are the most significant obstacles CIOs deal with today?

Steve Bandrowczak: Whether it’s AI, ChatGPT, RPA, edge computing, you think of all the gadgets in individuals’s hands today; managing and setting the vision of that innovation landscape to drive the future of their business is a huge obstacle. All of us understand that every market today– I do not care what market it is– is getting entirely interrupted by innovation. Which’s just going to speed up.

We speak about AI like it’s this huge, mystical thing. AI has actually been with us for several years– the distinction is, the ship is quicker. We can save more information. Algorithms that have actually been around for a long period of time, strategies that have actually been around a very long time, we can now process them a lot quicker– procedure information a lot quicker. All this is opening up genuine usage cases. This alters the entire method you can drive brand-new service designs.

For CIOs today, how do they end up being a visionary in this altering landscape of innovation– not for the sake of innovation, however for the sake of how they can drive and interrupt their own company?

Huge difficulty there. Due to the fact that a great deal of the time when we speak about interruption, we speak about displacing tasks, displacing functions. We’re discussing doing things that have actually never ever been done before.

For CIOs, how do you set that vision for their business, and interact it in a method that’s, one, not frightening, and that the service can go drive to that modification, and then line up whatever below to permit you to get there.

How can they finest gotten rid of these headwinds?

CIOs require to be visionaries. We discuss business designers from an IT viewpoint– they require to be business designers from acompanyperspective.

What does that brand-new business designer appear like? She or he is altering the method we offer, altering the method we provide, altering supply chains, altering client relationships with healthcare facilities and suppliers.

The CIO requires to be the visionary. The CIO needs to be the business designer from a service perspective. Brian, they’ve got to have the abilities to drive those modifications.

Psychological intelligence, and the capability to comprehend and drive modification is important– particularly in the labor force today. You consider someone coming out of high school today versus somebody who’s going to retire in 2 years, and all the various demographics in between. You’ve got to have the ability to interact to each and every single level– each and every single individual because whole population. Everybody has various visions. Discuss interacting with somebody who’s going to retire in 2 years– they’re considering getting a phone. Speak about interacting with somebody who’s simply entered your company for the very first time– they’re believing LinkedIn, or TikTok, not getting the phone. Huge distinctions there.

Comprehending something so basic as: How do you interact? How do you get your message out?

CIOs need to be those visionaries, however they likewise need to be excellent communicators, and need to have unbelievable psychological intelligence.

For more of Steve Bandrowczak’s views on the CIO function today and in the future, and his plan for success, tune in tothe Tech Whisperers podcast