Research & Content.

Organizations across industries shifted their digital transformation plans into high gear during the coronavirus pandemic. The sudden need for remote operations and large-scale working from home brought new urgency to changes that, for many, were already in the works. The crisis, for all its challenges, shattered previous notions of what was and wasn’t possible, liberating CIOs to do things in new ways. Organizations in general, and CIOs specifically, are operating under new rules for the next normal.

The global pandemic of 2020 has accelerated organizations’ digital workplace transformations, and few will go back to the way things were before. The mass work-from-home experiment Covid-19 imposed on most of the world proved to be a remarkable success, according to new research from Harvard Business Review Analytic Services. “Without question, the five-day-in-the-office week is dead,” says Michael Schrage, research fellow at the MIT Sloan School of Management’s Initiative on the Digital Economy.

Talent-minded organizations recognize that increasing employee engagement can improve how well their workers perform in their jobs and, consequently, bolster the results of their business. Discretionary effort, or going above and beyond the basic requirements of the job, kicks in and increases productivity and even quality, as long as it’s channeled in the right direction. “There are good business reasons for focusing on employee engagement,” says Julie Cummings, managing director and chief human resources officer at BKD, a national CPA and advisory firm that provides audit, tax, and consulting services to its clients. “When we have more highly engaged employees, discretionary effort increases.” Sponsored by Quantum

Intelligent automation (IA) is moving beyond hype and into the mainstream. Enabled by automation, cloud infrastructure, and advanced analytics that include artificial intelligence (AI), virtually every business process and function can be improved through some degree of IA. Yet many organizations either aren’t moving forward fast enough to keep pace with change, or they’re rushing ahead with isolated projects but without a greater plan. In either case, the value companies are getting from IA decreases, and business and technology leaders who don’t develop a strategy for enterprise-wide IA will find themselves at a competitive disadvantage. Sponsored by Oracle

Organizations across industries are under pressure to operate more quickly and with greater intelligence than ever before. Armed with new digital tools that enhance the capabilities of frontline workers, companies in the manufacturing, technology, financial services, energy, and health care sectors, among others, are extending their digital reach to the edges of their business and beyond. The challenge now is to empower frontline workers in a way that creates both free agency for them and proper controls for the organization. What makes this possible is the ready availability of high quality information and insights at the point of contact with customers and operations, along with the digital tools and procedures to ensure compliance with company guidelines and industry regulations. But we’re still in early days. Sponsored by Thoughtspot

Artificial intelligence (AI) has the potential to significantly improve businesses’ sales and marketing efforts, and thus their fortunes overall. In fact, it may be hard for companies to move forward without it. Two-thirds of the 615 respondents to a recent survey from Harvard Business Review Analytic Services agree that AI in marketing and sales will be critical to their company’s ability to compete in the future. Today’s sales and marketing organizations have plenty of room for improvement. Sponsored by Microsoft

Talent—attracting it, retaining it, nurturing it—has been a perennial pain point for chief information officers (CIO). But the year 2020 brings completely new challenges. It represents an inflection point for how organizations manage their operations and the talent that fuels their success. Within the next few years, most organizations expect to be able to operate with more streamlined, often automated processes; with greater knowledge gained through artificial intelligence (AI); and with a customer-centric, anywhere-anytime way of doing business. Not that any organization will be “done” when they have made these changes. Forward-leaning CIOs know that one of the defining characteristics of the digital age is that nothing’s ever really done. Sponsored by Red Hat

The landscape for performance management (PM) is changing dramatically. Business leaders know they can get more value using performance management as a tool to engage and develop people rather than to just assess them. However, while they recognize the link between employees’ level of engagement and their performance, most organizations still operate performance management and employee engagement (EE) on separate tracks, according to a recent survey from Harvard Business Review Analytic Services. Sponsored by Glint

Organizations across the health care sector recognize that the innovative use of data—when information is combined for advanced analysis and managed across disciplines, systems, and settings—is crucial to solving the most challenging problems in both patient health and operational efficiency. Despite this widespread recognition, only 15% of respondents to a recent global survey of 742 health care leaders describe their organization today as being mature in its ability to access, integrate, and analyze health care data from diverse sources. Sponsored by Roche

Artificial intelligence, machine learning, and intelligent automation are commanding huge mind share among business and technology leaders today. What’s different this time is the degree to which reasonable and knowledgeable people believe that there is, indeed, a real urgency to get going with AI now. A number of foundational pieces must be in place to be successful with AI. These include talent, which is in short supply; having the right data infrastructure as well as sufficient quantity and quality of data to train your models; deciding how AI will be governed; and managing change in the organization, among other things. But where do you start if you’re not a large, tech-forward enterprise? In this paper, we share the insights and real-world experiences of over a dozen leading CIOs, chief data officers, and AI experts. Sponsored by Red Hat

Research paper: As the digital landscape rapidly evolves, companies that can respond quickly to customer needs have an advantage—and according to a recent survey, many are using DevOps to create this advantage. A vast majority (86%) of the 654 respondents to a recent survey from Harvard Business Review Analytic Services say that it is important to their company to develop and put new software into production quickly. Indeed, principles and frameworks like agile, scrum, and DevOps—long part of the software developer lexicon—are making their way into the corner office. Sponsored by Google

Pulse survey: Automation that is enhanced through artificial intelligence (AI) is critical to organizations’ ability to compete and survive in the years ahead, according to nearly 400 business leaders recently surveyed by Harvard Business Review Analytic Services. Respondents say that to be successful, their organizations must incorporate more AI and automation into their business processes. However, few have done so to any significant extent. It’s a perilous situation, since respondents say that the consequences of not investing would be devastating to the long-term health of their business. Sponsored by Oracle

Pulse survey: Industrial and non-industrial companies alike are racing toward digitalization. The benefits of automation, connected devices, and artificial intelligence are simply too enticing to ignore. CEOs and their boards anticipate greater efficiencies, new competitive opportunities, and the ability to better serve and delight customers. Even companies that don’t have a clear view of the potential benefits often feel the hot breath of new digital competitors on their backs. It’s hard to find a CEO today who doesn’t believe their company’s future—if not their present—is digital. Sponsored by Siemens

White paper: Business leaders at industrial and infrastructure companies confront new challenges with the introduction of more automation, artificial intelligence, connected sensors, and other digital technologies in their operations. Because these new technologies come with compelling benefits, such as increased efficiency, lower costs, and reduced downtime, momentum is growing. But few executives at the top of these organizations understand the new and complex operational risks involved in the industrial internet and how to mitigate them. To be successful, they must place as much emphasis on ensuring the trustworthiness of their products and operations as they do on the new features and capabilities that digitalization makes possible. This requires making cybersecurity a priority, not an afterthought. Sponsored by Siemens

Research paper: Business leaders around the world feel the urgency to adopt more digital ways of doing things but fear their organizations are unable to keep up with the pace of change or take full advantage of the technology investments they’ve made, according to a new survey from Harvard Business Review Analytic Services. Faced with a variety of disruptive forces—new competition from companies that were born digital, increasing globalization, and customers with high expectations for a friction-free digital experience—they know their survival is on the line.

CIO-sourced paper: The winds of disruption have swept aside old ideas about how a business operates and the pace at which it needs to move. The future is being built on new technologies, data, and digitization. Fast-moving, cross-functional teams of people from different parts of the organization experiment and innovate together to deliver new products and capabilities at an unprecedented pace. The old leadership rules don’t apply. In this report, we explore how leading organizations are transforming in the face of disruption so they come out as the beneficiaries and not the victims of change. More than a dozen top chief information and digital officers—true transformation masters—share their secrets for breaking down walls, resetting expectations, and leading in a completely new model. In the process, they are rewriting the rules of CIO leadership.