Leading as a Future-Ready CIO in an AI-Driven World – InformationWeek

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With AI on top of most businesses’ agendas, we are just scratching the surface of witnessing the transformational impact of the technology. This means staying ahead of the curve right now is not just a competitive advantage, it’s mission-critical for long-term growth.

Organizations across all regions, sectors, and sizes are feverishly attempting to navigate this evolving landscape. While a few may be well equipped to adapt without significant external support, most will require a group of partners to create value.

For many of these companies, the CIO will be elevated to play a leading role in orchestrating a collaboration model designed to future-proof the business.

The CIOs’ Challenge

AI has produced countless new opportunities for growth and innovation, but it’s also brought with it numerous challenges for CIOs. With little time to execute during this period of inflated expectations, three key areas of focus should be bridging the gaps across infrastructure, data, and skills supply.

Infrastructure: Most organizations’ current technology platforms are not able to manage the AI workload of the future. The technology entails a costly infrastructure with extensive computational power, zettabytes of storage, a dedicated GPU and specialized software. It also needs to keep up with the latest regulations. This all comes at an immense cost, and in some cases such as with GPUs, the supply may not even exist.

Data: Organizations also often sit on volumes of existing, highly valuable data — or intellectual property (IP) — as it’s unstructured and difficult to extract via traditional approaches and legacy technologies. Individual organizations’ data are often siloed, primarily existing on their part of a value chain, narrowing the value of the information able to be gleaned.

Talent: Perhaps most critical but often most easily overlooked is getting access to the people who will be at the center of the entire transformation. Due to the speed of generative AI (GenAI) development, organizations are struggling with the short supply of experienced and high-quality talent with the skills to meet the demands of today and the ambition of tomorrow, hampering AI adoption and R&D journeys.

Enter the Ecosystem

Technology has taken down the barrier to interoperability between companies, with AI driving this even further. Market trends across all industries indicate that orchestrating an ecosystem approach is key to unlocking economic value, which can help companies pull capital together and create new value models.

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Research shows that getting this right pays huge dividends. Ecosystems contribute 16.2% incremental revenue growth to businesses, 16.5% incremental earnings, and 14.6% cost reduction. This high value proposition explains why 61% of leaders report that their organizations are increasing ecosystem spending through 2024.

For example, the automotive industry is moving from selling vehicles that are optimized for one particular set of purposes to focusing on the broader concept of mobility. At the end of the day, people want to get from point A to point B. Whether they need a minivan to drive themselves or a pickup truck to be driven in, they seek the outcome rather than the specific vehicle type. This industry is adopting an abundance mindset, with capital flows now directed toward determining who will dominate the mobility space in the next 10 to 20 years.

Find the Right Mix

Adopting an ecosystem business model can support challenges by leveraging the multiplier effect and the power of many. Creating a network where partners of all kinds can access the best resources from a collective pool will shrink the time and expense to acquire the necessary assets and expedite efforts to fill these disparities.

When it comes to IT infrastructure, CIOs should consider the long-term future when investing. Ecosystems enable organizations to share in that investment, ensuring access to a supply of the necessary hardware/software for AI workloads, an alignment with changing regulations, and a reduction of operating expenses.

GenAI allows organizations to clean up their data because the hurdle cost of cleaning up data is high. Within an ecosystem, organizations and partners can pool their data, significantly broadening the insights they can derive from the information. It can also encourage collaboration as businesses combine their data to drive new models and innovation.

Partner ecosystems can help close the talent and skills gap by bringing together collaborators with complementary resources and capabilities, including those whose workforces have desired AI skills. This frees up time and costs tied to hiring and retraining, while simultaneously enabling employees to focus on core tasks tied to R&D and AI adoption.

Adapt Quickly, Accelerate Faster, Unlock Potential

A well-developed partner ecosystem that offers hardware and software, data and talent supply, can empower companies to truly maximize the potential AI has to offer. Those who have an abundance mindset when approaching value orchestration and business models are increasingly going to outperform those who are not.

When companies work together, embracing abundance, it positions the entire ecosystem to stay at the forefront of AI advancements and make a seismic impact across markets and value chains. Now is the time for CIOs to harness the power of ecosystems and make it a strategic imperative for C-suites and boards or risk falling behind. The rewards can be transformational.