The Launch of the 2019 Harvey Nash / KPMG CIO Survey in Birmingham

Held at the scenic Library of Birmingham, our annual CIO event welcomed around a hundred CIOs and technology leaders to launch the results of the 2019 Harvey Nash/ KPMG CIO Survey.

CEO of Harvey Nash, Albert Ellis took us through the agenda followed by the CIO Practice’s very own Natalie Whittlesey and Lily Haake sharing the fascinating results of the survey.

We were delighted to be joined by our fantastic panel, chaired by Chris Seel, Director at Harvey Nash, which included:

• Sian Jones – CEO, Xoserve
• Chris Leggett – COO, Invenio Business Solutions
• David Leach – Director of IT & Transformation, Orbit Group

6 things we learnt last night…

• A time of massive change. 44% of organisations expect to change their product/service offering or business model in a fundamental way in the next 3 years
• Technology doesn’t stop evolving. Organisations are continuing to invest in emerging technology – 1 in 20 are currently investing in quantum computing, for example.
• The rise of business-managed IT. Almost two-thirds of organisations allow business-managed IT investment, and approximately 1 in 10 actively encourage it
• Up to 1 in 5 jobs will go to robots. Typically, survey respondents believe around 10% of their organisation’s workforce will be replaced within 5 years by AI / automation
• Relentless rise of cyber-crime levels out? After tracking the growth of cyber-crime and confidence in dealing with the threat for some years, this is the first time the incidences have levelled out and confidence has grown
• CIOs: ready for disruption. Not only is technology disrupting sectors, it’s disrupting the role of the technology leader too.  Executive board membership is down, and an explosion of new job titles and roles have occurred, from Chief Digital Officer to Chief Data Officer and beyond

Some interesting quotes…

• Sian: “We have a motto at Xoserve that Everyone’s a CIO… It’s completely inconceivable that we’d put anyone in a C-Suite job that a) isn’t a great leader and b) isn’t a commercially savvy individual. I think the world is very quickly going to get to the point where you need to be a great leader… commercially savvy AND you need to be a technology leader.”
• Chris: “CEOs of the past should be looking over their shoulders.”
• David: “With governance, I like a nice healthy tension. If you haven’t got the tension… you have the balance wrong.”
• Sian: “It’s a war on talent. You need to have a clear vision and a sense of why.” 
• Chris: (governance is) “Fundamentally about engagement from the outset; trust needs to be in the rhythm of what IT does”
• David: “A lot of technology transformation is less about the technology and it’s about how you are as a business.”
• Sian: “You can be whatever you want to be. Actually tech skills that you have are the base level entry point, so the question is: what do you care about the most? – Employees? Customers? The worlds your oyster. ”
• Chris: “The successful organisations will be the ones where the technology leader IS the CEO, is driving those right conversations, driving change… transforming the organisation, not just from the balance sheet… but also making sure the underlying fundamentals are right.” 
• David: “With platform based businesses, we trust somebody we’ve never met and there is a group of people who are growing up with that in their mind. Would they have a different perspective on what trust is?”