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Regulatory Changes Drive Digital Disruption | Sherpas in Blue Shirts

May 4, 2017

Companies in some highly regulated industries often view digital transformation and digital restructuring as being constrained by laws and regulations that don’t evolve fast enough to allow digital transformation to happen. But there’s another side to the regulatory coin: sometimes regulatory changes enable and drive disruption and business transformation. That’s about to happen in a few months with APIs and financial institutions.

A payment service directive will go active in the UK in January 2018. The directive will force all banks to expose their core systems to APIs for three functions:

The United Nations Looks at Security Of Artificial Intelligence | Sherpas in Blue Shirts

May 3, 2017

I recently had the privilege of attending at the United Nations an invited gathering of individuals active in the Artificial Intelligence (AI) space. The meeting was hosted by UNOPS with a view to consider how AI can be better deployed to support the UN mission. The attendees included leaders in AI and its related fields with the AI leaders for companies such as Facebook, Google, IBM Watson, Intel and IPSoft, along with government entities and distinguished academics and journalists.

At the dinner, a great number of topics were discussed with the United Nations representatives challenging the community to use its collective resources to support the UN’s mission of cleaning up the oceans, feeding the hungry and delivering medicine to the underserved. As the discussion progressed, security emerged as an important topic and that AI has the potential to both make a vital contribution and to be co-opted and weaponized as an agent of attack.

Remedy for Threat to US Pharmaceutical Industry’s Profitability | Sherpas in Blue Shirts

April 20, 2017

US pharmaceutical companies may be counting their lucky stars now that healthcare reform is a dead issue for the time being. But they shouldn’t. They are still very vulnerable to increasing political pressure from the Trump Administration. The good news is there are actions these companies can take in the face of this pressure, and these actions are equally applicable by companies in other industries.

Pharma’s Vulnerability

The pharmaceutical industry is an attractive target for the new Administration to attack. The Administration may not be able to get all its legislation passed, but it still has substantial ability to affect public opinion and utilize substantial power over many industries, healthcare being primary at this time. Pharmaceutical companies are a case in point. Here’s why:

How To Accelerate Value Creation Through Artificial Intelligence | Sherpas in Blue Shirts

April 12, 2017

Major advances in Artificial Intelligence (AI) technology are happening rapidly, and many organizations are excited about the possibilities AI presents. However, some successful companies fail in their innovation efforts to create new value by leveraging disruptive technologies. Others haven’t yet embarked on this innovation journey because they lack use cases. My advice: First define the strategy you’ll use to create value through AI. And Facebook is good role model when it comes to AI strategy.

Your strategy for value creation needs to include how to maximize and expedite the development process. This is the foundational core of Facebook’s strategy. I recently attended a dinner focused on AI at the United Nations. Hosted by UNOPS, attendees included distinguished academics, software companies, government entities and AI leaders in companies successfully using AI.

How to Budget A Digital Transformation Initiative Despite Unknown Risks | Sherpas in Blue Shirts

April 4, 2017

Imagine you’re the CIO tasked with driving change in a digital transformation at your company. You and other leaders have marshalled the organization toward the intended goal, and everyone has voiced commitment to achieving the breakthrough performance you expect. You’re at the start of the initiative, but it’s not playing out the way leaders had hoped. the folks holding the purse strings aren’t on board with funding additional investment for more technology and want to pull the plug on the planned change. Sound familiar?

Who Should Be Responsible For Driving A Business Model Change and Breakthrough Performance? | Sherpas in Blue Shirts

March 14, 2017

The potential for breakthrough performance from digital transformation is enormous, but it requires a different approach to the initiative. The first step is to build a vision or strategic intent for the breakthrough performance and then build broad organizational support for the journey. The executives with responsibility for keeping the business running can’t allow the business to fail and can’t be deterred from running the business. This responsibility shapes their focus, sets their priorities – and doesn’t allow freedom for a grand experiment in transforming the business. It’s also highly unlikely that a company can dedicate its best resources for a multi-year project. So, who should lead the change initiative? There are two separate, distinctly different paths on the transformation journey. Each path needs a separate team driving the change on that aspect of the journey. I refer to them as the “journey team” and the “operational and capabilities teams.” Read more at Peter’s Forbes blog.

CFOs Must Improve Communication About Resources for Developing Apps | Sherpas in Blue Shirts

October 11, 2016

The most important investments companies are making right now are around technology. And that’s no wonder. Digital opportunities within application services alone prove successful in achieving efficiency, growth and enablement. It’s so easy to book a business reservation or check in with your flight on your smartphone, for instance. And it’s easy to communicate with your grandmother, children or friends on Facebook. Or share news of a new product through a YouTube video and watch it go viral with millions of people sharing it. But building digital apps is neither easy nor cheap. Simplicity in interactive apps comes at a very high price. Many initiatives are not adequately funded because the CFO is not adequately communicating the investment and effort required.
There are a lot of false expectations around building digital apps.

How Can A CFO Become A More Strategic Business Partner? | Sherpas in Blue Shirts

September 19, 2016

Two years ago, I blogged about the switch from CIOs to CFOs as the new influencer in technology spend decisions. Fast forward to today, and there’s a lot of talk about how CFOs can become a more strategic partner to the business by adding more value. There are a couple of approaches that companies take to achieve this objective, but, alone, these tactics don’t achieve the desired outcome.

One thesis, as described in a recent SandHill article, is that companies need to implement different software to capture and integrate data from multiple sources so the CFO will have the framework for data-driven opinions to present to the C-suite.

In the context of the CFO role, what is strategic?

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