Brian Rice, CIO, Kellogg Company
Challenges in technology to meet enterprise needs in 2014
There is still a gap in how we drive insights from data, i.e. analytics. Building and maintaining a leading analytics capability involves people, processes and technology, with technology only serving as part of an effective and sustainable analytics solution. I look forward to being able to leverage analytics in an even more aggressive way and we all need to do this in lock step with our business and technology partners.
"Long gone is the reactive, transactional nature of our IT business"
Solutions that would make my job easier
Ensuring that we are awake and alert and staying ahead of IT security threats is what keeps me, and likely most, CIOs up at night. Security solutions need to continue to evolve as external threats and risks evolve. With the recently publicized major breaches, there’s clearly an opportunity for more innovation on this front.
Trends impacting enterprise business environment
Our function—and our industry— are poised at a critical inflection point where we need to rethink how we work, how we think, and most importantly, how we capture, share and use information to drive insights, brand loyalty, new product development, and ultimately, product sales. Moving forward, nalytics will play an even more significant role across our business to drive both growth and efficiencies. In addition, all things “mobile,” and the continued proliferation of cloud computing will continue to shape, and reshape, our industry. Our role as CIOs is to not simply to follow these trends but to find ways to use technology as a competitive advantage for our business by leading our companies and our teams out in front of emerging trends.
Changing role of CIOs
Long gone is the reactive, transactional nature of our IT business. Today, and moving forward, the CIO has to be a business person as much as they are a technologist. Understanding the business challenges and objectives are at the center of everything we do. Partnering with the business to leverage technology to solve business problems and anticipate future business needs is job 1.
Lessons learned and advice to fellow CIOs
Our biggest collective challenge as CIOs is to stretch ourselves, and the boundaries of our function, to collaborate and partner with our business leaders to not just manage through change but to help define it.
