Roundtable: Monetizing Your Digital Strategy

With the digital revolution racing forward with no end date in sight, leaders of every organization regardless of what service they provide or product that they manufacture, must pay heed to it. To survive, they simply have no choice and in fact, a report released by Boston Consulting Group concluded that companies that invest heavily in digital technology show an even stronger relationship between diversity and innovation.

The result, the consultancy noted, was “even higher percentages of revenue from new products and services”.

To share their ideas and learnings in this important area, 16 IT executives from the Toronto area gathered on February 22, 2018 for another of The IT Media’s Group’s highly regarded Master Series Roundtables, this one entitled, “Monetizing Your Digital Strategy.” This roundtable discussion was moderated by ITMG’s Chief Technologist, Jeff Ishii. Sponsor for the event was Red Hat and Intel, represented at the table by Red Hat’s Country Leader Luc Villeneuve and Chief Technology Strategist Michael Cardy.

Topics discussed included:

• The CIO’s role in digital transformation
• Strategies to implement new services
• Key skills needed to unlock potential
• How even the disruptors are being disrupted
• The importance of DevOps teams
• Why some investments don’t hit intended ROI
• Leveraging partners to improve results
• Growing the top line as opposed to the bottom line
• The influence millennials do and will yield

Following the roundtable, Cardy described it as a “provocative and insightful discussion around the various dimensions of digital transformation.

“There are all kinds of dimensions such as the culture aspect and how we reorganize ourselves and go away from the traditional assembly line or division of labour to a network of small teams and DevOps. They are also grappling with finding people, while at the same time generating a new culture and transforming the people side of the business and changing a whole set of beliefs and values that we have held near and dear to our hearts in IT for the last 50 years.”

During the roundtable discussion, he referenced former CEO of General Electric Jack Welch, who once said, “If the rate of change on the outside exceeds the rate of change on the inside, the end is near.”

Cardy added, “business speed and agility, not just technology speed and agility, are very important and the digital experience has to be flawless. Specifically for certain generations like the millennials. They expect a flawless, easy omni-channel experience and if you don’t provide that, they won’t purchase from you.”

Session Highlights Videos

Technologies needed to achieve business goals

Best Practices for building the digital team

Engaging Partners to Speed up Digital Transformation

Measuring ROI of digital investments

Strategies to make digital investments successful

Post session interviews

Luc Villeneuve - Open Source as a key strategy for digital monetization

Mike Cardy - The Agile and DevOps Approach to Digital Transformation

David Arbuthnot - The Focus of Innovation in Digital Transformation

Peter Carr - Performance Measurement vs Leap of Faith

The IT Media Group’s CIO Master Series is one of the most successful event programs for IT executives in Canada, bringing together scores of senior level peers for thoughtful private discussions around the top issues facing enterprise IT. For a better understanding of these events please visit our Video section.

The IT Media Group is an award-winning producer of events and content for senior IT executives. Based in Toronto, our leadership team includes some of the most experienced and well respected media, technology and business professionals serving the IT executive community in Canada.