Incredible lineup of speakers at CMG’s Executive Insights Event delivered thought-provoking insights

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On Sunday evening, October 28, 2018, CMG kicked off its much anticipated CMG Executive Insights Event.  

Sponsored by CA Technologies and Syncsort, we opened this inaugural event with a cocktail reception so the more than 30 technology executives could introduce themselves to each other and to CMG participants—the beautiful, fall Tampa weather served as a perfect backdrop.

Monday, October 29

Our Monday morning start was early. We presented the framework for the day: a series of presentations covering the scope and power of digital transformation, a forum for discussions, and clear actionable steps for attendees to take away to kickstart their own organization’s transformation.

• Opening Remarks

In her opening remarks, President and Managing Director Amanda Hendley addressed why CMG, an organization with a historic focus on performance and capacity, has made such a broad shift to become The Digital Transformation Association. “…[the same] technology professionals who may have been siloed in their organizations and only called upon to improve speed and performance and uptime, are now serving a suite of customers both internal and external. They are also no longer working with and reporting up to just the CIO and internal IT, but may work across their organization with product development teams, marketing, finance, the executive team, and even call centers…. CMG has repositioned the organization to better support the technology community.”

• First Speaker

Mariano Maluf presented “Predicting the Future of the Business Landscape.” In his session, Mariano presented those organizations that had truly disrupted their operations and industries. He built a framework to take an organization from the status quo, past change, to true disruption. He also emphasized the complexity of IT leadership today and offered that the best “future-proofing” that an executive can do is not only to research and explore new technologies, but also to have an inkling of a plan or an opinion about them.

• Second Speaker

Varma Kunaparaju presented “The Three New Transformations Driving IT Today.” In his talk, Varma addressed the increasing complexity of IT infrastructure and how the changing roles and responsibilities of modern IT operations teams are creating a greater need for organizational transparency and oversight, and how they are challenging IT leadership in new ways.

• Third Speaker

After a panel discussion and lunch, Futurist and Author Ben Pring took us on a journey of “What to do When Machines do Everything.” In a thought-provoking presentation, Ben presented “The Budding Effect” and how the new playing field of AI will have far-reaching impacts, especially in the areas of Wellness, Biotech, Virtual and Augmented Reality, the Experience Economy, Smart Infrastructure, and Next Generation IT. However, despite increased automation, we will see a growing need for humans to work with machines as only they can bring the assets of creativity, ethics, empathy, and real-time judgement.

• Fourth Speaker

As the list of possibilities for our own digital transformations continued to grow, omNovos CEO Allan Zander’s session helped clear some of the fog. In his presentation, “Digital Transformation and the Reality of The New Customer Experience,” Allan addressed what might be one of the best first applications of technology: customers.  Allan challenged attendees, saying that the customer experience was going to be the number one driver of success and that it may be one of the most overlooked challenges to tackle. His message of encouragement was to think about the one thing they could start doing to make changes for their customers.

• Fifth Speaker

Bringing it all together in his session “Let’s Get Real About Self-Driven IT Ops,” Greg Lotko of CA Technologies doubled down on the customer experience and spoke about the need for companies to focus on open, frictionless, and optimized IT. By creating the right framework, reducing barriers, and automating key processes, companies will be able to grab a competitive edge in an ever-changing marketplace.

• Waterfront Reception and Dinner
  

At the waterfront reception and dinner, many attendees reflected on the sessions of the day. Opinions varied across industries, but the consensus of the day seemed to be that digital transformation is real and is now, and that if you are not ready, then you had better get started.

2018 Executive Insights Event sponsor CA Technologies has graciously agreed to share Greg Lotko’s presentation and two research papers with CMG. You may download these papers here.