Author: Mark Schwartz

LinkedIn reports that hiring for diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) roles has increased more than 90% since 2019, as companies expand their investments in ensuring that their organizations, products, and communications reflect the diversity of the customers they serve. DEI is also a growing regulatory concern—particularly with regard to pay equity. In the US, most […]

While the term digital transformation has become slippery and overused, it nevertheless remains a priority of many business and technology executives. In this blog post, Dr. Saša Baškarada, a senior transformation architect at Amazon Web Services (AWS) Professional Services, explains the drivers of digital transformation as well as its three interdependent stages. The resulting conceptual […]

  Creating a Cloud Center of Excellence (CCOE) is often a great way to jumpstart a company’s migration to the cloud and to guide the migration with an eye on best practices and long-term suitability. The company sets up a team of experts on cloud best practices and uses their skills and their passion for […]

In my previous post I explained why environmental, social, and corporate governance (or ESG) has become such an important concern for enterprises; why it is a strategic consideration; why it rises to the level of the board of directors’ attention; and how it differs from corporate social responsibility (CSR) in that it requires the company’s […]

Environmental and social governance, or ESG, is a growing concern for business leaders—and for government regulators, investors, and standards bodies. Recent events have only increased the business world’s focus on ESG: worker wellness has become a major concern during the COVID-19 pandemic; social justice protests have drawn attention to gaps in diversity, equity, and inclusion; […]

If you’re a CFO, you’re acutely aware of your fiduciary responsibilities. Over the long term, the cloud is likely to be a material element of your cost structure. The decision to move to the cloud must be made with appropriate care and diligence. To add complexity to the decision, much of your due diligence is […]

While technology executives generally understand and accept that agile software development methods are effective, some may still be reluctant to approach their cloud transformations in an agile manner. They believe that a cloud transformation is too big and complex for Agile to work. In this blog post, Dr. Saša Baškarada, a senior cloud transformation advisor […]

As I said in my last post, the way we’ve looked at IT investments and budgets has been missing some crucial context. It’s the current state of IT, the “balance sheet,” so to speak, that determines what spending and investments are necessary when considered alongside the company’s strategic imperatives. A conversation between the CIO and […]

This guest post by Aaron Rallo touches on a topic that comes up frequently in my executive conversations and in my books: What is the value of agility and how can you assess it? Clearly, agility (flexibility, nimbleness, whatever word you prefer) has business value, since an agile business has less risk and the potential […]

It’s important for CIOs to be able to convey the current state of IT, particularly in conversations with their CFOs. I’ve written before about the CIO-CFO dialogue and how it should change in the digital age. In the past, CIO-CFO conversations have generally focused on budget planning and execution, or on multiyear capital planning. But […]