AWS Cloud Enterprise Strategy Blog
Tenets: supercharging decision-making
“Once you make a decision, the universe conspires to make it happen.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson, essayist & philosopher Thinking is hard; energy intensive even. Perhaps that’s the reason we obsess about food. One estimate indicates we make over 200 food-related decisions a day. Another popular internet statistic boldly states that the average human […]
How Technology Leaders Can Prepare for Generative AI
We tend to overestimate the effect of a technology in the short run and underestimate the effect in the long run. —Roy Amara, Amara’s law I’m fascinated by the technological tipping points in history that have ignited the public’s imagination—the first TV broadcast, manned space flight, or video conference. Each of these events made a […]
Cutting Costs by Cutting Waste
Given today’s economic uncertainties, many companies are focused on ways to reduce—or at least control—their costs. Their approaches are often based on the traditional idea of controlling costs through the mechanism of budgets. “Let’s find places to cut a budget and force the manager working with that budget to find savings.” Often, the easiest areas […]
CTO: The Evolving Role of the Chief Trade-Off Officer
“Stop trying to make everyone happy. You’re not chocolate” – Anon As a distant observer of the art of being a DJ, I believe I can make their jobs easier. My cunning plan is to replace all those complex sliders on their mixing decks with binary switches. Volume: yes or no? Bass: on or off? […]
Business Value is IT’s Primary Measure of Progress
Our highest priority is to satisfy the customer through early and continuous delivery of valuable software. —”The 12 Principles Behind the Agile Manifesto” In the early days of my career, the success of my IT projects was measured by delivering on time, within budget, and with sufficiently good quality. “Sufficient” often meant that hundreds of […]
Managing in Economic Uncertainty: Cost Reductions
Managing in times of economic uncertainty means facing difficult choices. Reducing costs is a choice that leaders often face but mostly dread. Many of us on the Enterprise Strategy team have faced multiple macroeconomic headwinds or other industry- and company-specific challenges in our previous roles as CXOs. In this post, I outline some of the […]
Digital Transformation: the Why, Who, How, and What – Part 4, “The What”
In part three, ‘The How’ blog post, we covered best practices for transformational processes, and how you can use the digital-transformation process framework to deliver an effective transformation. In this blog post, we dive deeper into the technologies that enable digital transformation. Contemporary Technology Requirements The rising expectations of customers and employees, due to the […]
Digital Transformation: The Why, Who, How, and What – Part 3, “The How”
In part one, ‘The Why’ blog post, we discussed why digital transformation is needed for organizations, followed up by part two, ‘The Who’, which covered how successful organizations are rethinking their approach to organizational structure, learning, innovation, and culture. In this blog post, we dive deeper into the process of digital transformation. Contemporary Process Requirements […]
Digital Transformation: The Why, Who, How, and What – Part 2, “The Who”
Although still challenging and important, technology is often the easier part of digital transformation. As it turns out, the people part is the most critical and is often overlooked and under-appreciated. In an earlier blog post—‘The Why’—we discussed the goal of digital transformation and several critical attributes successful digitally-transformed organizations have in common. Many of […]
Digital Transformation: The Why, Who, How, and What – Part 1, “The Why”
Digital transformation is the process of using digital technologies to fundamentally change how an organization operates and delivers value to its customers. It involves the integration of digital technology into all areas of a business, changing how the business operates and how it delivers value to its customers. This process can be challenging and disruptive, […]