Krishna Ratakonda
IBM Fellow & CTO Industry Cloud
IBM
JUNE 2023
Krishna Ratakonda, currently an IBM Fellow and CTO of Industry Cloud, has built a 24-year career at IBM, including 16 years in IBM Research. He recalls that a major area of focus during his time in IBM Research was on using data and analytics to make better business decisions. Krishna worked across a variety of industries, from insurance to government, to help large organizations leverage their data and apply analytics.
Looking back, they were “ahead of the game,” he notes, and were already using artificial intelligence to help with the analysis years ago. “What we are talking about today with AI, in some sense, we were already doing around seven or eight years ago to make resourcing decisions or insurance decisions,” he says.
In his current role as CTO of Industry Cloud, Krishna is focused on cloud strategies, specifically in helping clients in highly regulated industries, like health care and financial services, navigate the cloud. “We are looking at how we can simplify the cloud journey for our clients and have less friction,” he explains.
In advance of his upcoming session at the Washington, DC CIO Executive Summit, Krishna is sharing insights from his extensive experience with generative AI, data and analytics and implementing large technological changes across an organization.
Striking a Balance as an IT Leader
One key priority this year for CIOs across Evanta communities is determining how to balance competing initiatives and prioritize the right things to deliver results for the business. Krishna notes that striking a balance between conflicting ideas is often a key skill for a CTO or CIO. “Technology changes very quickly, and there is always pressure to adopt new things,” he says. “It’s a question of balancing innovation with the ability to deliver. It’s not just adopting a new technology – it’s figuring out what’s going to work for your organization.”
One of the challenges is that people see the next shiny thing. They grab on to it, but the rest of the organization is not with them.”
Another key skill for an IT leader is learning how to balance innovation with risk, especially in regulatory industries. “Organizations still want to be completely compliant with all the regulations, but the reputational risk in these regulated industries is very high,” Krishna notes.
An additional thing for CIOs to think about is how to “introduce new technologies in a way that makes it easy for people to consume and with guardrails that prevent misuse,” he adds. He gives the example of AI models and using them in practice. “For example, a lot of the models leverage the data that's available, and a lot of the data is English,” Krishna explains. “So right now, the model may answer questions better in English, and there's a question of bias. Are you setting up your environment to serve your clients equally?”
Focusing on AI, the Cloud and the Workforce
In 2023, Krishna sees a sharp focus on AI and the Cloud as CIOs’ top priorities. While cloud has been around for awhile, he’s finding that some organizations are hitting roadblocks now. One of these is a skilled workforce. “People may have signed contracts, which say that a majority of their workload will be moving to cloud by a certain date for a variety of reasons,” he says. “But the workforce has to have the skills to move to the cloud, and there is also the aspect of the complexity of the move itself.”
Similarly, IT leaders want to focus on AI and how it could impact their growth and operations, but may still be finding practical applications for it. “People are still trying to figure out what is that real use case where AI can make a difference,” Krishna notes. “Which process are you going to change? What difference is it going to make?” He believes IT leaders are still in the process of discovery on AI.
Krishna views the evolution of the workforce as the next big challenge for CIOs and CTOs. “Things change so quickly, and nobody can keep up with everything,” he shares. “Let's say that perhaps 5% of your workforce understands what's happening in a new area. How do you manage this workforce revolution so that you bring the entire organization along with you?”
As Krishna notes, “When things go south, it's because you as a leader don't have full control over things – or you try too many things, and there are holes in terms of security or something else. That's where I think the challenge is.” The complexity of learning new technologies – combined with risk that might be hiding there – makes it even more important for IT leaders to bring the whole workforce along on the digital journey.
Prioritizing During Economic Uncertainty
As IT leaders also face challenges around economic uncertainty, the task of prioritizing key initiatives that will deliver measurable outcomes becomes increasingly critical. Krishna is speaking on the topic of “Top IT Areas to Prioritize During Economic Uncertainty” and says that he thinks executives are in “wait and see mode” on the economy.
“In these types of situations, it is especially important that CIOs take an approach that makes them not risk averse – but selective in choosing the right innovation partners and the right innovation technologies that can take them into the future,” he explains.
You can learn more about key topics on the agenda at the Washington, DC CIO Executive Summit, or apply to join a local CIO community for more conversations about CIO priorities.
Special thanks to Krishna Ratakonda and IBM.
by CIOs, for CIOs
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