5 steps to drive and foster innovation in IT

Tight budgets and labor shortages have remained an ongoing challenge for IT leaders in 2023. As a result, CIOs are looking at ways of doing more with less, while continuing to digitally transform their organizations. How can we free up funds in one area to invest or innovate in another area of the business?

This is especially critical within physical operations – the industries that drive more than 40% of the global GDP – as organizations like ABF Freight and Liberty Energy look for ways to operate more efficiently, gain end-to-end visibility, and focus on a sustainability agenda. Many of these companies that have been around for decades are eager to continue digitizing workflows and harnessing real-time data to deliver business outcomes. In fact, according to Samsara’s State of Connected Operations Report, connected operations leaders who reported the highest level of digital maturity were 6x more likely to exceed their financial goals by 25% or more.

In addition to bottom-line benefits, employees are often inspired and motivated by innovation – seeking job opportunities that encourage experimentation and embrace new ideas. With these factors in mind, here are five steps CIOs and IT leaders can take to drive innovation and future-proof their organization.

Step #1: Invest in a modern data stack and break down silos

Accelerated digital transformation and connectivity means that businesses are generating more data than ever before. To manage this data at scale, IT teams should invest in a modern data stack and build out a world-class architecture to maintain an agile edge as the company grows. To me, there are three main elements to the modern data stack – it’s cloud-based, it has broad integration opportunities, and it provides valuable insights out of the box. You want to have a cloud data platform that allows for fast set up and time to market, but it also needs to integrate with modern architecture. Modern enterprises, on average, have more than 1,000 SaaS applications in use. Your modern data stack should have connectors to all of your key systems and have the ability to deliver key insights and results quickly.

Step #2: Look up and out into the industry

It’s important to keep a pulse on the broader industry as you evaluate technology investments and identify the best opportunities for innovation within the organization. I encourage CIOs to embrace the role of a general manager and consider – what’s the product market fit and current industry landscape? What kind of market penetration are we targeting among users? Motivate your team to understand the broader landscape by allocating 5-10% of their time to work on looking up and out into the market. Meeting periodically with external partners, peers, or even VCs can help fuel an ideation funnel and maximize your return on investment in emerging solutions. Once you get an understanding of which of these technologies fit your specific use case or solve a particular pain point, then quickly move to proof-of-concept to test out the value to your business.

Step #3: Lead with user experience and don’t overlook the last mile

IT organizations live and die on the strength of the user experience associated with the services they provide and the solutions they deploy. It’s up to CIOs to take an active role in owning that experience for employees and customers. IT teams can be so focused on the many technical aspects of deploying new technology, that long-term adoption and stickiness among users can get overlooked.