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Lessons for CIOs from the MIT CIO Symposium


Lessons for CIOs: Alpha Software executives meet with CIOs at the MIT CIO Symposium Innovation Showcase.

Lessons for CIOs: Alpha Software executives meet with CIOs at the MIT CIO Symposium Innovation Showcase.


Recently, hundreds of CIOs gathered at MIT for the annual MIT CIO Symposium in Boston.  Organizers selected Alpha Software to appear as one of 10 invite-only vendors in the Innovation Showcase at the event. There are many lessons for CIOs who were unable to attend this year's event.

Lessons for CIOs from the MIT CIO Symposium
During the MIT CIO Symposium, Alpha Software executives had the privilege of speaking to many CIOs about their IT challenges and priorities. Most CIOs we spoke with kept hitting on the same themes:

    • Mobile apps are expensive to produce – Many CIOs spoke about spending hundreds of thousands to produce one or two apps. They are looking for new technologies, in many cases Rapid Mobile App Development, to cut the costs and speed the process.
    • There are not enough skilled mobile app developers on staff to get business apps built – CIOs are incurring significant costs to outsource the development of mobile aps because they don’t have the talent required in-house. They must uncover how to do more with the team they already have.
    • Data integration remains one of the biggest challenges in building mobile apps. Several CIOs spoke about the unique needs of having to integrate data from newly acquisitioned companies into new or existing business apps.
    • Getting a handle on how artificial intelligence will or should impact their organization is a key priority for many CIOs.

At Alpha Software, these are the types of challenges we help CIOs and IT teams solve every day.  We cut development costs, speed app development and empower a wider range of employees to build mobile apps with Alpha Anywhere. Our standard-based, open architecture is built to ease data integration for companies and to leverage new technologies like artificial intelligence APIs.
Alpha Anywhere is helping CIOs cut development costs, speed app development and empower a wider range of employees to build mobile apps. In addition, Alpha Anywhere's standard-based, open architecture eases data integration and enables companies to leverage new technologies like artificial intelligence APIs.
Here are some additional points that the  Enterprises Project took away from the MIT CIO Symposium:

  1. Digital business IT leaders go all in on IT culture change - Savvy IT organizations are re-engineering to the core and shaking things up. They are putting different viewpoints into the mix and pairing young developers with senior executives to problem solve.
  2. The IT organization as you knew it is morphing quickly - Rich data sets and powerful analysis tools are changing how the IT organization behaves.  In the future, teams will increasingly be self-forming, focused on particular business problems, cross-functional, and augmented by non-employees.
  3. Robots won’t steal all human jobs in the age of artificial intelligence, but big changes aren’t far off - Automation and AI are helping companies transform and many will eventually replace most job roles.  Some of the most valued employees will be those that have analytics skills, storytelling ability and change management.
  4. CIOs can’t do cognitive technology themselves - CIOs were advised to become a cognitive company effectively by building an ecosystem of partners vs. trying to hire and train, or build the solutions themselves.
  5. It’s not how much you spend on digital transformation, it’s how you spend it - While CIOs are spending more on digital transformation, not all are able to confirm the results are paying off. Top performers tend to focus on customer-facing efforts, such as new products and services, customer experience or business operations.
  6. After a hack or breach, CIOs must provide CEOs with context - Experts advised CIOs and CISOs to clearly identify why the organization has been hacked so they can give senior leadership full context around the intent.
Alpha Software is helping CIOs with many of the challenges around digital transformation and cognitive technology - through the creation of more sophisticated mobile and web apps. Read our free guide, “Build Killer Enterprise Apps: Creating Your Mobile Strategy and Selecting a Platform" or gain an understanding of how Alpha Software can help your organization.
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About Author

Amy Groden-Morrison
Amy Groden-Morrison

Amy Groden-Morrison has served more than 15 years in marketing communications leadership roles at companies such as TIBCO Software, RSA Security and Ziff-Davis. Most recently she was responsible for developing marketing programs that helped achieve 30%+ annual growth rate for analytics products at a $1Bil, NASDAQ-listed business integration Software Company. Her past accomplishments include establishing the first co-branded technology program with CNN, launching an events company on the NYSE, rebranding a NASDAQ-listed company amid a crisis, and positioning and marketing a Boston-area startup for successful acquisition. Amy currently serves as a Healthbox Accelerator Program Mentor, Marketing Committee Lead for the MIT Enterprise Forum of Cambridge Launch Smart Clinics, and on the organizing team for Boston TechJam. She holds an MBA from Northeastern University.

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