Denis Bourdon supported the digital transformation of the insurer Swiss Life. He won the CTO of the Year award for his time there, but he also has a wealth of experience of the metamorphosis of businesses. His credo: anticipate and listen to the business.
Denis Bourdon is calm and collected. As former Director of IT Operations at Swiss Life, he was at the heart of the digital transformation of a company under intense competitive pressure. Yet his experience has enabled him to negotiate this change of direction with enviable serenity. Listening to him, two pillars have enabled him to bring this transformation to a successful conclusion: active anticipation and listening to the business. These two qualities are essential for the CIO if he is to respond to the grievances of the environment, whether internal or external.
"The real break with digital transformation is the time it takes to face up to competitors who are moving fast in the digital arena. In this context, we must not be dogmatic, but ask ourselves the question and arbitrate between what is strategic and what the market can offer in a world of cohabitation between legacy and digital transformation", analyses Denis Bourdon, who recalls how as early as 2012 he anticipated the acceleration by switching IT from an infrastructure service to a service provider by building a PaaS to provision standard solutions to support the business, or using SaaS to provide applications.
Shadow IT and acceleration: the challenges facing IT Departments
When it comes to making SaaS choices, the question is always the same: "Make or Buy?", a question about what is strategic and what is not. This is a recurring question for the IT Department, which "is not meant to do everything by itself", as Denis Bourdon points out: "Another element of the transformation comes from the ability to source services from outside, to keep pace with the accelerating pace of change and to keep up with the timing of the business lines.
If the IT department is unable to offer the service to the business, it will look elsewhere. In this sense, shadow IT is an incentive for the IT Department to offer a high-performance service, whether in terms of development, infrastructure, quality of service or cost. The IT Department is the company's cloud provider, and its challenge is to meet the demands of the business. "For Denis Bourdon, "it's a duty to consider the cloud offering in order to build responses to partners within the company. The CIO who doesn't want to hear about the cloud is dead.
Anticipate to be a player in change
As a service provider, the IT Department responds to the needs of the business, which means that the IT Department needs to be able to listen. Not listening to the business is heresy!" exclaims Denis Bourdon, who continues, "It's like not listening to the customer for the company. It's impossible to function by resisting change. Once again, let's imagine a marketing manager who wants to work with big data. We have two options: we can work together to build a solution that meets a strategic challenge, or we can simply respond to a request as a technical service provider. In the latter case, we find ourselves in the situation where the IT department is not listening. As a general rule, the right approach is to support all the company's functions by listening and remaining a player in the change process, not a spectator.
The IT Department: between marketing and CDO
It's impossible to talk about transformation without broaching the subject of the Chief Digital Officer (CDO). For Denis Bourdon, the function, while it meets the need for anticipation and rapid response, is far from unequivocal and depends on the company: "There are three possible scenarios. In some companies, the CDO will think about the business and ask the CIO to deliver. A second case is that of the CDO with limited resources. They think about transformation, but with few resources. This is a display function. In the final case, the company creates an ad hoc marketing and IT function. In this case, the CDO will set up his own IT team because the IT department is unable to keep up. But personally I'm convinced that the business/marketing function is predominant for a CDO. In this sense, he or she is responding to a current trend, but cannot supplant the IT department in the long term. On the other hand, the CDO can also act as a spur to restore the agility of the IT and marketing departments. "
In conclusion, Denis Bourdon believes that companies need to ask themselves the right questions and answer them quickly if they are to position themselves to face up to the new players. But this is a transitional phase.
"In the long term, the IT and marketing departments will support the digital transformation. What is new today and needs to be part of a rapid availability cycle will evolve and become part of tomorrow's legacy. In the meantime, it is important to continue to work on optimising existing systems to free up investment margins to support the transformation, which cannot be achieved without the IT Department," concludes Denis Bourdon.
"Performance gains depend on employee commitment".
We asked Denis Bourdon what criteria he used to choose his new career. His answer is full of lessons to be learned.
- "First of all, I'm asking myself what business we want to serve, what the challenges are and what the prospects are. This is the business that will determine all IT activity.
- Secondly, what is the company's commitment to transformation? If it's just on the face of it, it's easy to end up managing day-to-day operations, which is not the stuff of dreams.
- The managerial dimension is essential. What is the state of the workforce, the organisation in place, the commitment of employees? This is the most important aspect. The real boost to performance will come from employee commitment.
- Finally, the technological context, the autonomy allowed and the CIO's position in the organisation chart are all important factors in assessing his or her capacity to act.