When it comes to new technology, are you a leader, follower, or laggard?
Director IT | CTO Office | Digital Factory / Industry 4.0 in Hardware, 10,001+ employees
We're always dabbling, doing proof of concepts (PoCs) and talking to startups. But from an adoption perspective, depending on the area, we try to bring in technology that’s matured a bit. The reason we like to go with startups is because given the size of our company, the complexities and the differentiation, we lead those startups in a manner that helps us fulfill a certain need. So we tailor-make certain products for ourselves and then that product is sold externally by those startups. 15 years ago, when Workday was quite small, we were their first large company. We used to have Oracle back then, but we gave them a lot of our processes and collaborated with them to switch over to Workday over time. Then Workday became the giant that it is now.Earlier CIO in Manufacturing, Self-employed
Whether to be a leader or otherwise, it is contextual. If the technology is give strategic benefit to the organisation, then I would be a leader. If it is not to have any strategic or operational benefit, I would be a follower or laggardDirector of Engineering in Hardware, 501 - 1,000 employees
I follow plan a to understand new technology by simulation, discussion and proof of concept before implementing it as a product. It's very important to be adaptive with new technologies as soon as possible to sustain yourself in the emerging market. Hence I always lead the new technology.Content you might like
Head of Cloud & Platforms in Banking, 1,001 - 5,000 employees
A compelling objective; curious to learn from others. My experience, though relatively recent due to the recent budget focus on this topic, emphasises the importance of understanding the organisation's model, culture, ...read moreYes77%
No20%
Other (share below!)4%
198 PARTICIPANTS
Yes29%
We're discussing it50%
No18%
I'm not sure2%
407 PARTICIPANTS
We need to be ahead of the curve to be able to sell to them but it's a fine balance, even in terms of where we put development efforts. A lot of our customers are comparing us with our competitors’ features. One of the things that we want to look at is machine learning-driven push notifications. We’re trying to explain that this would be a month-long project if we want to get it right. But our customers don't understand the nuances, like timing. There's a particular time that you should send a push notification. You don't want to send too many because people turn them off. So we are trying to find that balance to build an amazing product that our customers love to use, without understanding why they love it because they won't understand the underlying technology. They just need to know it works perfectly.