What is business analytics? Using data to predict business outcomes

Business analytics is the practical application of statistical analysis and technologies on business data to identify and anticipate trends and predict business outcomes. Research firm Gartner defines business analytics as “solutions used to build analysis models and simulations to create scenarios, understand realities and predict future states.” [ Learn the secrets of highly successful data…

IT leaders’ top 15 takeaways from 2020

CIOs started 2020 talking about better business alignment, maturing their cloud architecture, and furthering digital transformation. No one expected a pandemic. Yet here we are, at the end of a year full of unexpected upheavals that tested nearly every organization and executive, including CIOs and their IT teams who faced unique challenges as they raced…

Top CIOs and IT organizations of 2020

CIOs and other top IT leaders do incredible things for their businesses, executing and conceiving business advantages through the innovative use of technology. That’s why CIO.com honors each year the best CIOs and related IT leaders for their innovations, strategies, and delivery of business value. To do so, CIO bestows the CIO 100 awards in…

10 lies CIOs tell themselves

“O what a tangled web we weave,” explained Scottish novelist Walter Scott, “when first we practice to deceive.” But no matter how tangled the web when someone else is the target, it has nothing on the mess that happens when we’re fooling ourselves. And fool ourselves we do — not because we deliberately want to…

4 trends fueling hybrid-work strategies in 2021

If 2020 taught tech leaders anything it is to expect the unexpected, as the coronavirus exacted a considerable toll from businesses worldwide. But CIOs still have their jobs to do, driving digital strategy that provides stellar employee and customer experiences. Trends that bubbled up in the second half of 2020 — including migrations to cloud…

Customer-focused IT: A key CIO imperative, post-COVID

When you’re selling an active retirement community and medical care to seniors, high-touch, in-person interaction is the gold standard. At Erickson Living Management, prospective clients are typically courted with one-on-one tours of facilities and amenities, a walk-through of their potential residence capped off with a meal in one of the company’s many on-site restaurants. Erickson’s…

Precision transformation starts with a wide-angle lens

Chris Boyd co-authored this article. Companies today need to transform to develop new digital capabilities that will allow them to meet evolving customer preferences, grow recurring revenue, or become an AI-first organization. All these scenarios require coordinated efforts that traverse business units and functions, from product strategy to technology architecture and everything in between. Planning…