Digital Strategy | Parker Shi

Chief Technology Officer vs. Chief Business Technology Officer

February 9, 2021

For many companies, technology doesn’t really matter because they don’t have the right leaders to help them identify opportunities to deploy technology to change their business. A Chief Business Technology Officer is one of the opportunities for companies to identify the right leader to help them accomplish their ambition of becoming technology-empowered! I was recently working with one of the largest travel companies in the world to help them define their technology strategy for the next 5 years. During the first week of the project, the team and I found out that the client hadn’t

“Contract Coding” – the next frontier for IT Supply Chain

January 28, 2021

To truly be able to deploy technology across all facets of the business, companies should explore the 7 habits of Tech-Empowered Companies and embark on a journey to transform themselves. As Marc Andreessen famously said in 2011, “software is eating the world”. Technology is becoming an essential part of every industry and every business. More and more companies are making the statement that they are becoming a technology company.

10 Questions for Tech Strategy consultants

December 10, 2020

Majority of consulting firms are now talking about the same topics: agile, AI, cloud, micro-services, ecosystem, and API. One would almost wonder if strategy, which is fundamentally about choices, is still relevant. In addition, with the integration of business and technology, many of the so-called digital consultants actually don’t know much about technology. Is technology strategy still relevant? What should companies consider when developing a technology strategy? And how should they pick technology strategy consultants? Whenever I speak with a CEO about technology, I would hear that the CEO wants to embed technology into all

Using Technology to Fix Process Bugs – a no-regret way to digitize business processes

June 29, 2020

Many companies already have mature business processes in place and core systems such as ERP/MRP and HR/Payroll systems installed to help automate such processes. These companies are now asking the questions of what to do with those processes during digital transformation. The good news is that even the most mature business processes will have Process Bugs and exceptions. The bugs and exceptions can be quality issues, compliance issues, data issues, and performance variances. Fixing the process bugs and addressing those exceptions using technology typically increase companies’ overall operational efficiency by 15-30%. This is a no-regret

Building Technology Proficiency in Business

May 3, 2020

Future businesses will all be centered around technology and technology will be a core part of the business for every company. Companies must be bi-lingual across the language of business and the language of technology and both business and IT can fluently speak the languages of each other. Building technology proficiency in business must be a critical undertaking for every single company. More and more companies have realized that to compete effectively in the future, they need to make technology a core part of their business. This implies that the company must be bi-lingual: business

Flywheel over “Field of Data Dreams” – A better approach to generate analytics impact

May 1, 2020

Only 31% of companies view themselves as data driven in 2019. According to a recent McKinsey survey, only a small fraction of the value that could be unlocked by advanced-analytics approaches has been unlocked – as little as 10 percent in some sectors. This is partially driven by the fact that many companies take a field of dreams approach to data platforms – “If you build it, he will come”. To scale the impact of data analytics across the enterprise, companies should instead adopt a flywheel approach to focus on use cases and total cost

The ABCDE of Tech-Empowered Companies

April 17, 2020

With the amount of technology advances happening today, every company must become technology-empowered. It is no longer a choice. Becoming Tech-Empowered means that companies must have accelerated metabolism, be bi-lingual with business and technology, continuously evolving products and services and underlying technology platforms, digitizing everything the company does, and experiment and learn from mistakes and failures – the ABCDE of tech-empowered companies. I recently spent some time with the CEO of a healthcare company and discussed how he thinks about technology. We discussed the concept of “tech-empowered” vs. “being a technology company”. He said that

7 Timeless Classics for Aspiring Consultants

April 6, 2020

What books should budding consultants read? How can consultants build the skills to solve clients’ most urgent issues, build long lasting client relationships, and continue to evolve consultants’ own toolkit? Are there good books that can help? Over my course of consulting careers, seven books have helped me tremendously. For every vacation, I will take one and try to re-read, refresh, and rejuvenate myself using the wisdoms imparted from the books. Over the last 20 years, the one question that I get asked over and over again by both MBA students during the campus interviews

Technology Metrics Framework for Tech-Empowered Companies

March 19, 2020

For tech-empowered companies, a new set of metrics are required to measure the outcome of technology investments and evaluate if the foundation is sound to enable companies to continue to evolve with technology advances. Current commonly used IT metrics won’t suffice for those companies. When I met the CEO of a major $100+B healthcare company for the first time, he asked me these questions: “Parker, how should I think about IT? I don’t even know what metrics I should ask my CIO to measure himself, let alone for me to evaluate if the numbers are

Why Technology Still Doesn’t Matter Today

January 27, 2020

“Technology doesn’t matter” – this was my opening when I was giving a “Future of IT” presentation to the IT executive team of one of the largest oil companies in the world.

Four Criteria for Selecting a Strategic Advisor

January 7, 2020

One of the questions that consultants must always answer is how to win client work. Clients issue RFPs and they employ scoring criteria to select consultants. The scoring criteria are typically centered around technical competency and commercial arrangements. Clients’ procurement teams will lead the charge, score the vendors, and go through the selection processes.

Seven Habits of Tech-Empowered Companies