Be a great businessperson first, and then a good IT person: Hasmukh Ranjan, AMD

Recent research by Gartner shows that four out of five CEOs are increasing digital technology investments to counter current economic pressures, including inflation, scarce talent, and supply constraints. In such a scenario, the roles and responsibilities of CIOs are further evolving, as they are being looked upon to implement initiatives across the organization that can collectively deliver “digital dividends” to the stakeholders.

Digital transformation has been an ongoing trend across companies of all industries, and CIOs are at the forefront of ensuring that IT initiatives are aligned with business goals. However, this task is not without its challenges. From clarifying expected outcomes to measuring ROI, CIOs must navigate the complex landscape of digital transformation to ensure successful outcomes.

Minu Sirsalewala, Executive Editor – Special Projects, Dataquest interacted with Hasmukh Ranjan, Senior Vice President and Chief Information Officer at AMD where he leads all Information Technology (IT) activities, vision, and strategy. They discussed and spoke about the significant challenges faced by CIOs and how they balance the need for innovation with security and compliance. The key technology trends that CIOs are keeping an eye on, and advice for aspiring CIOs looking to advance their careers in the field of technology and leadership.

Prior to AMD, Ranjan was with Xilinx since July 2020 where he was responsible for executing a world-class technical enablement and information technology strategy in support of the Xilinx mission to “Build the Adaptable, Intelligent World” as a member of the executive team.

Ranjan has extensive experience managing global IT operations for geographically and culturally diverse organizations, as well as establishing organizational vision and strategy, leading large teams, executing global insourcing/outsourcing strategies, setting up onsite/offshore delivery models, and M&A planning and integration. Ranjan earned his Bachelor of Engineering degree from Birla Institute of Technology; his master’s in Computer Science from Northeastern University; and a Master of Business Administration from Northwestern University.

Excerpts from the interaction.

With growing digital transformation across companies, what are some of the most significant challenges that CIOs face in aligning IT initiatives with business goals?

IT transformation reaches all aspects of a company – be it improved customer experience, revenue growth, or operational efficiencies. CIOs must look at transformation from the eyes of the business as opposed to an IT lens to define the business value. From this perspective, align with the value of the business, and its priorities, and deliver high-quality solutions efficiently and on time. The first challenge of digital transformation is alignment with business goals and clarifying expected outcomes.

The second challenge is to quantify the value you deliver in terms of return on investment (ROI), as well as process efficiencies that make employees more productive. And finally, the schedule – how quickly IT can implement the solution – is critical to both value perception and ROI. The transformation must be phased in and staged so you can deliver value in small chunks – rather than over an extended period, by which time the value is diminished or lost.  

As CIO of AMD, what are some of the key technology trends that you are keeping an eye on? How do you see them impacting the semiconductor industry in the coming years?

The most important job of a CIO is to improve employee productivity and business efficiency. In both areas, AI has a big role to play. Harvesting of data is occurring in a big way today in both initiatives and will continue to play a significant role in the near term and long term to make our business more efficient.

In the coming year, delivering AI-based solutions to help deliver internal efficiencies and productivity improvements is a company priority. This investment supports engineering, business processes, and improves productivity overall. Over the next 12 months, this will be an area of focus to assess and then deploy AI solutions. This will help enable business process efficiency, engineering operations, cost optimization and go-to-market (GTM) efforts. It’s about improving engineering productivity and efficiency to make sure our engineers are adequately equipped to do their work in various verticals.

To achieve this, first after internal assessment, IT will deploy the infrastructure that provides access to AI solutions. Next, within the company, we can apply AI solutions to engineering, an SAP environment, or sales process efficiencies. As always, IT is the customer zero to test these solutions before going to market.  

How do you balance the need for innovation with the need for security and compliance in your role as CIO? 

As a CIO, balancing the need for information security and compliance with innovation is about reinforcing that these enable us to create a safe space for innovation.

Information security and compliance enhance the ability of employees to innovate and be their most productive. Recently, someone educated me on the concept of vehicle brakes from a different perspective. Brakes are not there to slow us down; they make us feel safe to drive faster. We know they are there when we need them. Likewise, in the industry, there can be a misconception that security impedes the productivity of an enterprise. In fact, the safeguards enabled by information security and compliance can allow us to innovate and create, knowing our work and data is protected and secure. That mindset must be there with every innovative initiative and indoctrinated so every employee can see the value that compliance and information security bring to our productivity.

The first step is to create a strong culture of security as a core value of the organization. This requires maintaining a strong and consistent narrative to employees about the importance of security and vigilance to help keep company and personal data safe, including regular training in security best practices. This also serves to prioritize a thorough security risk assessment at the outset of any innovation project, so it is not an afterthought.

As a CIO, how do you measure the ROI of IT investments, and what metrics do you use to determine the success of a particular initiative? 

The number one KPI I’ve used quite successfully for my tenure as a CIO is annual IT spend per employee. This is defined as the amount the company spends on an employee every year. I like this KPI because it blends in everything – your headcount, engineering, infrastructure, and business infrastructure optimization, and everything in between. This one number gives me a very high-level view of where we are. When it is reduced, is it occurring at a pace that retains efficiency gains as a result of different initiatives? Break it down further to gain insight into what you have at any point in time, in different categories of spending.

What advice would you give to aspiring CIOs who are looking to advance their careers in the field of technology and leadership? 

We must stop talking about the technology of IT. We are enamored by technology and all its acronyms. The first step is diverging the conversation to talk about the business of IT – in terms of what you bring to the table and to the business of the company. To be a good IT person, you must be a great businessperson. From this perspective, know your audience and speak their language.

Relationships are very important – we all need to invest time to foster relationships with our stakeholders. And finally, leverage the power of communication.

The journey is there, and we all have travelled it. Covid propelled respect for IT because we enabled work from home at a time when enterprises weren’t convinced it was possible. Now pretty much every enterprise is working in a distributed way. The latest conversation is on harvesting data to deliver business value. I think IT can and is facilitating data harvesting in every organization. We have travelled a long journey, and it has only begun. Aspiring CIOs should always be on the lookout for new technology trends in terms of value that IT can create for their enterprise.