CEOs will look to tech leaders to drive company strategy: Cisco ANZ VP

As more organisations are looking towards investing in AI, CEOs are looking to their technology leaders to help them drive and shape the company’s strategy.

Ben Dawson, vice president ANZ at Cisco told Digital Nation during Cisco Live in Melbourne where he thinks organisations are heading for 2024 in terms of AI investments.

“Organisations and CEOs are looking at the technology people in their business to be the ones to shape the strategy. How do they embrace this and get value out of [AI] in an ethical and safe way?” He said.

Dawson explained that one of the challenges for CTOs and CIOs next year as they drive a company’s strategy is around demystifying the value of technology.

“One of the biggest challenges we face in that CIO role is being able to articulate the business value that can be derived from the technology,” he said.

“We know that technology leaders that can do that, get larger budgets, and with the current headwinds around inflation and interest rates, there'll be downward pressure funding, generally, across businesses.”

He said it is “key” for technology leaders to be able to articulate to the business why continued investment in technology is going to be good for the organisation.

Dawson also highlighted the continuing skills gap that is in the industry.

“We certainly try and address that with our partnerships with the university sector with network academies to try and contribute to that pool,” he said.

“But as some of these technologies move, there's a skills gap. There's a skills gap generally in the engineering pool of talent particularly around some of these emerging areas.

"I think it's about getting the appropriate funding through business value and then having the skills and talent to be able to deliver on that.”

Dawson explained he sees investments going into infrastructure next year.  

“A lot of investment will go into infrastructure and all of that infrastructure will be digitised, which means technologists have got a role to play,” he said.

“AI is top of mind for everybody, it has gone from the backroom, to the boardroom this year.”

Athina Mallis travelled to Cisco Live in Melbourne as a guest of Cisco.