What CIOs are working on, Part 3 of 4
In previous posts in this series, I covered core modernization and data and AI foundations. In this third part, I turn to the IT operating model and talent.
Many organizations run on hybrid models that were never designed: project teams layered over product teams layered over business lines, with no clear decision rights and thin enterprise architecture (EA) capability. Talent is skewed toward keeping legacy systems alive, with limited capacity for innovation, data, and AI. Several leaders are also facing cost constraints, static or shrinking headcount, and cultural resistance to new ways of working or to AI-driven change.
From guidance kickoff (GKO) conversations, three initiative patterns recur when CIOs talk about evolving operating models and talent:
- Shift to platform operating models coowned by business and tech. A common move is to reorganize around platforms and value streams, with business and technology leaders jointly accountable for outcomes. In one global investment bank’s markets division, teams that used to be aligned to individual P&Ls are being restructured into cross-functional platforms spanning trading, risk, and post-trade, each with “two-in-a-box” business and tech owners. A European airline is making a similar shift, pushing architectural responsibility into business and technology platform pairs while keeping a small central group for cross-cutting topics such as data, AI, and security. A Japanese manufacturing group is moving toward a centralized shared service for common infrastructure and security, with business-aligned platform teams on top. Across these examples, CIOs are using platform constructs to clarify ownership, speed decisions, and align technology investment to business value.
- Build architecture and portfolio muscles as the backbone of change. In many GKOs, CIOs admit that they have been “flying blind” on architecture, inventory, and portfolio decisions. One Australian government agency is now standing up an EA practice, procuring an architecture management tool, and using it to build a credible asset inventory that will feed a four-year investment roadmap. A large insurer in Europe has consolidated data and AI architecture under a single leader and is now focusing on a “data backbone” to connect operational systems and the cloud data platform while in parallel strengthening Zero Trust and vulnerability management. A consumer brand manufacturer with nearly 1,800 applications is coupling application rationalization with process governance and capability mapping to decide which platforms to keep, converge, or retire. These CIOs are investing in architecture standards, portfolio governance, and evidence-based cost and risk views as the decision infrastructure for everything else they want to do.
- Rebalance technology talent for an AI-enabled future. Talent is a major constraint across APAC and Europe. Several CIOs describe IT workforces heavily skewed toward maintaining legacy systems, with aging skills on mainframe or niche platforms and limited internal capacity for data science or AI engineering. A regional bank, for example, is creating a new workforce management function that spans enterprise architecture, financial rigor on tech spend, and talent planning. A university CIO is hiring for new enterprise architecture and emerging technology roles. In parallel, several firms hit by cyberattacks are using resilience programs as a catalyst to rebalance teams toward centralized security, platform engineering, and automation skills. CIOs are shifting the mix of skills, consolidating commodity services, and investing in structured learning programs so that their teams can work effectively in platform, product, and AI-intensive environments.
These initiatives put operating models and talent at the heart of how CIOs turn strategy into business outcomes. These moves align with what we call the operating model step in our value cocreation research, where leaders use operating model and skill changes as their primary lever to move from plans to measurable business impact.
In the final part of this series, I’ll share how these same CIOs are connecting security, cost, and value to the board, because none of these changes stick without a compelling narrative and evidence base for executive stakeholders.
