In an era where technology is rapidly reshaping the business landscape, few roles have evolved as dramatically as that of the Chief Information Officer. With over 24 years of experience in global cloud, SaaS and managed hosting, Jay Upchurch, Executive Vice President and CIO at SAS, brings a wealth of knowledge to his dual role of leading SAS' global IT organisation and spearheading SAS Cloud.
In this interview at SAS’s Innovate event in Las Vegas, Jay shares his insights on the changing role of CIOs, the impact of AI on enterprise technology and how to navigate the complex landscape of digital transformation in today's fast-paced business environment.
Can you introduce yourself and your role at SAS?
My name is Jay Upchurch, and I'm the Chief Information Officer here at SAS. I have two main responsibilities. One is internal IT at SAS, so any technology that we need to run our operations and feed the divisions comes from our organisation. The second half of my job is SAS Cloud. I'm on the commercial business side for anywhere that we distribute our IP to our customers around the world, whether it's as a single-tenant hosted deployment or software as a service. I've been here about five years.
How has the role of CIO evolved in recent years, particularly with the rise of AI?
I think first of all, the role of the CIO changed even before generative AI. If you go back to COVID and look at all the companies that thrived coming out of that, they made a pivot to digital delivery of their software, their solutions, their services. And because of the way it's delivered, it's really an IT service. The software as a service model is virtually traditional IT.
What happened was so many CIOs suddenly were thrown into the business table because they were a means to survive and thrive post-COVID. So CIOs around the world today, there's not many that I keep up with that are internal IT only. They're out there driving commercial revenue or they're participating in the experience for our customers, much more in a different way. It wasn't the case 10-15 years ago.
I think the role has fundamentally changed already. AI has been another fun disruption. One thing about generative AI to remember is that when it was originally launched, or at least when public awareness came, it was really targeted at the consumer. It wasn't for the enterprise. Everybody said, "Hey, look at this fun thing, this ChatGPT thing, go play with it. Ask it silly questions, make it draw things." And then I think people got enamoured with it and the art of what's possible. And then next thing you know, enterprises, of course, had to go figure it out.
Now I've got about 12,000 people running around with ideas, and I have to figure out how to deliver generative AI or more AI capability to the enterprise in a way that's governed and structured and secure, but doesn't stifle curiosity and innovation.
What are the main challenges you've faced in implementing AI in the enterprise?
Data. I mean, even a company like ours - I think we're a fairly enlightened company when it comes to awareness of data and the power of data, especially through analytics and AI. You would think that we would all have good hygiene around our data. And I think we have good intentions in many ways, and then sometimes you get down to execution, and you're like, "Oh wow, I really didn't finish that up."
So the idea of data labels, making sure that the security of that data works its way through regardless of how it's being applied, is probably the number one problem that every CIO is wrestling with. It's one thing to say, "Hey, I've got this idea." Say we have technology that we can throw something at, and there's something to say, "What data are we using? And is that safe? Is it biased? What else is in it?" So that's been probably the number one challenge.
I think the second challenge is working with our business partners on ensuring that they see internal IT as an accelerant to realising their generative AI aspirations. If they look at us as an impediment, I'm going to tell them the things they can't do. I'm going to put security guardrails up. I'm going to do all these other things that make it hard. They'll stop talking to you. They're just going to go around you.
How has the role of CIO evolved in recent years, particularly with the rise of AI?
I think first of all, the role of the CIO changed even before generative AI. If you go back to COVID and look at all the companies that thrived coming out of that, they made a pivot to digital delivery of their software, their solutions, their services. And because of the way it's delivered, it's really an IT service. The software as a service model is virtually traditional IT.
What happened was so many CIOs suddenly were thrown into the business table because they were a means to survive and thrive post-COVID. So CIOs around the world today, there's not many that I keep up with that are internal IT only. They're out there driving commercial revenue or they're participating in the experience for our customers, much more in a different way. It wasn't the case 10-15 years ago.
I think the role has fundamentally changed already. AI has been another fun disruption. One thing about generative AI to remember is that when it was originally launched, or at least when public awareness came, it was really targeted at the consumer. It wasn't for the enterprise. Everybody said, "Hey, look at this fun thing, this ChatGPT thing, go play with it. Ask it silly questions, make it draw things." And then I think people got enamoured with it and the art of what's possible. And then next thing you know, enterprises, of course, had to go figure it out.
Now I've got about 12,000 people running around with ideas, and I have to figure out how to deliver generative AI or more AI capability to the enterprise in a way that's governed and structured and secure, but doesn't stifle curiosity and innovation.
What are the main challenges you've faced in implementing AI in the enterprise?
Data. I mean, even a company like ours - I think we're a fairly enlightened company when it comes to awareness of data and the power of data, especially through analytics and AI. You would think that we would all have good hygiene around our data. And I think we have good intentions in many ways, and then sometimes you get down to execution, and you're like, "Oh wow, I really didn't finish that up."
So the idea of data labels, making sure that the security of that data works its way through regardless of how it's being applied, is probably the number one problem that every CIO is wrestling with. It's one thing to say, "Hey, I've got this idea." Say we have technology that we can throw something at, and there's something to say, "What data are we using? And is that safe? Is it biased? What else is in it?" So that's been probably the number one challenge.
I think the second challenge is working with our business partners on ensuring that they see internal IT as an accelerant to realising their generative AI aspirations. If they look at us as an impediment, I'm going to tell them the things they can't do. I'm going to put security guardrails up. I'm going to do all these other things that make it hard. They'll stop talking to you. They're just going to go around you.
How do you approach the integration of AI initiatives across different business units?
The third thing that we do specifically at SAS, which I think is a great thing, is we have a business relationship manager function. It's a role that a staff of some of our best and brightest consultants in IT go out to each of our business units. So I have one kind of line for finance, one for HR, one for R&D, consulting, everybody else, and they're embedded in the business. So literally we have a consultant who is basically a co-CFO at some level. They demand shape back the technology needed to meet the business needs for that particular function, and it's great because it allows us to participate as opposed to what I'll say is discovering later that suddenly there's a security event or they built something and it's mission-critical now but it's non-enterprise grade and ready. So that's our approach to it. So I don't police shadow IT or shadow AI in that way. Instead, I look at it and say, "Look, I want to be a part of it," and hopefully, my organisation is structured in a way that they say, "Yes, I need you," as opposed to, "No, I don't need you."
How can CIOs demonstrate the value of digital investments to the board?
I think a lot of that is the commercial participation that the CIOs have. Being able to show a bottom-line return is the easiest one because all boards can speak in that financial language. I think the harder one is the digital transformation investments that companies have made for so many years and trying to figure out, did I get my money back and am I done? Or will I ever be done? That's where the CIO function is so different today.
You've got to be able to tell the story. You've got to be able to articulate where you're going, what that destination looks like, and you've got to make sure people are participating in that journey. As opposed to a statement of, "Well, I need a million pounds for this activity," you've got to be able to articulate better where you are and where you are in that journey. That's the hard part.
I think the improvement part of it, especially around digital, we have to talk about things outside of finance and outside of normal operating metrics. Operating metrics like uptime and availability in the cloud or something like that - now, we've got to get down to personal productivity, back to some of the things around leaning process, time to complete activities, because that's where the digital returns really come from, from your transformation activities.
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