“Digitization allows companies to deliver unique and connected data-driven and in-demand client experiences at a rapid pace, which leads to greater inherent cyber risks.”
Hi, Ken, welcome to the Interview Series. Please tell us about your journey in the technology consulting industry. What inspired you to begin at EY.
I’ve spent nearly three decades as a strategic advisor and consultant to companies in the High Tech industry across the full ecosystem—from semiconductors to OEM’s to Enterprise Software. I then joined EY, which has provided me the opportunity to spend more time focusing on early stage, hyper-growth technology companies (private and public) and led to my current role as the EY Americas Technology, Media and Entertainment and Telecommunications (TMT) Leader. While I still consult with large tech companies, I find these smaller, disruptive companies an exciting segment and it’s been a very rewarding experience to help scale and improve their businesses.
Please tell us more about the TMT domains at EY. What are the major trends in these industries?
Technology, media and entertainment, and telecommunications (TMT) companies are the building blocks of transformation and will continue to drive economic recovery. As they grow, organizations must become adaptive digital enterprises that can quickly respond to changing markets and economic environments in today’s rapid, unpredictable landscape. TMT companies are embracing digital transformation, sustainability, and stepping up security measures to remain competitive.
Several key issues are top of mind for leaders operating across TMT subsectors. From supply chain, generative AI and data protection to M&A, sustainability, customer experience and workforce transformation, leaders in the TMT ecosystem are leveraging strategic thinking to build both trust and value around key and emerging industry trends.
What kinds of problems do you solve for your customers? Could you highlight some of the use case scenarios that highlight the role of innovation in the technology sector?
Depending on the life-cycle of the company, we work with early stage companies to grow and scale their business, as well as get many of them ready for the public markets. For mid-sized companies, we’re often involved in helping them both strategically and operationally to become effective global businesses. For large companies, we bring value in providing outside-in business perspectives to help transform their business, as well as helping set new growth strategies in terms of products and markets. In all of these segments, we work to the aligned business and technology, so innovation drives actual business results. We see a huge interest in understanding specific use cases to apply to each Enterprise function. The is really a continuum of innovation in which clients wanted help first with basic automation, which then moves to intelligent automation, then predictive analytics, then basic AI/ML, and now early investigation into Generative AI.
Data exfiltration and ransomware-centric attacks have neutralized all the great progress IT and cloud organizations have made in the recent years. How can technology companies and their customers truly address the challenges associated with the data breaches and cyberattacks?
Digitization allows companies to deliver unique and connected data-driven and in-demand client experiences at a rapid pace, which leads to greater inherent cyber risks. Innovative developments and new business models provide additional entry points for cyberattacks, while emerging technologies increase consumer end points and must be made secure. Technology companies should address any remediation necessary to protect enterprise networks, infrastructure, hardware, software and products from existing and emerging threats by assessing and anticipating their enterprise risk exposure. It’s key for leaders to incorporate security from the beginning when it comes to business strategy, financial strategy, operational strategy, product lifecycle management, etc., to prioritize cross-collaboration across the organization and optimize and automate security as much as possible. Additionally, leveraging Zero Trust Architecture, which combines multiple discrete cybersecurity capabilities (micro segmentation, privileged access management, advanced security operations and analytics) will help mitigate the risk of existing and emerging threats.
How do you prepare for the AI-led disruptions in your industry? How are customer-centric conversations evolving around Generative AI tools?
According to our latest EY technology pulse poll, AI is here to stay. Increasingly more technology executives are focused on experimenting with AI-based technologies. In fact, 9 in 10 are focused on platforms like ChatGTP, Bing Chat and OpenAI. 80% of tech executives say that they plan to increase their investment in AI in the next year and more than half of tech executives whose companies are experimenting with generative AI (56%) are doing so for economic savings.
This is an incredibly complex topic, so I like to think about in in two simple ways; companies are ready to accomplish two important things with GenAI: 1) Make their products and services better, 2) run their businesses better (fast, cheaper). Our clients don’t want to talk conceptually about GenAI, they want to discuss specifically how (use cases) will benefit their companies. I would say the “make products/services better” objective is leading with the momentum, and product and engineering teams are naturally on the leading edge of experimentation. Those teams with early and visible success stories are then driving their CEOs to ask how finance, HR, sales, and operations are going to use these tools to run their businesses better. In the enterprise functions, customer and employee interactions are the first focus areas, but finance and risk organizations are starting to see where they can make early impact as well.
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What are your predictions on the future of enterprise data management architecture and the rapid pace of innovation in your domain?
Due to the exponential pace of innovation in the data and AI engineering space, figuring out how to leverage the massive amounts of available data has become the highest priority of every company. Data has gone from being looked at as a by product, to being the most valuable asset an organization owns. Data has become the foundation for decision making and for efficient operations of every organization.
Access to the right data, at the right time, with trusted quality, and with the appropriate privacy and security controls, is paramount to enabling data- and AI-driven decision making now and in the foreseeable future. This includes pre-training AI models on large datasets, utilizing those models for applications for decision making, and for integration with generative AI. The degree to which data can be utilized is often a reflection of how well that data is managed within the enterprise. Trusted, comprehensive, and secure data can be the basis for advanced insights that allow organizations to operate at optimized efficiency and develop a “fit-for-future” business model.
In order to deliver the right insights by leveraging emerging technologies such as GTP and Large Models effectively, companies will need to prioritize core data management and data architecture capabilities to unlock value creation across a spectrum of new possibilities.
Lighter Questions:
Burn the midnight candle or soak in the sun? I’m definitely a night owl, so I enjoy the quiet time to do my deep thinking
- Coffee, or Tea? I’m a coffee person, since I’ve given up sodas. I must say, I’m not a coffee snob, as I drink for effect!
- Your favorite EY feature you want everyone to try out? I’m most excited about our Entrepreneur of the Year program. It’s the world’s most prestigious business award for entrepreneurs and the program has been celebrating the ambitious visionaries who are leading successful, dynamic businesses for nearly four decades.
- First memorable experience in your career as a technology leader? I was consulting out at Intel in the mid-90’s and got to see how they handled their Pentium FDIV bug, and saw first-hand how tech was becoming a consumer brand, as well as the sheer force of culture and Andy Grove’s influence. I knew then that I would spend the rest of my career working in high tech.
- One thing you remember about your employee (s): Given our consulting business, we have a large population of young/early career employees. I am always struck by the unlimited energy, resourcefulness, and optimism they bring to their jobs every day.
- Most useful app that you currently use? I tend to use Twitter more than any other app on my phone!
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Thank you, Ken ! That was fun and we hope to see you back on cioinfluence.com soon.
[To participate in our interview series, please write to us at sghosh@martechseries.com]
As the Americas Industry Markets Leader for Technology, Media, and Telecommunications (TMT) at EY, I focus on helping technology, consumer electronics, internet, social commerce, and software companies solve critical business issues. In my previous role leading the technology sector for North America, my team and I led global technology companies through major business transformation programs, such as the development of growth strategies, operational cost improvement initiatives, and IPO readiness for late-stage startups. Throughout my career, my responsibilities have involved PMO management, business process design, technical development, system integration, and change management, which have helped several companies in the semiconductor, electronics manufacturing services, and technology OEM segments achieve their business goals.
EY exists to build a better working world, helping create long-term value for clients, people and society and build trust in the capital markets. Enabled by data and technology, diverse EY teams in over 150 countries provide trust through assurance and help clients grow, transform and operate. Working across assurance, consulting, law, strategy, tax and transactions, EY teams ask better questions to find new answers for the complex issues facing our world today.
