Introduction
In this episode, I’m joined by Stuart Appley. Stuart has served as the CIO for both Shorenstein and Walden International. He is currently the Managing Director for Digital and Technology at CBRE. In addition, Stuart serves on a number of advisory boards.
Customer engagement is one of the top initiatives for boards and c-suite executives. In this episode, we discuss Stuart’s perspective on the value that the CIO brings to customer engagement. As part of our discussion, we cover some of the challenges and advantages to leveraging the CIO in this business-critical initiative.
Speaker Profiles
Stuart Appley LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stuartappley/
Stuart Appley Twitter: https://twitter.com/sappley
CBRE: https://www.cbre.us
Shorenstein: https://shorenstein.com
Walden International: http://www.waldenintl.com/index.aspx
Audio File
Featured Hashtags
#CIO #CX #Board #CEO #DigitalTransformation #CIOitk
Podcast Transcript
Tim Crawford 0:04
Tim, hello, and welcome to the CIO in the Know podcast, where I take a provocative but pragmatic look at the intersection of business and technology. I’m your host, Tim Crawford, a CIO analyst and strategic advisor at Avoa. Adevoa. In this episode, I’m joined by Stuart Apley. Stuart has served as the CIO for both Shorenstein and Walden International. He is currently the managing director for digital and technology at CBRE. In addition, Stuart serves on a number of advisory boards, customer engagement is one of the top initiatives for boards and C-suite executives. In this episode, we discuss Stewart’s perspective on the value that the CIO brings to customer engagement. As part of our discussion, we cover some of the challenges and advantages to leveraging the CIO in this business-critical initiative. So, again, welcome back to another episode of The CIO in the Know podcast. I’m Tim Crawford, your host, and today I’m joined by Stuart Apley, the Managing Director for Digital and Technology at CBRE. Stuart, thanks for joining the program today.
Stuart Appley 1:18
Great, thanks, Tim, and thanks for having me on.
Tim Crawford 1:21
Well, it’s always great to talk to you, and I’m always learning something new when we chat, and you’ve got this really rich experience as serving as CIO for a couple of companies, and kind of shifting gears into a different role now, and so I wanted to kind of kick things off by asking you about that experience and what’s different with the CIO role today.
Stuart Appley 1:45
Well, thanks, Tim. Yeah, no, it’s.. it’s been a.. it’s been a definite journey. I was the CIO at a couple companies before, for about 16 years, and what I was only looking for was really more client-facing. Those opportunities didn’t really provide me that up that that role, and I’ve really gotten to see the CIO role change over that time, and it’s interesting. I mean, the whole digital customer facing conversations that go on today have been going on for a long time, right? I think you know, since we’ve started working together many years ago, those were always part of it, you just seen it much more today, and more businesses accepting it, understanding it, leveraging the CIO in a role that is more business impactful. I still think we have a long way to go in seeing for making that pervasive throughout the industry, but I do think it’s real today, so I take my current company, where we brought in senior technology leaders that are really product focused, where it’s a core competency creating that technology muscle in the IT area to create and leverage core differentiating products, but then you know, leveraging the cloud and other great platform and SaaS products for that, non, you know, for the commodity applications, and so that that growth just continues over the year, over the years, and so I think that is really where CRO is changing, and it’s finally changing for the good, just more work needs to happen in the industry.
Tim Crawford 3:24
Yeah, the more work. Let’s unpack that a little bit, because there’s a lot in what you just said. And so let me kind of start with the relationship between the CIO and the rest of the C suite, because this is something that in the past has has existed, but today really needs to exist in a very different way, and so my question to you is, How should the CIO be relating with regards to the rest of the C suite, whether that be the CEO, the CMO, COO, etc. And then maybe you can compare and contrast where it should be versus where it is today.
Stuart Appley 4:02
Yeah, I mean it’s kind of a continuing conversation from just a minute ago of what’s changing, so it’s really the same thought process. Ideally, businesses look at the CIO, and you can call it whether it’s CTO, CIO, CDO, you know, let’s kind of combine those if we can, you know, leading the technology organization. Ideally, it’s a peer for the rest of the C suite, and ideally it’s a part of the C suite, and the rest of the C suite looks at that role as as just one arm within the business that can be a lever to create business growth to grow that top line, not from a cost perspective, and so that again is changing, and I’m not going to be, so I don’t think I always draw a hard line where it’s a has to report to the CI CEO. I think it’s a telling sign when it does, but the right organization with the right people and the right collaboration and the right viewpoints, it could report to the COO, but. Long as you’re a peer from a where’s technology fit in the organization, can the business lines do they look for technology to drive growth to help to solve business problems, collaborate on issues, that’s where it should be. And again, it’s a journey for where businesses today truly understand that, and the ones that truly understand it are the ones you’re seeing disrupting industries,
Tim Crawford 5:23
but if I understand what you’re, what you’re kind of pointing out, there is there are two sides to this coin, if you will, there’s the CIO and what they individually are capable of and where they should be, but there’s also the rest of the C suite in terms of how they perceive the CIO and the role that the CIO and ostensibly the rest of the IT organization plays.
Stuart Appley 5:46
Yeah, man, I like that point, because that is those are two different aspects of it, and really important. So, that the second piece, when you get into how it is viewed within the company, and not necessarily, let’s, let’s take the person away from that, right? Let’s just take the IT organization, you know, so that is that gets into culture of the company, right? And that’s thing that you know we’ve talked a lot about over the years, and you see a lot of things about culture. It’s hard to change culture with wins and with the right communication, you can influence how culture can be changed, but you know, I take some of the companies I’ve worked for, I’ve been around a long time, people been there a long time, things improved, but you know, you can still hit a wall, so there’s that piece of it, the company recognizing it, and then there’s the skills of the people, and is that the right person or role, are they thinking forward, are they thinking digitally, or they just have this cost center mentality, where they’re just trying to reduce costs.
Tim Crawford 6:43
Yeah, and that’s that’s tricky on both sides of it. I kind of want to drill into the C suite aspect, maybe just a step further. Is you know, when I have conversations with other C-suite members, beyond the role of the CIO, there seems to be a an understanding that they need to engage digital, they need to engage technology, but they don’t necessarily see the CIO or the IT organization, or – and I’m using those terms loosely – let’s just call it IT as a whole, they don’t see it as necessarily the department to do that. There seems to be this gap, how does that gap get filled, and do you see the same thing, especially in your new role, probably interacting with folks beyond just the CIO.
Stuart Appley 7:31
Yeah, no, absolutely. I’ve seen that in the past, I see it currently, and there’s always that dynamic, right, of the business, certain business groups owning technology for their area and feeling like they know it best, and you need to be able to work with those groups and understand that there are that they do understand should understand business the best. Ideally, you understand it’s just as good as they do, and the job is to demonstrate to them on at least collaborating, you know, I think the centralized centralization of it is not, you know, people talk about shadow, it and shadow it can be a good thing if it’s done correctly, meaning that the business owns some of their technology in collaboration with the IT leadership, they work together, there are central ways that you say, let’s just say from data perspective, there might be a great data foundation that you build centrally, and it enables each business area to take that that is unique to that business area, and they may have experts in those areas, so you know, having that, so that’s something that you need to build that relationship, you need to build that understanding, so you might walk in an organization, or you might see startups today. It’s actually very common. It seems like on startups that are growing, they start up very fragmented and very disconnected, and then they get themselves into trouble, because there’s not that centralized, at least oversight from a best practice perspective, and sharing, and at least bringing some of those tools together, so you don’t have, say, different integration tools. You can do where it should be centralized. It can be helpful, so getting them back to that mindset. So, it should never be a very central approach. Do you need to work with the strong business groups, and that can be healthy if done in the right manner.
Tim Crawford 9:19
Let’s shift gears just a little bit here, because it sounds like the CIO is not just the technology leader, but it’s really a business leader, and kind of has to tie into the core tenets for that business, for any given business, depending on the industry you’re in, or the particular segment that you focus on, and we often talk about, you know, how the CIO can serve in different capacities, taking that technology expertise as well as that business expertise, and apply it to other functions, maybe customer advocacy, which seems somewhat 280 degrees from the traditional CIA. CIO, how does the role of the CIO kind of relate with customer engagement, and I ask this of you because your role today is a little different than the typical CIO, and so can you talk about that a little bit in terms of the value that you’re finding that that CIO expertise is really kind of coming to bear in your role at CBRE.
Stuart Appley 10:21
Yeah, so I talked about earlier, where I always wanted to more client-facing work, and in the ideal scenario, and I think the where the CIO and IT leader can be the most effective is where there is a advocacy role, where they are talking to clients, talking about clients, talking about the business, and so my role, what I, you know, I think what’s great about is I am actually in the business now, helping with new client engagements, helping do thought leadership, and speaking to clients about how technology can serve the business, and I think having that CIO expertise and be able to walk into the room automatically gives me, gives me some credibility. I mean, I think that’s it’s it was the hope coming into it, and I’ve seen that, because that’s not typical. You don’t get people who are speaking to clients who say, oh yeah, you know, I’ve been in it, leadership roles before, and so.. and I think what has struck me is, I think having this experience is so powerful that it, all IT leaders should at some point spend time in the business being customer facing, being client facing, because that, I mean, that really should just be the role of the CIO today. And so I remember a job earlier, one of my heading up sales and marketing, it, and it was for a mutual fund, and so the first week I spent on the phones in the client customer service center, just listening to calls from brokers coming in and understanding it, and that was so powerful, you were, I mean, it was only for a week, but it just, it resonates that ideally you spend time in the business being client-facing roles, and you put the client and the customer hat on, and always think about that is really to be most successful from an IT leader.
Tim Crawford 12:09
So, if you talk about kind of the CIO, or in your role at CBRE, kind of getting out with customers, how typical do you find that to be? You know, as you were going through your search, as you were kind of seeking out opportunities to get more engaged with customers, is that something that’s that’s really common? I’m going to ask this question in two ways: one from the CIO contingent, that they want to be more engaged with customers, and then separately from the rest of the C suite, and maybe even the head of sales that they want the CIO to be more engaged with customers. How common is that for each of those two contingents?
Stuart Appley 12:49
I mean, I think it’s more common that used to, but I think it’s a really more on the rare side. I think, unfortunately, you know, I think some of the CIOs we engage with, you know, maybe we’ve been a little biased because there’s a lot that we know that who do do that, but if you really do take a step back, I do think it’s more – it’s not as common as it should be. In the same thing with the sales organization leaders, right? Very beginning, we talked about the journey, how things aren’t as much different as far as what people should be spending their time, and it’s growing, but it’s amazing, really, how much more businesses need to understand and accept this, and the talent and perspectives of IT leaders are evolving and getting better, but still I think there’s a big gap on understanding that and wanting those roles and really understanding that customer engagement is really where it leads. The IT leaders should be spending most of their time.
Tim Crawford 13:40
Yeah, I’m kind of curious, like, what is driving that gap, and how do we close that gap? I had an opportunity to take part in a discussion around the country last year amongst a group of CIOs, and they were talking about customer engagement, and one of the CIOs was talking about how they were going on ride-alongs, and how they were engaging with customers with patients. This particular CIO worked for a healthcare services company, and I was just surprised to hear very specific information about how this individual, the CIO, is getting firsthand experience seeing what the customer is actually experiencing what their experience is with their company, and then fast forward to I think it was like a month later, I was leading a panel discussion at another CIO conference, and had a similar conversation with CIOs talking about customer engagement and asking each of the CIOs on the panel, how many of you actually engage with customers, and at first I asked the question, how do you engage with customers, and I think it was somewhat telling that they all looked at reports, they don’t necessarily get out in the field and interact with customers firsthand, and so I keep asking my myself the same question, which is. Why, why are we still having this, and how do this issue come up, and how do we start to bridge that gap?
Stuart Appley 15:06
It’s a great point. I really, I, yeah, it’s not as pervasive. It should be, I think, about, you know, one of my former roles, where my boss gave me that opportunity early on to go talk with clients, and I was just, you know, wow, this is great. This is exactly what it should be. And then you just see other companies just don’t do that. I think it still gets back to, you know, you got legacy companies and legacy thinking. I had one leader tell me once, you know, it was a company had been around for a long time. You know, we had this kind of conversation. He goes, you know what, we’re skeptical because we’ve always been so successful, so why change? And when you get certain companies that have been successful and they don’t see what’s coming, or they don’t think far enough ahead, they just kind of accept the status quo, and unfortunately, there’s more than should be. So I think just having thought leaders like yourself continue to talk about it, continue to get that out there, continue to push on it. I think it’s just going to be an evolution that’s unfortunately slower than it should be.
Tim Crawford 16:09
And one of the things that comes to mind when you say that is, you know, past performance is not an indicator of future, right? Yep, and you know, you just look at the S and p5 100 over the last, what is it, 1020 years, many of the folks that used to be leaders and stalwarts in the financial space and other industries, they don’t exist anymore, and they’ve been replaced by by a number of other companies.
Stuart Appley 16:36
Yeah, the other point that you’d mentioned was also, you know, so there’s two sides of the coin, then there’s the willingness of the people stepping into these IT leadership roles to want to do this, and so I don’t know if that’s, you know, historically people have come up things, I mean, I didn’t, I, my MBA and BA is both in finance and, you know, was interested more in the business side, and happened to be very good at technology, went into a leadership role, so I think, but when you get people who kind of just grow up pure technology and then kind of just don’t think about the business, you know that that’s not really the ideal IT lead in the future. So hopefully that changes, hopefully as technology becomes more just pervasive what we do every day, but you still got any people who are thinking about top line growth, understanding how to grow the business, and then, oh, how do you apply technology to be to really lever that? I
Tim Crawford 17:30
mean, to
get into that, you really have to put yourself, if you’re the CIO or the head of IT, whatever the particular role or title that you have is, you have to put yourself in the shoes of the CEO, you have to do that and understand what drives business and what the initiatives are, and how you can contribute in a meaningful way from a business perspective.
Stuart Appley 17:53
Absolutely, and I used to have this quote, I forget what it was now, but I, you know, tend on my wall, was really at all about thinking of your IT as a business, right, and not of you. Okay, how do you source, you know, what costs and things like, but more from a customer perspective. And I think, if at a minimum, if people can just take that away as a takeaway, just always thinking of the customer and your employees too. I mean, employees, you know the experience, how, but how do you grow customers, you know, that that just has to be the top mindset of every IT leader.
Tim Crawford 18:25
So, Stuart, what excites you most about the role of the CIO today? And where does technology kind of fit into that?
Stuart Appley 18:33
I think, you know, we’re still so early in some of these.. you know, let’s just talk about a.. there’s two things.. one is cloud.. you know, we, it’s, she’s at me, I think we work together even before others, you know, probably 10 years now, I’ve been dabbling originally and fully into the cloud, I think we continue to see the explosion of the platform and SaaS products, so I mean that excites me, and how those have continued to grow and be true business value, but then artificial intelligence. I mean, I’m just the role of data quality, data making data-based decision, data-based decisions, not database, but database. You know, we’re just so early in that, and getting back to the cloud, you know, the democratization of AI is really starting to happen now, with some of the cloud providers and the other providers on that. I think that is what really excites me today. I think you know mobile getting, you know, and the user experience, which we’ve already been there, but really artificial intelligence, like it’s just going to change how we work, how our companies work, how our customers engage with us, and I would, I would think it leaders really need to understand that, really need to understand how data, the quality of data is going to drive that, and that really excites me, I think, both for, you know, my role and just CIOs and our businesses going forward, really important nuggets to live by and.
Tim Crawford 20:00
And really insightful, especially coming from that customer advocacy perspective, and engaging with customers probably more than than most CIOs today. Stuart, thank you so much for taking part in the program today. It’s been a pleasure to have you on. I always enjoy our conversations, and I’d love to have you back someday too.
Stuart Appley 20:19
Great, thanks again, Tim. I really appreciate the opportunity, and yeah, thanks for the conversation. It’s been great.
Tim Crawford 20:25
All right, thank you. For more information on the CIO in the No podcast series, visit us online at CIO itk.com or you can find us on SoundCloud, iTunes, Google Play, and Stitcher. Don’t forget to subscribe, and thank you for listening. Thank.
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