Artwork Hu, world CIO at Lenovo, recognises that main IT for the Chinese language expertise large entails vital challenges, notably in an age of just about fixed change. “We appear to all the time be in transformation, as a result of there’s all the time the subsequent mountain that we need to go and conquer,” he says.
Beforehand a advisor at McKinsey, the place he’d supplied recommendation to Lenovo, Hu joined the corporate in 2009. After growing his consciousness of technology-enabled change at an advisory agency, Hu relished the chance to place his information into apply as an IT govt at a blue-chip agency.
“It was good to be advising folks, however I wished to have the accountability,” he says. “The consultants advise, however the final possession resides with the people who find themselves executing. I wished to be a part of the group that was doing the work and proudly owning the outcomes.”
Climbing mountains
The mountain Lenovo was trying to beat when Hu joined the agency in 2009 was globalisation. The organisation was desperate to keep away from separate silos for regional entities, such because the Americas, Europe and Asia, and the enterprise transformation was carefully tied to IT change and an try to make sure the organisation benefited from globalised techniques.
“We wished to be one firm,” he says, referring to the hyperlink between enterprise and digital technique. “And in that sense, it’s one thing that I’ve all the time believed, which is that the expertise is a manifestation of the place the enterprise needs to go, and it’s an embodiment of its technique.”
Hu says this primary slice of expertise management motion was thrilling as a result of he hadn’t joined Lenovo to work within the again workplace, run the techniques and maintain the lights on. Nonetheless, shifting from advising corporations to operating IT was a major transition.
“It was good to be advising folks, however I wished to have the accountability. The consultants advise, however the final possession resides with the people who find themselves executing. I wished to be a part of the group that was doing the work and proudly owning the outcomes”
Artwork Hu, Lenovo
“It in all probability took me the higher a part of a yr to sink in and develop some muscle reminiscence about what it’s wish to suppose and do versus simply pondering and saying,” he says. “It was a little bit of a rocky transition, however fortunately, it did work out, and I used to be capable of rotate via numerous management roles within the group.”
Through the subsequent seven years, Hu took on different management positions, resembling overseeing infrastructure, enterprise structure, safety, growth and operations, which allowed him to develop a broader view of IT. On account of his profitable transition throughout these tasks, he grew to become CIO in 2016.
As he moved into the position, Hu helped Lenovo climb its second enterprise transformation mountain – diversification. Along with its profitable PC enterprise, Lenovo was desperate to develop into different areas, with the enterprise having acquired Motorola Mobility from Google and IBM’s low-end x86 server enterprise in 2014.
Hu helped guarantee a easy diversification throughout IT {hardware} divisions earlier than transferring to the third mountain – providers. “More and more, that’s the place our prospects need us to be,” he says. “And to satisfy our prospects the place they’re, we began shifting the corporate to be extra services-led, and that, as a CIO, is the place I’m right this moment.”
Delivering providers
Hu says making a services-led enterprise is equal to creating a brand new organisation. The techniques, processes and expertise required for this operation differ considerably from a standard {hardware} specialist.
“As a CIO, I’m excited as a result of it’s like beginning once more,” he says. “You’ve gotten some issues that you would be able to reuse, however these are the minority. And so, basically, it’s a business-building course of intersected with an consciousness of manifest the technique within the expertise structure.”
Hu suggests the digital management magic lies in exploring the fragile stability between designing environment friendly processes and leveraging cutting-edge applied sciences. He recognises that this magic has develop into more and more necessary in his makes an attempt to create a services-led enterprise and helps clarify why he assumed the extra accountability of chief supply and expertise officer for Lenovo’s Providers & Options Group (SSG) in April 2023.
“SSG is Lenovo’s method to being extra services-led,” he says. “We need to take one of the best of our system, clever and infrastructure options teams, deliver that to prospects, and encompass that experience with providers. The thought is to take one of the best of the providers I ship internally as CIO for Lenovo to our prospects.”
So, as a digital chief who has developed sturdy options to intractable enterprise challenges throughout his time with Lenovo, is Hu properly positioned to guide the sharing of this experience along with his firm’s prospects? The quick reply, he suggests, is sure.
“You must keep in mind our start line,” he says. “If we had already had 100,000 folks doing providers, then possibly it’s not one of the best match. However on condition that we have been ranging from basically zero, and we had not constructed the enterprise earlier than, what we’ve learnt is that inner IT is an effective accelerator to create providers for our prospects.”
Making use of AI
Hu’s want to go classes on to Lenovo’s prospects will depend upon his ongoing makes an attempt to take care of a fragile stability between environment friendly processes and cutting-edge applied sciences. Proper now, his digitally enabled enterprise transformation internally is concentrated on synthetic intelligence (AI).
“One massive space is how will we make the whole firm clever, and the way will we, as IT, serve the corporate in a really totally different approach, the place we aren’t the one ones who can create expertise?” he says. “That energy is democratised via AI and now goes into the palms of all of our workers, and we have now to control that change, which takes a number of effort.”
Prime-down is a technique that entails everybody within the firm. However on the identical time, the exploration of AI needs to be bottom-up, as a result of solely the folks doing the work have the information of AI and are almost definitely to seek out and discover the long run Artwork Hu, Lenovo
Hu says Lenovo needs AI to penetrate all components of its enterprise. To foster this exploration, the corporate has created a top-down and bottom-up dedication, the place workers are inspired to discover AI in a tightly ruled and safe method.
“Prime-down is a technique that entails everybody within the firm,” he says. “There’s no a part of the enterprise the place AI shouldn’t apply. However on the identical time, the exploration of AI needs to be bottom-up, as a result of solely the folks doing the work have the information of AI and are almost definitely to seek out and discover the long run.”
Hu says there are greater than 1,000 registered AI initiatives operating throughout Lenovo, starting from explorations to exams and deployments. Key use instances embrace helping assist specialists by way of dialog summarisation, refining brokers to assist with enterprise-grade software program engineering, and utilizing generative AI to create efficient advertising collateral.
“Now we have initiatives throughout the lifecycle, and that’s actually necessary,” he says. “I take coronary heart from that as a result of I believe our bottom-up method is working. Now we have extra demand than we will overview. We’re all the time getting stress to overview sooner, however we love that stress as a result of it means individuals are producing concepts.”
Rising providers
When Hu turns to priorities throughout the subsequent few years, he focuses on his want to develop Lenovo’s SSG enterprise. He says the organisation faces a chance to take a brand new digitally enabled method to providers.
“It is a second that hasn’t been current within the final 30 or 40 years,” he says. “There’s an opportunity to introduce a distinct working mannequin. The providers enterprise has been all about labour arbitrage. Labour has been an enormous driver of the IT providers business since trendy telecommunications enabled distant work within the Nineteen Nineties.”
Hu stated AI makes it attainable to maneuver from labour arbitrage-based providers to a capital-based method. “We’re attempting to construct a tech-led and labour-light mannequin for serving prospects as a result of we consider that it will probably provide superior experiences for purchasers and higher economics for Lenovo,” he says.
Making that transformational shift depends on the implementation of expertise platforms. Hu says Lenovo will put money into expertise internally throughout all its apply areas to construct these platforms. This course of will contain the creation and integration of digital techniques and providers.
“We’re very clear-eyed on the truth that you may’t construct the whole lot,” he says. “The massive developments round with the ability to soak up a number of knowledge that has been ingested, and predict and be proactive round that, and really have considerably much less human intervention, are simply going to proceed and compound.”
Hu says rising SSG entails assuming a challenger mindset. The expertise investments he’ll make within the subsequent two years will assist, and he hopes the modifications he makes internally will construct momentum externally by way of a robust set of shoppers and good enterprise outcomes.
“What we’d search for is sustained progress with superior profitability as we’re capable of create this new mannequin,” he says. “We need to proceed to take share as we develop the enterprise utilizing this method with our prospects.”
Altering tasks
After greater than 15 years on the sharp finish of expertise supply, Hu displays on the size of change that characterises the CIO place. Whereas the tasks related to digital management proceed to vary, he’s assured {that a} trusted inner IT adviser continues to be an important govt place.
“I’m very constructive about that truth, as a result of digital fluency, and the flexibility to dwell comfortably on the intersection of expertise and what it means for enterprise and in addition society, will probably be at much more of a premium sooner or later,” he says. “The signal-to-noise ratio is an issue. Individuals who perceive and might help chart a path will probably be extremely priceless.”
Whereas digital management in some guise will stay, Hu says it’s necessary to not get hung up on job titles. As digital and AI proceed their inexorable rise, extra folks exterior IT will develop a robust understanding of expertise. He envisages a state of affairs the place digital and AI develop into a part of the enterprise baseline, with a consequential impression on IT management positions.
“Possibly we received’t want a CIO sooner or later,” he says. “But when that change means enterprise leaders decide up the fluency and the dexterity wanted to profit from AI and digital, then that is perhaps an excellent factor as properly.”
