Interview: Rom Kosla, CIO, Hewlett Packard Enterprise
When Rom Kosla, CIO at Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE), joined the know-how big in July 2023, the transfer represented a giant shift in course. Beforehand CIO at retailer Ahold Delhaize and CIO for enterprise options at PepsiCo, Kosla was a shopper specialist who needed to use his information in a brand new sector.
“I appreciated the thought of working in a unique trade,” he says. “I went from shopper merchandise to retail grocery. Shifting into the tech trade was a bit nerve-wracking as a result of the idea of who the shoppers are is totally different. However since I grew up in IT, I figured I’d have the flexibility to navigate my means via the corporate.”
Kosla had beforehand labored as a venture supervisor for Nestlé and frolicked with the consultancy Deloitte. Now approaching two years with HPE, Kosla leads HPE’s know-how technique and is chargeable for how the corporate harnesses synthetic intelligence (AI) and knowledge. He additionally oversees e-commerce, app improvement, enterprise useful resource planning (ERP) and safety operations.
“The position has exceeded my expectations,” he says. “Whenever you’re a CIO at a multinational, like once I was a divisional CIO at PepsiCo, you’re within the again workplace. Whether or not it’s technique, transformation or buyer engagement, the programs are the enablers of that back-office effort. At HPE, it’s totally different as a result of we’re buyer zero.”
Kosla says he prefers the time period “buyer gold” as a result of he needs HPE to develop high-quality merchandise. Along with setting the interior digital technique, he has an outward-facing position offering knowledgeable recommendation to prospects. That a part of his position reminds him of his time at Deloitte.
“These are alternatives to flex my prior expertise and capabilities, and learn to take our merchandise, allow them, and share finest practices,” he says. “HPE is like every other firm. We use cloud programs and software-as-a-service merchandise, together with Salesforce and others. However beneath, we now have HPE powering lots of the capabilities.”
Optimising enterprise processes
The press launch asserting Kosla’s appointment in 2023 stated HPE believed his prior experiences within the digital front-end and working complicated provide chains made him the right particular person to construct on its digital transformation efforts. So, how has that imaginative and prescient panned out?
“What’s been fascinating helps the enterprise and IT workforce take into consideration the end-to-end worth stream,” he says. “There was lots of application-specific information. The flexibility for processes to be optimised at an utility layer versus the end-to-end worth stream was solely taking place in sure spots.”
Kosla found the organisation had spent two years transferring to a personal cloud set up on the corporate’s {hardware} and had consolidated 20-plus ERP programs below one SAP occasion. With a lot of the transformation work full, his focus turned to profiting from these belongings.
“The chance was to not shepherd up transformation, it was taking the subsequent step, which was optimising,” says Kosla, explaining how he had boosted provide chain efficiency in his earlier roles. He’s now making use of that information at HPE.
“What we’ve been doing is slicing areas of alternative,” he says. “With the lead-to-quote course of, for instance, we now have alternatives to optimise, relying on the kind of enterprise, such because the channel and distributors. We’re asking issues like, ‘Can we get a quote out as shortly as attainable, can we worth it appropriately, and may we rely much less on human engagement?’”
HPE introduced a cost-reduction programme in March to cut back structural working prices. The programme is predicted to be carried out via fiscal yr 2026 and ship gross financial savings of roughly $350m by fiscal yr 2027, together with via workforce reductions. The programme of labor in IT will assist the corporate transfer in direction of these targets.
Kosla says optimisation in financials may imply closing books quicker. Within the provide chain, the optimisation may be about predicting the uncooked supplies wanted to create merchandise. He takes a time period from his time within the consumer-packaged items sector – proper to play, proper to win – to clarify how his strategy helps the enterprise search for value-generating alternatives.
“So, do we now have the best to play, which means do we now have the talents? The place do we now have the best to win, which means do we now have the funding, enterprise assets and availability to ship the outcomes? We spend time specializing in which areas supply the best to play and the best to win.”
Embracing rising applied sciences
Kosla says knowledge and AI play a key position in these optimisations. HPE makes use of third-party purposes with built-in AI capabilities and has developed an inside chat answer known as ChatHPE, a generative AI hub used for inside processes.
“There are many conversations round how we unlock the advantages of AI within the firm,” he says. Professionals throughout the corporate use Microsoft Copilot of their day-to-day roles to spice up productiveness. Builders, in the meantime, use GitHub Copilot.
Lastly, there’s ChatHPE, which Kosla says is used in line with the useful use case. HPE began creating the platform about 18 months in the past. A pipeline of use circumstances has now been developed, together with serving to authorized groups to evaluate contracts, boosting customer support in operations, re-using marketing campaign components in advertising and bettering analytics in finance.
“We spend time specializing in which areas supply the best to play and the best to win”
Rom Kosla, Hewlett Packard Enterprise
“We’ve a big quantity of governance internally,” says Kosla, referring to ChatHPE, which is powered by Azure and OpenAI know-how. “Once I began, there wasn’t an inside HPE AI engine. We needed to inform the groups to not use the usual instruments as a result of any knowledge that you just feed into them is finally extracted. So, we needed to create our platform.”
Embracing AI isn’t Kosla’s solely concern. Stabilisation is a giant a part of what he wants to realize in the course of the subsequent 12 months. He returns to HPE’s two main transformation initiatives – the shift to non-public cloud and the consolidation of ERP platforms – suggesting that the twin roll-out and administration of those initiatives created a big variety of incidents.
“Once I look again at PepsiCo, we had about 300,000 staff and about 600,000 tickets, which implies two tickets per particular person per yr. I stated to the manager committee at HPE, ‘We’ve 60,000 staff, and we now have a few million tickets’, which is an insane quantity. The aim was to convey that quantity down by about 85%,” he says.
“Now, our system uptime is 99% throughout our quoting and monetary programs. That availability permits our enterprise to do greater than deal with inside IT. They will deal with the shopper. Stabilisation means the enterprise isn’t always enthusiastic about IT programs, as a result of it’s a problem to execute day-after-day when programs are happening due to points.”
Creating worth
Kosla says the long-term intention from an IT perspective is to align the know-how organisation with enterprise outcomes. In financials, for instance, he needs to provide the information analytics the enterprise wants throughout the availability chain and operational processes.
“We’ve embedded groups that work collectively to take a look at how we allow knowledge, like our chat capabilities, into a few of the actions,” he says. “They’ll contemplate how we cut back friction, particularly the handbook steps. They’ll additionally contemplate planning, from uncooked supplies to the manufacturing and supply of merchandise. That work includes partnering with the enterprise.”
The important thing to success for the IT workforce is to assist the enterprise unlock worth faster. “I’d say that’s the most important half for us,” says Kosla. “We don’t even like to make use of the phrase velocity – we are saying velocity, as a result of velocity equals course, and that’s essential for us. I feel the enterprise is pleased with what we’ve been capable of obtain, nevertheless it’s nonetheless not quick sufficient.”
Having the ability to ship outcomes at tempo will depend on new ranges of flexibility. Relatively than being wedded to a 12-month plan that maps out a collection of deliverables, Kosla needs his workforce to work extra within the second. Prior experiences from the patron sector give him an excellent sense of what excellence seems like on this space.
“You don’t want to return to the highest, undergo an annual planning evaluate, return down, after which have the groups twiddling their thumbs whereas they look forward to the OK,” he says.
“The aim is that groups are always engaged on what’s achievable throughout a dash window. Many firms take that strategy; I’ve accomplished it in my prior working life. I do know what can occur, and I feel flexibility will drive worth creation.”
Kosla says a few of the worth will come from HPE’s in-house developed applied sciences. “One of many issues that makes this position enjoyable is that there’s a big quantity of innovation the corporate is doing,” he says, pointing to vital applied sciences, corresponding to Morpheus VM Necessities virtualisation software program, the observability platform OpsRamp, and Aruba Networking Entry Factors.
“What I’m pleased with is that we now present as much as prospects with comparability,” he says, speaking concerning the advisory a part of his position. “We are able to say, ‘Look, we use each merchandise, as a result of in some circumstances, it’s a migration over time.’ So, for instance, when a buyer asks about our observability strategy, we will examine our know-how with different suppliers.”
Blurring the strains
Kosla displays on his profession and ponders the way forward for the CIO position, suggesting tasks will fluctuate significantly in line with sector. “Digital leaders nonetheless keep IT programs in some industries,” he says.
“Nevertheless, the remainder of the enterprise is now far more conscious of know-how. The blurring of strains between enterprise and IT means it’s harder to distinguish between the 2 areas. I feel we’ll see extra convergence.”
Kosla says a rising need to include prices usually creates a detailed relationship between IT and finance leaders. As soon as once more, he expects additional developments in that partnership. He additionally anticipates that cyber will stay on the forefront of digital leaders’ precedence lists.
Extra typically, he believes all IT professionals have gotten extra centered on enterprise priorities. “I feel the blurring will proceed to create fascinating outcomes, particularly in know-how firms,” he says. “We need to do issues otherwise.”
