On the 47th episode of Enterprise Software Innovators, hosts Evan Reiser (Abnormal Security) and Saam Motamedi (Greylock Partners) talk with Ramesh Razdan, Global CIO & CTO of Bain & Company. Bain & Company is a “Big Three” management consulting firm with 65 global offices, 19,000 employees, and over $8 billion in annual revenue. Bain helps Fortune 500 companies optimize performance, enhance operational efficiency, and implement innovative technology at scale. In this conversation, Ramesh shares his thoughts on how generative AI is transforming Bain, the evolution of the CIO role in the AI era, and how Bain’s clients harness the latest AI capabilities.

Quick hits from Ramesh:

On AI’s exciting potential to enhance security: “I remain to be extremely bullish on where AI can take us. I believe AI as a human oversight can really increase the velocity of our defense. We have to do that. Human beings cannot respond fast enough.”

On choosing which use cases to apply generative AI first: “A famous two by two exercise is to say, ‘What data is available and what value is at stake there?’, and then plot what's the most valuable data for what you are trying to do. What you don't want is the most complex use case up front because the engine is not warmed up. We need to prove the value.”

On understanding risk and compliance before adopting AI: “ This technology doesn't come with its own sets of risks. It doesn't come with its own set up. You need to establish proper risk and compliance forums. You need to make sure you are in lockstep with legal teams and risk teams. We want to make sure we're training the right way. We want to change the right behavior.”

Recent Book Recommendation: Optimal by Daniel Goleman

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Like what you hear? Leave us a review and subscribe to the show on Apple, Google, Spotify, Stitcher, or wherever you listen to podcasts.

Enterprise Software Innovators is a show where top tech executives share how they innovate at scale. Each episode covers unique insights and stories that will help you succeed as a technology leader. Find more great lessons from tech leaders and enterprise software experts at https://www.enterprisesoftware.blog/

Enterprise Software Innovators is produced by Luke Reiser and Josh Meer.

On the 46th episode of Enterprise Software Innovators, host Evan Reiser (Abnormal Security) talks with Munir Hafez, CIO of TransUnion. TransUnion specializes in credit reporting, fraud detection, and data analytics. With over 19,000 employees and over $3.6 billion in annual revenue, the company impacts more than a billion people worldwide. In this conversation, Munir shares his thoughts on AI transforming business operations at TransUnion, balancing the potential of AI against the current hype cycle, and the future impact of AI in the enterprise.

Quick hits from Munir:

On the importance of grounding data to train AI: “If you're asking it how to make a chocolate chip cookie, you don't really need to ground that in your data. If you're trying to say, ‘What cross-sell opportunities can I have for this customer?’ You have to be able to feed it your product catalog and everything else.”

On prompt engineering driving value in the current AI environment: “Over time, [AI] is going to get smarter where you need less and less prompt engineering teaching it. But certainly in the short term, I think training, custom LLM, and then depending on the tool, teams that are designed and focused on extending the prompt engineering and the capabilities will be the best way to get the value.”

On identifying real use cases for enterprise AI: “My team supports over 500 applications. Everything has AI, including toothbrushes and trash cans. So which tools are actually far enough along that [the AI component] provides value. We were looking for if the triangulation of the technology is advanced enough. The business case makes sense and the business users are engaged and are willing to learn and help support.”

Recent Book Recommendation: Outliers by Malcom Gladwell

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Like what you hear? Leave us a review and subscribe to the show on Apple, Google, Spotify, Stitcher, or wherever you listen to podcasts.

Enterprise Software Innovators is a show where top tech executives share how they innovate at scale. Each episode covers unique insights and stories that will help you succeed as a technology leader. Find more great lessons from tech leaders and enterprise software experts at https://www.enterprisesoftware.blog/

Enterprise Software Innovators is produced by Luke Reiser and Josh Meer.

On the 45th episode of Enterprise Software Innovators, hosts Evan Reiser (Abnormal Security) and Saam Motamedi (Greylock Partners) talk with Jonny LeRoy, CTO of Grainger. Grainger is a Fortune 500 industrial supply company, ensuring seamless operations for a broad range of customers, from hospitals to manufacturing plants and everything in between. With over $16 billion of annual revenue and 26,000 employees, the company provides over 30 million products to support its four and a half million customers. In this conversation, Jonny shares his thoughts on how AI transforms operations at Grainger, quick wins for AI applications in the enterprise, and realistic expectations around today’s AI capabilities.

Quick hits from Jonny:

On AI’s transformative potential: “We’ve got 2 million SKUs in our Grainger brand and 30 million products across the whole portfolio. AI helps us match the right product to the right customer, and that's where it starts to get really powerful.”

On the importance of continuous improvement: “It’s all about solving small problems, one by one. That’s how you unlock AI’s potential—not by waiting for the perfect solution, but by making progress now.”

On AI’s ability to improve the customer experience: “A lot of the customer software we're building is to empower, whether it's our merchandising agents or customer intelligence people, to do their work that drives the business, but produces better data. That data then feeds into potential machine learning AI systems. We can put that into motion, get that in front of customers, and improve that data feedback. We understand the direction we're going, and that's not changing. Understand products, understand customers, bring them together super easily.”

Recent Book Recommendation: Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert M. Pirsig

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Like what you hear? Leave us a review and subscribe to the show on Apple, Google, Spotify, Stitcher, or wherever you listen to podcasts.

Enterprise Software Innovators is a show where top tech executives share how they innovate at scale. Each episode covers unique insights and stories that will help you succeed as a technology leader. Find more great lessons from tech leaders and enterprise software experts at https://www.enterprisesoftware.blog/

Enterprise Software Innovators is produced by Luke Reiser and Josh Meer.

On the 44th episode of Enterprise Software Innovators, host Evan Reiser (Abnormal Security) talks with Mike Hamilton, CIO of Cloudflare. Cloudflare is a cloud connectivity company that helps businesses deliver content and applications worldwide while keeping them secure. More than 20% of all internet traffic flows through Cloudflare’s networks, making them an indispensable part of modern internet infrastructure. In this conversation, Mike shares insights into how AI helps filter the noise in cybersecurity, the seamless integration of AI in business operations, and the power of AI to automate the mundane.

Quick hits from Mike:

On AI's role in the future of business: “Artificial intelligence as a technology goes back decades, back into the fifties, starting with academic papers. But the scale of how it gets delivered has been one of the challenges. We're at this interesting turning point now where we've developed something that can actually support this incredible technology to take off.”

On the future integration of AI in business operations: “The area that I want to see worked out the most is around the integration space and how we get business systems to talk to each other, [for example, how AI] technology can read API specifications and start to understand how to create automations based on those specs.. That’s something the AI industry has to nail."

On the impact of AI on human life: “I think humans will live longer as a result of technology, and I don't think we're necessarily going to draw the connection. Just in the same way that technology, like computers, has improved our quality of life, there are going to be many little ways that AI will extend human life. We probably won’t think about it as AI’s doing, but it will be, and it might not even get the credit it deserves.”

Recent Book Recommendation: Leadership is Language by L. David Marquet

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Like what you hear? Leave us a review and subscribe to the show on Apple, Google, Spotify, Stitcher, or wherever you listen to podcasts.

Enterprise Software Innovators is a show where top tech executives share how they innovate at scale. Each episode covers unique insights and stories that will help you succeed as a technology leader. Find more great lessons from tech leaders and enterprise software experts at https://www.enterprisesoftware.blog/

Enterprise Software Innovators is produced by Luke Reiser and Josh Meer.

On the 43rd episode of Enterprise Software Innovators, host Evan Reiser (Abnormal Security) talks with Jack Tam, SVP & CTO of Intuit Mailchimp. Intuit Mailchimp is a comprehensive email marketing and automation platform leveraging advanced AI-driven tools to create personalized, data-driven marketing campaigns. In this conversation, Jack shares insights into the evolution of email marketing in the AI era, the transformative impact of AI on customer engagement, and a glimpse into the future of AI-enabled business growth.

Quick hits from Jack:

On the ability of AI to help small businesses with marketing needs: “Imagine that you can run A/B testing on these marketing experiments. Today you have to watch it, you have to monitor it. We want to be able to let this automate itself, ultimately the owner is still in control, but removing as much of the friction in the experimentation to find the optimal ways to market.”

On how AI might continue to improve the user interface: “If you look at Mailchimp today, it's very much a sort of menu navigation. Click this and click that. I can imagine that it can be a much simpler interface. For example, it could literally just be a Google search bar. And you type in this is what I want to do and all the automation happens behind it."

On AI roles that will become necessary for enterprise businesses: “Over the last year we spent a lot of time talking about LLMs. Now you're seeing much more specialized LLMs based on industry and data. And so I also think there could be roles around how you get the right data into the right LLMs that are necessary for the types of industry that you're working in.”

Recent Book Recommendation: Benjamin Franklin by Walter Isaacson

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Like what you hear? Leave us a review and subscribe to the show on Apple, Google, Spotify, Stitcher, or wherever you listen to podcasts.

Enterprise Software Innovators is a show where top tech executives share how they innovate at scale. Each episode covers unique insights and stories that will help you succeed as a technology leader. Find more great lessons from tech leaders and enterprise software experts at https://www.enterprisesoftware.blog

Enterprise Software Innovators is produced by Luke Reiser and Josh Meer.

On the 42nd episode of Enterprise Software Innovators, host Evan Reiser (Abnormal Security) talks with Amit Shah, EVP & CIO of Excelitas Technologies. Excelitas is a global technology company specializing in generating and sensing light in photonics. In this conversation, Amit shares insights into how Excelitas utilizes AI to enhance its photonic technologies, the impact of generative AI on productivity and cybersecurity, and the future of enterprise AI.

Quick hits from Amit:

On AI opportunities in cybersecurity: “I want my cybersecurity vendors to use AI because the bad guys are going to and already are using AI to be more effective in their outcomes. I want them [Cybersecurity Vendors] to make sure they are using AI to reduce the complexity in the fragmented nature of how cybersecurity is done today.”

On the importance of data strategy when leveraging AI: “There's a golden principle in the IT world - Garbage in, garbage out. No matter how good the technology is, if you're feeding garbage to that technology, it's going to spit out garbage. Hallucination is the word people use. What it means to an individual in an enterprise, boils down to the input is not good enough, hence, you're going to have output, which is not good enough."

On the potential of generative AI in the enterprise: “You will be using AI without you knowing you are actually using AI within a corporation. It will be embedded into your data structure where it might be cleaning the data. It will help you execute your business processes faster. Being able to distribute your documents and other data to your employees, your customers, your vendors, and your partners, in a much more secure and efficient manner.

Recent Book Recommendation: Good to Great by Jim Collins

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Like what you hear? Leave us a review and subscribe to the show on Apple, Google, Spotify, Stitcher, or wherever you listen to podcasts.

Enterprise Software Innovators is a show where top tech executives share how they innovate at scale. Each episode covers unique insights and stories that will help you succeed as a technology leader. Find more great lessons from tech leaders and enterprise software experts at https://www.enterprisesoftware.blog/

Enterprise Software Innovators is produced by Luke Reiser and Josh Meer.

On the 41st episode of Enterprise Software Innovators, hosts Evan Reiser (Abnormal Security) and Saam Motamedi (Greylock Partners) talk with Kirk Ball, former EVP & CIO of Giant Eagle. Giant Eagle is one of the largest regional supermarket chains in the United States, with over 37,000 employees and more than $11 billion in annual revenue. In this conversation, Kirk shares how AI is transforming the retail industry, the impressive scale of Giant Eagle’s operations, and AI’s potential to shape the future of the enterprise.

Quick hits from Kirk:

On how ML is being used by Giant Eagle today: “Machine learning is used in setting the assortment, setting the optimized price, driving traffic from your customers and learning which products are price sensitive, which products aren't. When a season comes or goes or a particular weather day occurs, that changes. [With ML], you know what people want to buy and you have to be prepared for that change and your supply chain has to adjust.”

On how enterprise use cases are evolving for AI: “They've got generative AI assisting with complex support calls and complex customer interactions to give additional guidance and suggestions, to help them make sure that that customer leaves satisfied. The ability to look through legal documents when you do a software or hardware contract, you probably look for 90 percent of the same thing in every contract. Generative AI can do that for us, we can reduce the cost and the cycle time down dramatically.”

On maintaining an innovative culture: “Chance favors the prepared mind. It always does. And it always will. You should constantly be preparing your mind, your team, and your organization.”

Recent Book Recommendation: Principles for Dealing with the Changing World Order by Ray Dalio

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Like what you hear? Leave us a review and subscribe to the show on Apple, Google, Spotify, Stitcher, or wherever you listen to podcasts.

Enterprise Software Innovators is a show where top tech executives share how they innovate at scale. Each episode covers unique insights and stories that will help you succeed as a technology leader. Find more great lessons from tech leaders and enterprise software experts at https://www.enterprisesoftware.blog/

Enterprise Software Innovators is produced by Luke Reiser and Josh Meer.

On the 40th episode of Enterprise Software Innovators, hosts Evan Reiser (Abnormal Security) and Saam Motamedi (Greylock Partners) talk with Vishal Gupta, Global CTO & CIO of Lexmark. With over 9,000 employees in 170 countries, Lexmark is a global technology company specializing in printing solutions and cloud-enabled IoT imaging technology. In this conversation, Vishal shares insights into how Lexmark uses AI for predictive maintenance and an optimized customer experience, the revolutionary potential of enterprise AI adoption, and how IT leaders navigate the opportunities and challenges of emerging technologies.

Quick hits from Vishal:

On current use cases for AI vision: “We're working with one of the biggest oil change companies on the planet. With our Edge AI technology, we can detect if a car that has come in for an oil change has been greeted by the oil change team within the first three minutes. With this technology, we're already seeing that they're able to save one or two customer drive-offs a day, which pays for the entire month of the technology itself.”

On how Lexmark is capitalizing on emerging technology trends: “We've transitioned a lot based upon the technologies that we have developed into being an IoT and AI company. We launched an offering called Optra two and a half years back. We're doing a lot of work with AI, our printers have IoT sensors, and they last fifty percent longer than the rest of the industry because we're able to stream the data and we're able to use the AI to extend their life.”

On areas of AI that people may be underestimating: “People underestimate the accuracy aspect of AI. They think more about ‘how do I get a project done,’ and not about ‘how do I actually measure accuracy on an ongoing basis to know whether or not I can really trust it.’ Having a set of metrics will let you be objective about it where you're neither leaving a comparative advantage on the table, nor are you completely putting yourself at risk."

Recent Book Recommendation: The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey

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Like what you hear? Leave us a review and subscribe to the show on Apple, Google, Spotify, Stitcher, or wherever you listen to podcasts.

Enterprise Software Innovators is a show where top tech executives share how they innovate at scale. Each episode covers unique insights and stories that will help you succeed as a technology leader. Find more great lessons from tech leaders and enterprise software experts at https://www.enterprisesoftware.blog/

Enterprise Software Innovators is produced by Luke Reiser and Josh Meer.