(upbeat music)
- [Brad] It's lunch time,
and this is Brad Anderson's Lunch Break.
Here in Redmond, we're visited by some of the smartest people
on the planet. Pretty much every day.
Every chance I get, I meet up with them for lunch.
Today I'm meeting up with Sigal Zarmi,
the global CIO and Vice-Chairwoman
of the massive professional services company,
PricewaterhouseCoopers.
(soft piano music)
- So, PricewaterhouseCoopers,
one of the biggest global consulting organizations
on the planet.
- Yep, 157 countries.
- 157 countries, a quarter of a million employees.
- Yep. - Right?
And not only are you the CIO,
but you're the Vice Chairwoman of the company.
(laughs)
You know, I'm thinking here to myself, overachiever,
but more than anything, I'm thinking to myself,
how lucky are we to have you for a couple of minutes.
So you've been the CIO for quite a while, right?
- [Sigal] Yes. (giggles)
- Now as you look back over your career,
what's the standard business practices that you grew up with
that now just doesn't make sense or doesn't work anymore?
- The one thing, I think the way we think about outsourcing,
I think 20 years ago, everybody was outsourcing,
and you tried to outsource everything.
- Yeah
- And you keep only the manager who are over watching
your third party providers.
I think today, we're rethinking about outsourcing.
You want to make sure you have your IP in house,
you want to make sure that the secret sauce
of what you do is managed by your own people.
You want to make sure that you have the skill set
around technology because it's so prevalent.
It's everywhere and you need technology to be successful.
Everybody, every company we talk to
is going through a digital transformation, us included.
So, you want to make sure you have those experts in-house.
So, you still outsource,
but I think it's with a different lens.
- So, we were talking about AI
and some of the big breakthroughs that have happened.
I'm going to give you some scenarios
and ask you if you think AI will be able to accomplish
these things in our lifetime.
- Okay.
- Beat the best human player in a game of charades.
- Yes. (bell dings)
- Moderate a United States Presidential Debate.
That's a pretty tall order.
- Yeah, that's a tall order, but I would say yes.
- Okay. (bell dings)
How about negotiate peace
between the United States and Canada?
(laughs)
- I thought you were going to ask me about peace
in other areas of the world. Which I would say, no.
- Something are impossible.
- Some areas are really, really tough,
but United States and Canada, probably yeah.
(bell dings)
- Earn the loyalty of a cat.
- No
(buzzer alarms)
- Where do you think, you know,
IT heads over the next five to ten years?
What is it going to be about IT individuals
and IT leaders that really differentiates them
and helps them differentiate their companies?
- I think the biggest thing that IT can do to differentiate
is be experts and problem solvers.
And complex problem solvers.
- Yeah.
- So, the environment is getting much more complex, right?
(laughs)
We all know that, - Sure.
- We feel that. We feel that in our day-to-day,
not just in the places we work for.
And I think technologists have a unique capability
to problem solve, because that's what technology is about,
right? - Yeah, more engineers, right?
- Right, that's what engineering's about, solve a problem.
And, especially complex problems,
where you have the equation it's not just the pure
technology, when you have process,
when you have the culture, the people,
and the technology coming together,
and I think, IT people can really excel
if they just broaden up and think about a problem
in the most broadest sense
and try to help solve that problem.
From...
Especially from the culture standpoint
of where technology can help.
- How has that influenced the morale of the IT department?
As so much has moved to the cloud,
what does the morale of your team look like?
- I think that people who have been able to retool,
you know, are really happy with it
because a lot of technology people,
they love to work with the newest technology.
They love to be able to...
- Sure, that's what I love to do.
- Right. We want to use the new tools.
So, I would say the morale is up, that that is our strategy.
They like it, they're excited about it.
They want to be able to be part of that journey
because it's the future, right?
- Awesome.
- And I think people coming in to technology,
they don't come in to technology
because of yesterday's technology, right?
Because it's exciting for them
and I think the team is excited
that we have a very progressive strategy.
And that we are executing towards that at a good pace.
(upbeat music)
- [Brad] Next time on Brad Anderson's Lunch Break,
- The way employees are working with technology
is so instrumental to the way to deliver value
to either the clients or within the organization.
- Yeah.
- That you have to make sure you focus on how we work,
not just what tools we use, but how we leverage those tools.
(upbeat music fades)