Welcome to this exclusive interview with Arvind Krishna, chairman and CEO of IBM, as part of the Acceleration Economy Cloud Wars Top 10 CEO Outlook 2024 series. Krishna met with Bob Evans to speak on a range of topics including modernization, culture transformations, and strategic partnerships.
Highlights
Overcoming Uncertainties (01:10)
“Uncertainty creates opportunity,” Krishna notes. However, “you have to be aware of the brutal reality around you.” CEOs are looking to continue growing their businesses, rewarding employees, and satisfying customers in the face of uncertainties. He reports his enthusiasm for technology being a force for good, as it will help drive and propel businesses forward.
Now, the rate and pace of technology are moving a lot, which means there’s not one CEO who holds the knowledge and awareness of everything. With these rapid changes, CEOs must determine which tasks to manage themselves and what to outsource.
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Preserving Tradition, Embracing Modernization (05:54)
Krishna says the company as a whole must “get more technical and more technology-oriented.” One element that has contributed to IBM’s 112 years of success is that it’s committed to its clients’ success. “If you start the journey with them, you’ve got to be committed to get through the journey.” A big shift that Krishna aims to foster at IBM is to focus on where it can bring a lot of value to clients. He highlights hybrid cloud, artificial intelligence, and – down the road – quantum computing as a few areas of focus.
Cultural Transformation Unlocks Success (10:14)
Cultural transformation is a significant factor in business success. You want to create a culture that reduces friction for clients and focuses on their success. Cultural change can contribute to a 10% to 20% improvement in business performance. Krishna wants experiential selling, which he sees as coming out of that cultural transformation. He wants people thinking about how to help the client, often in terms of cocreation.
IBM’s Strategic Collaborations (13:00)
Krishna emphasizes the cautious approach to regulated industries, citing pharmaceuticals as one example. He highlights IBM’s partnership with FuelCell and discusses how challenges were addressed through the intersection of AI and materials knowledge, ultimately contributing to improved sustainability. By working with IBM, FuelCell ensured its data remained private. Data privacy is a reason a large bank might also want to work with IBM.
Navigating Quantum Innovations (16:33)
The Cleveland Clinic is working with IBM and using AI and quantum technologies to figure out how to have better patient outcomes through better devices or drugs. Krishna elaborates on the dawn of the quantum era, discussing how the world has moved from vacuum tubes to semiconductors. He draws parallels with past technological shifts and asserts the Cleveland Clinic’s commitment to learning and solving complex issues with quantum technology.
New Breed of Partnerships (19:49)
Successful partnerships start with being client-obsessed. Krishna’s approach is to try to expand the pie and have additional winners beyond one client and one vendor: “I fundamentally believe that if I can work with the right set of partners, maybe we’re expanding the pie.” He cites Amazon, Microsoft, Salesforce, SAP, and Adobe as examples of partnerships where this mindset is paying off.
Generative AI and Customer Use Cases (25:35)
Krishna shares an example of how GenAI can make it more efficient for bank employees to address questions across diverse products such as credit cards, checking accounts, wealth management, and insurance, when key data points are presented on multiple screens. GenAI “could actually take the data from each of those screens. It could summarize it…it can also transcribe, actually, shockingly, unlike a human, can do all this at the same time and help that person. So you don’t need to take the person out, but you can make them way more productive.”
2024 Outlook (29:55)
Krishna says he’s “really optimistic” about 2024. Despite uncertainty, there’s economic health and technology is essential to solving people’s problems, so he expects technology to become even more important.
