The Tech Stack Battle: Embracing Data-Driven Insights for Victory

In an era of short attention spans and fickle attitudes, it’s hard to believe a book from the fourth or fifth century could still captivate people.

The Art of War, however, continues to lend military strategy wisdom to people in all walks of life, particularly in business. And just like the ancient warriors who relied on strategic factors for victory, modern CIOs in the fast-paced world of technology must embrace the power of data-driven insights to build a successful tech stack.

Amid this whirlwind of technological advancements, the foundation for a successful tech stack lies in robust data security, transparent data management, and continuously high-quality data.

Data forms the bedrock upon which a robust and efficient tech infrastructure can be built. CIOs must recognize that strategic decisions regarding the tech stack must be driven by data-driven insights.

Harnessing the power of data empowers CIOs to make informed choices, optimize processes, and maximize the impact of technology investments.

Strategy 1: Recognizing the expanded leadership role of the CIO.

CIOs today have evolved into more than just overseers of tech tools and services—they are business partners to other organizational leaders, including the CEO, as well as data orchestrators for their entire organization. According to a survey by MIT Sloan School of Management, CIOs who report to the CEO and meet with them regularly are more successful at driving strategic change.

Workday CIO Rani Johnson believes that “as digital becomes a core competency, the CIO plays a key leadership role in the critical strategic, technical, and management initiatives—from information security and algorithms to customer experience and leveraging data—that mitigate threats and drive business growth.”

By leveraging data analytics, CIOs can identify gaps and opportunities, understand user behaviors, and predict future trends in their respective industries. Data-driven decision-making ensures that technology is aligned with business objectives and is geared toward delivering tangible results.

Strategy 2: Playing the long game with decisive action.

Just as Sun Tzu advised to figure on victory at headquarters before even doing battle, CIOs must make decisions backed by data-driven insights.

In this pursuit, the integration of security and compliance considerations become paramount.

While moving decisively in the short-term, they must also play the long game, considering how technology choices align with business objectives and where they lead the organization in the next five years.

Johnson emphasized the importance of data-driven long-term planning stating, “As we navigate the ever-evolving tech landscape, we must combine short-term agility with a clear long-term vision. Leveraging data to chart the course for our tech stack’s growth will be the key to success.”

Data-driven decision-making ensures that technology is not only aligned with immediate business objectives, but also geared toward delivering sustained and tangible results over the long run.

Strategy 3: Embracing embedded intelligence for enhanced decision-making.

To win the tech stack battle, CIOs must consider embedded intelligence as a crucial component of “decision intelligence,” as defined by Gartner™. By integrating contextual views of information and analytics into solutions, businesses can make better decisions with better data. Johnson highlights the importance of embedded intelligence, saying, “Incorporating real-time metrics into our operations will empower us to respond faster and make informed choices that align with our customers’ and employees’ needs.”

Moreover, data plays a pivotal role in evaluating the performance of various tech platforms and applications integrated into the stack.

Through data-driven performance metrics, CIOs can continuously fine-tune and optimize the tech stack to ensure it remains agile, adaptive, and future-proof.

My final thought circles back to where we began. The Art of War is attributed to Sun Tzu, an ancient general some say may not have even existed. Many believe the book is a collection of military strategy from many leaders and that the principles somehow landed in a single manuscript. In a way, this is the story of the modern CIO too. The path to victory will follow from the leadership lessons based not only from their own experiences, but also from other leaders within the organization. Ultimately, victory for the technology-driven enterprise will be defined by customers and employees—and the experiences they regard as both meaningful and memorable.