When Jim Swanson returned to Johnson & Johnson as chief information officer in 2019 after nearly 15 years away from the pharmaceutical giant, he set three big goals.
Mr. Swanson worked to modernize J&J's technology and ensure it had the right foundation of systems and data to power a business that is now worth more than $375 billion. He also wanted to “innovate with impact,” meaning he didn't just want to invest in the latest hot technology, but rather focused on technology that would ultimately support improved health outcomes. It means that.
For his third goal, he drew inspiration from his own education. At Drexel University, Swanson earned a bachelor's degree in biological sciences and biotechnology, as well as a master's degree in computer science. He was drawn to the combination of science and technology, which led him to encourage his 130,000 employees at J&J to add technology skills related to their areas of focus.
“If you apply people's expertise and technology, you can really rethink and innovate, rather than just incrementally improve,” said former CIO of pharmaceuticals at Monsanto, Bayer Crop Science, and J&J. said Mr. Swanson. “We recognize that there is a lot of value in thinking about bilingual skills and embedding bilingual skills into career paths and career journeys.”
Bilingualism, as defined by Swanson for the purposes of our conversation, is someone who has specialized subject matter expertise, either as a scientist or in a sector from finance to marketing, and who combines that knowledge with relevant technical insight. To develop these skills, employees can take interactive classes and watch videos developed by J&J and external vendors.
Mr. Swanson shared several examples of how bilingual employees are essential to J&J's success and the company's mission. One is a research and development scientist who takes the time to learn how to apply models that can facilitate the identification of molecules and accelerate research in the clinical setting. She is now a specialist in training his surgeons, adding augmented reality expertise that can be taught to surgeons much more quickly than using traditional methods. Additionally, she is an employee in the finance department and is adept at using predictive models, which allows her to derive meaningful insights that can support J&J's business objectives.
Swanson said improving forecast accuracy by just 1 to 2 percentage points could result in as much as $1.5 billion in financial improvements for a $90 billion company like J&J. “It's important to the company,” he insists.
And while upskilling J&J's workforce to better understand artificial intelligence is a priority, adding technology skills is much broader than AI, Swanson says. Augmented reality and new technologies are also important in helping J&J reimagine its manufacturing processes.
Last year, as part of its technology education drive, J&J held its first global Learning Day for all employees. We're also seeing broader success, with nearly half of our employees now using J&J Learn, our internal learning platform. Meanwhile, employees using J&J's Digital Boot Camps (courses that teach the fundamentals of AI, automation, data, and more) have completed nearly 30,000 courses. Approximately 20,000 workers also took generative AI training courses. This training course is a must for anyone who wants to take advantage of the technology.
To foster a learning culture, Swanson works closely with senior leaders across J&J and Peter Fasolo, head of human resources, to coordinate the training content and technical skills the company requires from its employees. Mr. Swanson first tested his vision of combining technology know-how and domain expertise within his own division of approximately 4,000 employees, then expanded the learning to other parts of J&J.
“We're certainly on the journey, but we're not done yet,” Swanson says. “We still have a lot of work to do. I can't say it's perfect, but we've really gained momentum.”
John Kell
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news packet
US and UK partner on AI The two countries have signed an agreement on AI, becoming the first countries to formally cooperate to assess and test risks posed by new AI models, the Financial Times reported. The agreement will allow the two countries to work together to evaluate civilian AI models built by OpenAI, Google and others, and is modeled on past cooperation on issues related to intelligence and security.
Regardless, management is planning ahead for AI. As enterprises plan to build and deploy AI amidst global regulatory uncertainty around AI, CIOs are using a combination of customer data best practices and a little guesswork to ensure their AI applications are compliant. The Wall Street Journal reports that. . Government officials are preparing for regulations that may vary from country to country and even state to state. In the United States alone, more than 500 different AI-related bills have been proposed.
Microsoft Teams and Office will be separated. The tech giant said customers who purchase an Office subscription starting this week will no longer receive the video conferencing app Teams with the service. The decision to unbundle the two software tools followed an investigation sparked by a complaint filed in 2020 by Teams rival Slack Technologies, now owned by Salesforce, the Associated Press reported. . Slack had alleged that Microsoft was abusing its market dominance by combining Teams with its Office suite, in violation of European Union law.
adoption curve
More than two-thirds of security professionals admit that they are at least partially reactive when it comes to security, primarily because they are being pulled in too many conflicting directions. (61%). Existing software was deemed “not good enough” was his second reason (29%).
The survey was conducted by 1Password among 1,500 employees (including 500 IT security professionals). To be sure, 1Password has a financial incentive to sell password management tools to customers. But with data showing that the average cost of a cybersecurity breach will increase by 15% in 2023 compared to three years ago, CIOs need to work to prove the value of curbing security risks. there is.
job radar
– Sprinkler announced the appointment of Amitabh Misra as Chief Technology Officer, effective April 1. Mr. Misra will lead all research and development teams worldwide, including product and engineering. He will report directly to Ragy Thomas, Sprinklr's founder and CEO.
– F5 Inc. announced that Kunal Anand has been appointed CTO and Executive Vice President, reporting directly to CEO and President François Locoh-Donou. Most recently, Anand served in his dual roles of CTO and Chief Information Security Officer at Imperva.
– Mr. King appointed Eric Bowman, who reports directly to King President Chodolf Somestad, as chief technology officer (CTO). Bowman, who previously served as his CTO at TomTom, has 30 years of experience driving technology solutions, including roles at Glint Groupe, Zalando, and Electronic Arts.
– Qualtrics announced the appointment of Juan Rodriguez as CIO. He has 30 years of experience in engineering, systems, and process design, most recently serving as CIO at Cloudflare and EVP of Product Operations at Sage.
– Mr. Peraton appointed Tom Terjesen as CIO. In his role, he will be responsible for leading Peraton's IT organization and its strategy.
– The City of Philadelphia has appointed Melissa Scott as CIO, who will lead the strategy and efforts of the City's Office of Innovation and Technology. Scott has been working in Philadelphia since 2015 as an IT Director and an IT Project Manager.
– Versapay announced that Gaby Kozakov has been appointed CTO. Mr. Kozakov previously served as Vice President of Research and Development at Revuze and has deep expertise in AI and machine learning.