As the CIO of Autodesk — a software company that sells design and production programs for industries like engineering, entertainment, and construction — Prakash Kota is always pushing the needle toward the consumerization of IT and digitizing business. For him, that means removing friction for any users of the platform, including employees, customers and partners, and sometimes, letting the “machine” do the work.
We are exploring and leveraging automation and AI for both internal and external processes, [which includes] moving all workloads and back-office applications to the public cloud. This enables us to increase our resiliency, availability, and enterprise security as we move into the automation era.
Kota discussed his transformation goals in detail in an interview with IDG Connect for The CIO Spotlight, which features a new CIO every week. As part of the organization’s top goals for 2020, Kota wants to continue to digitize Autodesk, which he says can’t move forward without first empowering teams with the tools they need.
We realize our employees are critical to delivering an exceptional customer experience, so we’re bolstering their success by introducing a modern, digitized experience. Streamlining and automating business and IT processes is critical to accommodating our rapid growth and ensuring customers and employees have a smooth, frictionless experience.
Kota has overseen the automation of processes from recruiting and onboarding to delivering actionable data for product and go-to-market teams. His drive behind these implementations, he says, results from the changing role of a CIO and how they’re expected to act more strategically to ensure business success.
“The [CIO] role is evolving to include a ‘value’ mindset,” he added. “…As ‘technology adviser’ and CIO, I’m building partnerships across business to enable maximum productivity and successful technology use in everything they do.”
