CXOInsights by CXOCIETY

In recent years, the role of chief financial officer (CFO) has never been more challenging as it is fulfilling for those who hold this position. From geopolitical uncertainties to changing market dynamics, from technological innovations that are paving the way for new business models, and from calamitous weather disturbances that are reminding business leaders about the importance of addressing cl...

There are many words to describe the economic environment of 2023 and dull is definitely not one of them.  2023 remains a particularly challenging period for many CFOs who must grapple with two local wars, one in Eastern Europe and the other in the Middle East, and their impact on supply chains, escalating cyberattacks, rigid labour markets, efforts to adopt sustained ESG strategies in response to...

In a joint Harvard Business Review and Google Cloud report 97% of business leaders surveyed believe that democratising access to data and analytics across their organization is important to business success. The same study revealed that only 60% of these leaders believe their organization is very effective at giving employees access to data and analytics tools. With business leaders now seeing gre...

Gartner’s VP analyst, Bart Willemsen says technology disruptions and socioeconomic uncertainties require a willingness to act boldly and strategically enhance resilience over ad hoc responses. He posits that “IT leaders are in a unique position to strategically lay down a roadmap where technology investments help their business's sustenance of success amidst these uncertainties and pressures....

In a blogpost on Finextra , Thomas French, a senior financial industry consultant on fraud at SAS writes that routine investment in the best technologies to detect and prevent fraud and other financial crimes is no longer a “nice to have” but a matter of necessity. As fraud-as-a-service inflames the industrialisation of fraud, it may be time for organisations in Asia to reconsider the value propos...

Talent shortage continues to persist in many parts of the world including Asia. In Singapore, for example, the shortage of accounting staff is most felt by small accounting firms that struggle to compete with the Big Four accounting firms.  A Gartner survey of finance function employees revealed some interesting conundrums faced by both employers and employees in the finance function. Joining us t...

Digital transformation, automation, and artificial intelligence are all connected through their shared goal of optimizing business processes and decision-making capabilities. Together, they have the potential to bring about significant advancements that were once considered unattainable. Add to all this development, the notion of autonomy in AI and what do we have? A technology that can act withou...

As economies in Asia move towards some semblance of post-pandemic normal, one observable trend is the continuing shift away from traditional cash and cheque methods of payment to a diverse landscape that includes digital wallets, digital currencies and innovative fintech solutions. Propelling this growth of non-cash transactions is a consumer base that is becoming accustomed to cross-border transa...

It is said that the best-run organisations prioritize cybersecurity spending as a business decision first. Gartner’s Hype Cycle for Data Security 2023 reflects the increasing dominance of this approach. As key technologies needed for assessing and quantifying cloud risk mature, we see the continuing emergence of new technologies purpose-built to protect against emerging threats that inevitably ari...

In the WW C-Suite Tech Survey by IDC, 59% of respondents acknowledged that digital initiatives are now co-owned by C-Suite/LOB. More and more c-suite roles are gravitating around technology and CIOs are rising, more than ever, to the call of technology leadership.  Together, they are modernizing their organizations digital core and scaling innovation. Asia/Pacific Japan’s c-suites top tech investm...

Clifford Stoll , author of The Cuckoo’s Egg , an investigation into the hacking of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory that led to the capture of hacker Marcus Hess , famously said: “Treat your password like your toothbrush. Don’t let anyone else use it and get a new one every six months.” The paper, How Effective is Multifactor Authentication (MFA) at Deterring Cyberattacks? concludes that...

Forrester predicts that 2024 will usher in the era of intentional AI where gimmicks and technical experimentation of GenAI will give way to more focused and strategic initiatives.  With us today on PodChats for FutureCIO is Fred Giron, VP, senior research director at Forrester to help us under how to transition AI from hype to intent. 1.       Forrester sees AI as enabling organisations to pivot i...

The Global Data Centre Outlook report from JLL suggests that the mass adoption of cloud computing and artificial intelligence (AI) is driving exponential growth for the data centre sector. The report posits that the demand for data centre capacity to support AI is growing rapidly, with most research reports indicating that the global data centre market for AI is expected to grow at CAGR 25%+. Eric...

The Future of Asian & Pacific Cities Report 2023 entitled, Crisis Resilient Urban Futures, describes countries and cities across Asia and the Pacific as struggling to recover from the health and socioeconomic crisis resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic, even as the effects of climate change continue to ravage the region.  The report offers guidance for policymakers to address severe disruption...

Director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency Jen Easterly warns that AI is “ the most powerful capability and weapon of our time ”. She wasn’t being coy nor flippant about it. Calling on software vendors to stop building insecure-by-design products that maximise profits over safety, she commented that “So far the cost that we’ve paid for speed over security is pretty steep but...

In Formula One races, the expression, timing is everything’ carries significant meaning. Drivers and teams need to know exactly how fast the cars are running at certain points around the track. It is a sport where timing is everything and nothing can be left to uncertainty. The use cases for accurate timing have been around for decades. Timing is what enables communication systems to work, time is...

Change is the new normal. Disruption is a natural state anywhere in the world today. How should established organisations address these new conditions, discover new opportunities in the new normal, and transform to lead the shift? Business model transformation focuses on changing the way a company creates, delivers and captures value. In this PodChats for FutureCIO, Ying Shaowei , chief scientist...

The 2023 SonicWall Cyber Threat Report claims that IoT malware globally was up 37%, resulting in 77.9 million attacks compared to the 57 million attacks during the same period in 2022. The IoT malware attack volume in Asia rose to 23 million, up 130%. The Nokia 20203 Threat Intelligence Report claims that 60% of attacks against telecom mobile networks are linked to IoT bots scanning for vulnerable...

A 2023 Beyond Identity survey of 1,010 cybersecurity specialists one in six had worked for companies that experienced an AI-fuelled cyberattack, with 59% seeing this in phishing attacks and 39% in malware. The good news (maybe) is that 40% said it took less than 24 hours to detect the attack and respond accordingly. Arguably, the more concerning of the trends highlighted in the report is that 75%...

One of the characteristics of the recent decade is an increasingly connected global community with some events that occur in one region that would impact other parts of the world. In the business community, a recurring theme of the digitalisation era is improving the engagement with the customer.  One of the revelations of the COVID pandemic is just how reliant we are on ecosystems of suppliers an...

Continuity's State pf Storage and Backup Security Report 2023 reveals that on average there are 14 security risks found in a typical enterprise storage and backup system. Out of the 14 risks, 3 are high or critical risks. In the past two years, online backups were frequently targeted as part of ransomware attacks. This led to data being deleted or made otherwise unusable to prevent recovery o...

Fraud, stock-price manipulation, damage to reputation and the brand, sextortion scams that sabotage employee morale, misinformation and disinformation. These are five deepfake scams that Forrester VP and principal analyst, Jeff Pollard warns organisations have to take seriously now before these become weaponised against enterprises. Joining us on PodChats for FutureCISO is Jonas Walker, Director o...

In the report, The Emergence of Offensive AI , Forrester revealed that 80% of cybersecurity decision-makers expected AI to increase the scale and speed of attacks and that 66% expected AI to "conduct attacks that no human could conceive of." When asked to identify which risks they are most concerned about when weaponized AI becomes mainstream, 75% cited system/business interruption while...

Coined in 2019 by Neil McDonald, Gartner defines single-vendor secure access service edge (SASE) offerings as those that deliver multiple converged-network and security-as-a-service capabilities, such as software-defined WAN, secure web gateway, cloud access security broker, network firewalling and zero trust network access. In today's hybrid multi-cloud environment where touchpoints comprise...

We continue to hear that digital transformation remains a priority for many business leaders in Asia. That said, transformation means different things to different functions within the organisation. Yes, there are common themes like enhancing customer experience, improving productivity and greater collaboration not just among employees but even business partners.  But outside of the rhetoric about...