Edna Conway, VP, chief security and risk officer for Azure, Microsoft

      Source: Edna Conway

Edna Conway forecasts the future of business and creates clear strategies to deliver new and secure operating models for a digital economy. She is a sought-after industry influencer, bringing rich perspective forged from more than 30 years of broad and deep leadership success creating new organizations and delivering cybersecurity, compliance, and risk management across a $143 billion technology company. Conway is a builder of new capabilities that achieve lasting and pervasive operational improvement.

      Alexander: You are Azure's VP, chief security and risk officer at Microsoft. What is your mission?

      Edna: It is an interesting mission because it is a role that didn't previously exist. As a result, I had the great privilege to craft its scope and mission to deliver optimum impact. My team's focus is ensuring that Azure is the most trusted cloud platform on the planet. This mission drives every aspect of what we do.

      The core of this mission is ensuring customer trust — trust in the Azure platform itself and trust in us as a partner in their success. Earning that trust requires two digital capabilities: security and resilience.

      A comprehensive approach to security fully addresses these concerns:

      An approach to risk management and resilience must focus on continuing operations in a world-class manner. For my mission that includes the following:

      Alexander: How should business models evolve to survive and thrive in an increasingly digital world?

      Edna: The global pandemic has accelerated the pace of the digital transformation journey that so many governments and enterprises were already on. In fact, that transformation became an immediate necessity. It also has uncovered the opportunity we have before us to rethink the efficiency and productivity of our business models.

       To thrive in the digital world, we must optimize to leverage human talent to meet the needs of customers. After all, digital capacity has a singular purpose: to serve people, not the other way around.

As we evolve our business models to thrive in the increasingly digital economy, we must consider two fundamentals. First, understand what can and should be automated. Second, undertake a core versus context analysis. Digitize using internal core competencies with your own capabilities and talent. Leverage third-party services and solutions (for example, XaaS¹) to optimize the implementation of your digital strategy and drive efficiency.

      Working through these fundamentals will allow you to begin to free your internal talent to address strategy, transformation, and the roadmap for the next generation of your business. To thrive in the digital world, we must optimize to leverage human talent to meet the needs of customers. After all, digital capacity has a single purpose: to serve people, not the other way around.

      Alexander: How can technology shift the roles and responsibilities of the workforce?

Edna: We need to remind ourselves that technology can often give us insight into performance, trends, and anomalies. That insight can empower us to make changes before the full negative impact of an anomaly takes place. Conversely, such insight can provide us with a view to a positive change that we may not have otherwise been able to appreciate without the “help” of technology.

      Imagine, for example, a sensor on a manufacturing line that provides real-time feedback. A digitally connected sensor can offer data that can be analyzed in a cloud-based IoT service, affording the manufacturer an opportunity to take action to adjust anomalies or capitalize upon an otherwise undetectable process improvement. Absent that assist from technology, our operational effectiveness may not be as swiftly optimized.

      This digital insight allows enterprises to achieve and maintain their critical commitment to customers — trust.

      Alexander: Which technology or digital capabilities are essential for a digital strategy?

      Edna: To answer that we must first appreciate that we have entered a platform economy. In fact, platforms are pervasive in industry and our personal lives, from connected factories leveraging a single platform for visibility to operations to our own individual use of on-demand personal transportation platforms.

      Given that reality, we must apply a layered approach to our digital strategies. There are two technologies that form the foundational layer of any digital strategy: cloud and mobile. These two are must-haves.

      Of course, no conversation about digital strategy would be complete without addressing the use of artificial intelligence and machine learning. These capabilities can only be deployed on a foundation of mobile data capture, data storage, and data sharing within a cloud platform.

      As a start, I suggest applying your digital strategy to your data storage needs. Then you can move on to address the variety of compute capacity needs for your business.

      Alexander: What ingredients are required to establish a digital culture?

Edna: As I list those ingredients, let me first note that I believe culture is about people, not technology, so my answers are offered with that perspective.

      The first ingredient is fostering open minds that are comfortable with technology.

      The second ingredient is appreciating the criticality