Part of the Bright Sparks series, written by Ian Leaver, Head of Automation
The pressure to adopt can be immense — from boards, from peers, from the market itself.
But what looks like progress can easily become fragility. When innovation runs ahead of itself (or rather the outcome it’s designed to achieve) the result isn’t modernisation; it’s instability. The real challenge for CIOs isn’t deciding what’s next — it’s working out what fits. The best innovation isn’t fast or flashy – it’s deliberate, grounded, and deeply aware of the systems and people already in play.
The pace of technology today makes restraint look like hesitation. When ambitions are running high it’s tempting to treat every new tool as a potential breakthrough. Artificial intelligence, low-code, automation — each seems capable of unlocking growth if only it could be deployed quickly enough.
The problem is that “new” can overshadow “necessary.” Many organisations jump into acquiring or deploying emerging tech without asking how it connects to their purpose or processes. The “What do I need?” as opposed to the “What looks shiny?”. The outcome is often duplication of systems that ALMOST work or automation of processes that aren’t fully functional and rather than create better results, the technical web has simply been made that much harder to unpick later.
Adoption needs context. Before introducing anything new, leaders must ask a simple question: what problem are we trying to solve, and for whom? Without that clarity, technology becomes theatre. The desire to look progressive replaces the discipline of actually progressing.
Here be Dragons – Mapping the Hidden Interactions
Every addition to a technology estate touches something else — data flows, security boundaries, reporting logic, even user habits. The more connected the organisation, the greater the risk that one enthusiastic deployment ripples through systems that weren’t designed to cope.
The real work of innovation begins long before a contract is signed. It means understanding what already exists — not just the infrastructure diagrams, but the lived reality of how people use and combine tools. A process map on paper rarely shows where workarounds and shortcuts live in practice.
Ignoring those interactions creates silent risk: duplicated data, conflicting logic, compliance exposure. Over time, these small misalignments add up to something bigger — a loss of confidence in the information that drives decisions.
Mapping your current landscape, in business process as well as technology terms, isn’t about slowing things down; it’s about removing blind spots. Once you know what connects to what, innovation becomes a matter of design, not accident.
The difference between progress and chaos often comes down to discipline. Piloting new technology sounds unglamorous, but it’s how the best organisations move forward safely. A pilot doesn’t just test capability; it reveals friction — the gaps in integration, the user behaviours you didn’t predict, the processes that are impacted and need adjustment, the policies that need tightening before scale.
Tinkering, by contrast, is ungoverned enthusiasm. It starts small but spreads fast, leaving no one quite sure what’s live, what’s in test, or who owns what. When the pressure mounts, governance can be framed as bureaucracy. In reality, it’s the scaffolding that keeps innovation upright.
Good governance doesn’t slow innovation — it channels it.
It creates a structure for experimentation that protects the core systems while encouraging creativity at the edge. The goal isn’t control for its own sake, but confidence: knowing that every pilot has a clear purpose, boundaries, and measures of success.
There’s a persistent belief that transformation must mean replacement — that to be future-ready, you have to start again. In practice, most organisations live in the middle ground between legacy and leapfrog. They evolve what works and rebuild what can’t keep up.
The trick is knowing which is which. Some systems are foundational; others are fossils. Understanding the difference requires patience, listening, and honest technical assessment. Replacing too soon creates unnecessary cost and risk; replacing too late traps innovation behind outdated constraints.
Building future confidence means accepting that modernisation is a continuum, not a reset. The most resilient estates blend old and new — stable systems integrated with emerging capabilities through careful design. They’re not clean, but they’re coherent.
Progress here isn’t about speed; it’s about readiness. The organisations that thrive are the ones that move when they’re ready, not when they’re pressured. They invest in understanding, integration, and people as much as in tools.
Emerging technologies will keep coming — faster, louder, and more persuasive. The CIO’s task isn’t to resist them, but to introduce them with caution and intent. That means holding two truths at once. Innovation without integration is a liability. Integration without innovation is stagnation. The art of leadership lies in managing the tension between the two — not chasing every horizon, but choosing the ones that strengthen what’s already built.
With a passion for optimising workflows and eliminating friction, Ian can help guide your next big efficiency win.
Spark the conversation with Ian
Emerging technology has an irresistible pull. Every CIO knows the feeling: a new platform promises efficiency, a new algorithm claims intelligence, a new vendor insists you’re falling behind. The pressure to adopt can be immense — from boards, from peers, from the market itself.
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It’s often said that Albert Einstein defined insanity as doing the same thing repeatedly and expecting a different result. Whether or not he said it, the point stands. Organisations talk endlessly about change, yet so often repeat the same mistakes.
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Progress shouldn’t feel this hard. Yet for many organisations, despite years of digital investment, transformation can feel like driving with the handbrake on. The ambition and tools are there but something unseen slows everything down.
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Head of Automation
Ian is responsible for end-to-end process automation for both internal and external business requirements, leading agile delivery from initial discovery to live automated operations.
There’s no escaping the squeeze. Demand is rising, budgets are flat, and no one’s in the mood for another “game-changing” announcement. People have heard so many promises of ‘once in a generation’ transformation that hype doesn’t hold much weight anymore.
There’s a moment every organization faces when it has to stop pretending the cracks aren’t there. The systems that don’t quite talk to each other. The processes everyone works around. The decisions that were right once — but no longer are.
In the context of limited investment, socio-economic disruption, and accelerated demands, the CIO mandate is clear: do more, deliver faster, spend less. Clear. But impossible.
AI has become the defining force in cybersecurity, not because it’s new, but because it’s everywhere. It’s now threaded through every layer of the threat landscape: attackers use it to accelerate their operations, while defenders rely on it to hold the line. The same technology powers both sides, and neither can afford to stop using it.
AI is arriving in universities at remarkable speed, but deciding how it should be used is proving far harder to match.
That was one of the clearest messages from the recent DIG25 roundtable hosted by Roc Technologies and the University of Reading – a conversation that surfaced not just what AI is doing in Higher Education, but what AI is demanding of it.
Progress shouldn’t feel this hard. Yet for many organisations, despite years of digital investment, transformation can feel like driving with the handbrake on. The ambition and tools are there but something unseen slows everything down.
It’s often said that Albert Einstein defined insanity as doing the same thing repeatedly and expecting a different result. Whether or not he said it, the point stands. Organisations talk endlessly about change, yet so often repeat the same mistakes.
Every 5th November, Britain remembers Guy Fawkes – the man caught red-handed beneath Parliament with 36 barrels of gunpowder. Now, Guy Fawkes wasn’t a ‘modern-day’ hacker, but, if you squint, the Gunpowder Plot is a story about infiltration, hidden threats, and the thin line between luck and disaster – some may argue not too dissimilar to the playbook of today’s cyber adversaries.
Not all change is progress.
Over the past 18 months, parts of the IT industry have been quietly rewriting the commercial rulebook. Several major vendors have shifted from perpetual licences to multi-year subscriptions, often accompanied by steep price rises and rigid terms.