According to an annual survey conducted for 2022 by CIO.com, the top priority for CIOs is upgrading IT and data security to reduce corporate risk; next up is leading digital transformation initiatives, followed by strengthening business-IT collaboration. The number 4 priority is new to the list, and chosen by 27% of respondents: improve the customer experience. Improving the employee experience came in at number 6, up from number 10 in 2021. The world of experience and experience management is now firmly on the radar of CIOs. What we should realize is that these transformation, collaboration, and experience initiatives are connected in many ways.

According to the Institute for Digital Transformation, a true transformation consists of "the integration of digital technologies into a business that reorients it around the customer experience, business value, and constant change." There is ample evidence that the employee experience has a demonstrable effect on customer experience. If we look deeper, we can see that internal and external collaboration, facilitated by digital technologies, provides the basis for the kind of operational agility required to co-create business value. IT, whether considered as a department or as a capability, is integral to these initiatives, and the support organization is a key touchpoint for the measurement and improvement of experiences. This interactive session will seek input from attendees about how their organizations are addressing the need for improvement and suggest some new ways of thinking about the connection of their work to the organization's initiatives.