The decision within organizations to implement enterprise information technology solutions often resides with the chief information officer.

But beyond helping pick IT solutions and tech partnerships, these C-level executives are increasingly crucial to companies’ digital transformation efforts.

“CIOs are best positioned because they connect the dots across an organization,” said Rashmi Kumar (pictured), senior vice president and CIO of Hewlett Packard Enterprise Co. “In my organization at HPE, we embarked upon this large transformation where we were consolidating 10 different ERPs, multiple master data systems into one.”

Kumar spoke with theCUBE industry analysts Dave Vellante and John Furrier at HPE Discover, during an exclusive broadcast on theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media’s livestreaming studio. They discussed the lessons learned from the digital transformation at HPE as it transitioned to the as-a-service delivery model. (* Disclosure below.)

Adapting to the times

Accelerated by the pandemic, HPE’s latest digital transformation push had the end goal of achieving a complete delivery model change. Executing on that, the company is now an edge-to-cloud platform-as-a-service company, according to Kumar.

Another symbol of the times is efficiency and sustainability. Companies are trying to cut down on all kinds of resource wastage, not just within financial or personnel aspects.

“If you can take your traditional workload and cloudify it, which runs on an HPE GreenLake-type platform, it’s currently 30% more energy efficient than the traditional ways of handling the workload and the infrastructure,” Kumar said.

Beyond infrastructure decisions, CIOs have become the custodians of data, with the responsibility of making it more accessible and innovative, as well as using it to fine-tune business processes, according to Kumar.

“So with the data that I’m collecting, how do I enable my business leader to be able to drive business outcome through the use of the data?” she explained. “That’s extremely important. And at HPE we have achieved it.”

Here’s the complete video interview, part of SiliconANGLE’s and theCUBE’s coverage of the HPE Discover event:

(* Disclosure: TheCUBE is a paid media partner for HPE Discover. Neither HPE, the sponsor of theCUBE’s event coverage, nor other sponsors have editorial control over content on theCUBE or SiliconANGLE.)

Photo: SiliconANGLE