Thomas Zinniker: As a CIO, I Don’t Drive the Business, I Enable It

Lately, we have heard a lot about the evolution of the CIO role from IT leader to business leader, agent of change, and driver of new technologies. However, Thomas Zinniker, CIO at BKW, sees himself as an enabler of business. In this exclusive interview, Zinniker tells us about IT’s role as an organizational enabler, his thought process behind implementing the right technologies, emerging IT trends, and more.

Companies are under constant pressure to digitally transform their products and processes. As a CIO, how do you determine which digital tools and technologies bring value to your organization?

First of all, I would like to clarify something: BKW is not a tech company. The BKW Group is an international energy and infrastructure company that offers integrated solutions in the fields of energy, buildings, and infrastructure.

We distinguish ourselves in the market through services; technology is merely an important enabler.  First and foremost, we develop new services that meet our customers’ needs and define new ways of doing business with them. Then we consider which technology fits best.

Typically, we don’t go for the latest leading-edge technology, because that does not really help our customers. We focus more on proven technology. For which technologies are sufficient skills available? How reliable is the technology? Has it matured over time? That way, we cannot only count on it for the next 6 to 12 months but for years to come. Once we have developed a new business service, we will not have to keep replacing it.

Overall, we focus on technology which helps us to become more agile to allow fast integration of new channels and products. As a CIO, I would rather count on proven and reliable technology supporting our innovative business services. While experimenting with new products or customer interactions, we need to be on the safe side in terms of stability, reliability, and security. 

What are the key elements needed to build a successful IT strategy to drive business growth?

As a CIO, you need to understand what your business is doing, what drives your business, and which external factors are influencing it. Adapting to it means adapting modern ways to develop business services in a more agile way. An IT or business strategy doesn’t last for five to 10 years. The change cycles are much shorter. Therefore, being flexible and having the ability for quick changes is the most important skill. I’m not building an IT strategy based on the actual business strategy. I base my IT strategy on how the business strategy evolves because I do not know what will happen in five years.

That has been the biggest challenge for us in the past, and I think we were quite successful in mastering it. We were able to easily adapt to new business processes. For example, five or six years ago we introduced Office 365 and mobile working. There was constant pressure and questioning, “Why are you bringing in new tools? We will never need that.” When we had to send the workforce home due to the pandemic, everyone was amazed at how easily and trouble-free we could keep going. From an IT perspective, the beginning of the pandemic was a very relaxing time for me because we were prepared. That’s exactly what I’m continuously doing. I always look two or three years ahead of the business and try to anticipate what might come.

How has the CIO role evolved in the last two years? What are the common misconceptions about CIOs you hope to debunk?

No CIO role is the same. A few years ago, I was told that as a CIO, I have to drive the business, I have to change the business. Today I know, I’m an enabler for the business and that is completely different from being a driver. We started our cloud-first strategy in 2015, not because we wanted to be more tech or reduce costs. Our goal was to become more flexible. Many companies do not see IT as an enabler. Even though digitalization is on top of an executive’s agenda, the role of the CIO has not changed. If you want to be an enabler today, you would have had to start five years ago. Some things simply cannot be implemented in three months.

BKW strives to develop solutions to reduce CO2 emissions in the energy sector. From a CIO’s perspective, how do digitalization and technology lead to a sustainable future?

I think technology is absolutely key for a sustainable future, especially in automating and controlling energy consumption in a smart way. For example, centralized heating systems or air conditioning units that maintain certain temperatures regardless of occupancy are wasting energy, the smart way is to act on the effective need.

Technology is needed to make our infrastructure fit for the challenges that arise with the production and consumption of sustainable energy. In a smart building or environment, technology can do much more. Technology or digitalization is not a challenge, it’s actually the answer.

What are the top 3 emerging trends IT leaders should be aware of?

Trends are always coming and going. As an enabler, you don’t need to be on top of the trends. You can look at them and say, “Well, let’s see whether this trend will be still there in two or three years.”

Nevertheless, artificial intelligence is definitely an important trend at BKW because it is one of the key elements of a smart energy business. When it comes to AI the big question is: how do we adapt our skills and processes in order to have the right data at the right place? What roles and responsibilities can leverage the potential arising from AI? Thanks to public cloud, the technology is already there and improving every month. 

As BKW is an operator of critical infrastructure, the whole area of cybersecurity is an uphill battle. We have to continuously strengthen, monitor, and implement.  We are always up to date with the latest trends in cybersecurity and improve our infrastructure and platforms step by step. Although this is not an IT trend, I have to mention the disruption of the supply chain. We need to have different supply chain strategies in the future to ensure that we get the right technology in place, especially the hardware we need in critical infrastructure.

If you needed a spare part three years ago, it was delivered in two weeks. Today, you have to keep enough spare parts on hand for the next two or three years. Right now, we are in the process of restocking thousands of units for a big project. We ordered them last May – they are still not here.

What project or achievement are you most proud of in your time with BKW?

When I started at BKW six and a half years ago, we had around 3,500 employees. Now we have more than 11,000. The diversity of the company has also grown dramatically. In the beginning, it was a pure energy and utilities company. Today, we also offer infrastructure services, engineering services, building technology, and smart building services. 

 I am very proud to be working with my team to transform BKW’s IT organization in line with our decentralized approach.  As an energy provider, we had a completely centralized approach. Today, as an infrastructure company, our motto is: as decentralized as possible and as centralized as necessary. This means a complete paradigm shift, turning around our organization and its services.

Cost reduction is an important thing. Three years ago, every megawatt of electricity produced was a loss. Therefore, we had to dramatically reduce costs. With the help of IT, we reduced the cost by around 30% in the infrastructure area. However, increased flexibility and reliability made it much more secure. The public cloud project played a big part in this, helping us a lot to reduce costs and manage the transformation process.

*The answers have been edited for length and clarity.