“Master of Leading-edge Technology”

As technology continues to disrupt business models, reshape competition, and unleash new capabilities at velocious pace, the need for CIO’s to step-up and drive a more tech-forward business strategy at the C-suite table has never been greater. Experience working at Microsoft and many other large complex multi-nationals has shown Robert Ford, CIO of Northwest University, that when the technology agenda is predominantly business-led, the outcome tends to be add-on natural evolution of what was being done prior. Conversely, when the C-suite conveniently delegate innovation to be the primary domain of IT, the result can be too easily technology immoderation, with disconnected MVP’s looking for sponsorship to scale. “What I have seen make the difference, is when the CIO has the rank, mandate, and a louder voice of influence to ensure the technology point of view is leading and integral to the conversation at the C-Suite table,” says Robert. “A tech-forward business strategy drives innovation. A tech-following business strategy drives improvement. My advice - you want the former to be a market leader.”

"Northwest University is a regionally accredited, Christian institution awarding associate, bachelor’s, master’s, and doctoral degrees. Located in Kirkland, Washington, we have been preparing students to lead in their careers since 1934 and offer a variety of degree programs to meet the needs of an ever-changing society."

A priority for IT at Northwest University is to create the platform of innovation – be that innovation coming from technology, or new ways they wish to teach, learn, or operate as an academic institution. In order for them to be in a position to disrupt the norm, improve on what they have or creatively innovate, the university needed to have a secure, stable, and modern infrastructure platform upon which to build. They partnered with a world-class company to provide these services for Northwest University, and focused next on providing a university-wide common productivity and collaboration platform. “Deploying M365 across Northwest, will enable us to transition our analogue assets and dated processes into a modern cloud-based workstyle, leveraging Microsoft Teams to break through traditional organizational borders,” says Robert. “As CIO, it is my role to make sure I drive potential technology capability and innovation into the strategic planning for Northwest with the Senior Leadership Team / President as we discuss our future, as well as provide the modern IT platform required.”

“We are being vison-led, tech-forward and priority driven. Our President has outlined a very clear vision for Northwest University, and as CIO, I am ensuring that the strategies we employ to realize this vision are tech-forward, and by that I mean that a strong technology point of view is in the room and is heard when we decide what is strategic for Northwest,” explains Robert. “We then ruthlessly prioritize what makes it onto our agile backlog and execute accordingly. I ensure that everything and anything we do, can be connected (not loosely aligned) back to a clear strategy that supports the vision of Northwest University.” To help at Northwest, Robert flattened the IT organization to maximize execution horsepower and used a traditional application portfolio methodology to balance activities the team were working on.

Northwest University is continually looking to expand and optimize their curriculum to reflect the needs of their students and society, as well as look at how they can ensure students are “work-ready” upon graduation. To provide the best possible learning, teaching and campus experience, they are making some significant strategic investments in technology in the coming academic year, all part of their longer-term goal to be a modern digital higher-ed showcase campus. From a learning and teaching perspective, the university will move to a Microsoft A5/A3 license, providing them the full academic M365 suite, to bring alive better virtual and seamless collaboration between faculty and students. “We are experimenting in the area of self-serve data analytics, looking to take the numerous siloed data sources that reside within and outside the university, into a cloud based data lake platform (ADLS), where we can transform and curate data to provide staff and faculty greater real-time self-serve analysis,” adds Robert. “Northwest University has taken a very bold tech-forward stance in prioritizing investment for the future, to ensure we remain a top choice for students to learn and grow for generations to come.”IE