Survival in today’s corporate world sometimes means being able to embrace a process of reinvention. Both Adobe Inc. and Intuit Inc. reached similar crossroads several years ago when the two firms made significant changes in product delivery and customer approach.

This was highlighted at the Adobe Summit 2019 in Las Vegas this week when Cynthia Stoddard (pictured), senior vice president and chief information officer at Adobe, appeared on the conference stage with an Intuit executive.

“Our companies had similar paths in that we both used to be box software and now we’re operating out of cloud SaaS providers,” Stoddard explained. “When you sell a box, you don’t really know who your customer is. But when you sell through SaaS or an e-commerce site, you know a lot about your customer.”

Stoddard spoke with John Furrier (@furrier) and Jeff Frick (@JeffFrick), co-hosts of theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media’s mobile livestreaming studio, during the Adobe Summit in Las Vegas. They discussed how Adobe’s information technology department changed to reflect the new business model and ways to ensure that analytics tools provide a tangible return on investment (see the full interview with transcript here). (* Disclosure below.)

Cycle becomes real time

The process of corporate reinvention meant changes for Stoddard’s IT department as well. This included achieving consistency and definition for data throughout the organization and retooling IT operations to meet customer-centric demands.

“When you look at your IT infrastructure as well, it’s got to be geared for that experience,” Stoddard said. “What you used to do on a cycle now becomes real time. You need to have that ‘always-on’ experience for the customer.”

Like many IT organizations, Adobe’s group has embraced the use of artificial intelligence and machine learning. Despite much of the hype surrounding the technology, Stoddard has found ways to channel AI into a productive benefit for the business.

“There is hype for sure, but there is a lot of value when you apply it correctly,” Stoddard said. “If a problem occurs and it can fixed by a human, then it goes into a knowledge base and the next time around that problem occurs it can be fixed programmatically. Our return to service statistics have improved considerably.”

Watch the complete video interview below, and be sure to check out more of SiliconANGLE’s and theCUBE’s coverage of Adobe Summit 2019. (* Disclosure: TheCUBE is a paid media partner for Adobe Summit 2019. Neither Adobe Inc., the sponsor for theCUBE’s event coverage, nor other sponsors have editorial control over content on theCUBE or SiliconANGLE.)

Photo: SiliconANGLE