Technology is a core component for nearly every type of business and powers an enormous array of functions. Carousel understands the critical role these solutions play and we’re working to deliver more value to our customers by giving them access to deeper technology insight and expertise than ever before.

That’s why we’ve formed the Office of the CTO. We’re elevating our consultative role and putting additional action behind our drive to help our customers use technology to achieve the results that are most important to them.

The democratization of technology has transformed the industry. New platforms are more powerful and more affordable. The shift towards cloud and the subscription economy have changed the manner in which technology is consumed. But technology’s real potential doesn’t live in the software and hardware that users and IT groups see every day. Instead, the value comes from technology’s ability to meet business needs and address challenges. The Office of the CTO will support Carousel’s role as a trusted advisor, enabling us to remain in tune with our customers to ensure we’re delivering solutions that are properly mapped to their respective organizations’ strategic goals and requirements.

Our Office of the CTO isn’t just one person or a handful of C-level influencers. Instead, we’ve assembled a panel of contributors with key experience and expertise—people within the Carousel organization who have encountered and overcome a broad range of technology, operational, and process issues throughout their careers—to blend technology prowess with thought leadership. They will bring different perspectives and provide an array of touch-points to better connect with our customers. Their backgrounds will represent a host of industries and functional areas, making them well positioned to guide customers at every stage of maturity.

As part of our mission to drive success for each and every client we support, Carousel’s Office of the CTO is also launching a Customer Advisory Board. Members will represent various verticals and bring their own sets of experiences in the technology realm. There will be a core commonality from an infrastructure and technology perspective, obviously, but members’ expansive backgrounds will help uncover unique insight, enabling more in-depth exploration of emerging technology opportunities as well as discussions around industry-specific issues and challenges.

Carousel is a technology company, but one primary area of focus for our Office of the CTO will be awareness of how technologies are impacting—and being impacted by—the marketplace. We’ll develop forward-looking perspectives and guidance on emerging issues and technologies that affect our customers. Using that insight, we’ll help organizations understand the opportunities available through the deployment of new solutions, tools, features, and functionalities.

Knowing our advisory role isn’t limited to expertise in the expansion of technology’s use, we’ll also explore where existing technologies may be sun-setting or no longer maintaining pace with business needs. This may include obsolescence and end-of-life issues, but in addition it will encompass platforms that aren’t sufficiently supported by their development teams or are seriously falling behind standardized best practices for one reason or another. Our customers count on us to know which technologies are no longer relevant, useful, or delivering good value, and it’s something our partners in the Office of the CTO will closely monitor.

Guidance on regulatory compliance is another area where contributions from the entire Office of the CTO team will drive additional value for Carousel’s clientele. The Customer Advisory Board’s vast operational experience in particular will shed light on regulations affecting the business environment. Some mandates impact specific verticals, such as healthcare, retail or financial services, but companies must increasingly respond to compliance requirements that cast a much broader net. The California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA), while a state-level mandate, is just one example that’s proving to have far-reaching implications for businesses across the country. This is the type of issue where our Customer Advisory Board can deliver tangible benefits, using their technology leadership expertise to identify processes and tools that may help other customers.

Expanding our knowledge base through the Office of the CTO will help us engage more deeply with our customers as we listen to their challenges and requirements in our mission to develop customized solutions that focus on their business needs first. From our internal team members to participants in the Customer Advisory Board, we’re excited to announce the Office of the CTO and we look forward to bringing together smart, experienced people in pursuit of continuously expanding the knowledge and insight available to our clients.