Army working on strategy to prepare networks, workforce for digital transformation

Andrew Eversden

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WASHINGTON —The U.S. Army is developing an enterprise digital strategy as the service prepares its networks and workforce for multidomain operations, the service’s new chief information officer said Friday.

In his first public appearance Friday, Raj Iyer, the first civilian CIO of the Army, outlined his priorities for reforming the Army’s approach to IT after the service split its CIO/G-6 office into two positions to better align its IT positions as the service unifies its global enterprise and tactical networks. Iyer, who started his job in December, will work closely with Lt. Gen. John Morrison, the Army’s first deputy chief of staff for the G-6. Lt. Col. Mary Ricks, an Army spokesperson, said the service hasn’t confirmed a date to release the strategy.

The plan, Iyer said, will go beyond addressing IT infrastructure plans, outlining how the Army will prepare its workforce for the digital age by changing culture and fostering innovation. “It’s about how we leverage technologies, and how we’re going to ... leapfrog into the future with digital transformation,” he said. “But along with that, we’re going to need digital skills, talent management.”

While Iyer has a massive undertaking as the Army prepares for future war-fighting needs, one of his priorities is to control the service’s IT spending. The Army is continually over budget on IT, allotting about $14-15 billion, but spending $16-17 billion, said.

When Iyer started, he said the then-secretary of the Army instructed him to manage the service’s IT portfolio like a business. Iyer said that goal has two parts: controlling costs and increasing revenue, which for the Army would mean enabling missions with IT. To control costs, Iyer said, the service will have to divest from legacy systems and invest in time- and cost-saving technologies, such as automation. To enable missions, he said the CIO’s office must be “front and center” to Army modernization, working closely with Army Futures Command.

For the Army to succeed, the service must rewrite policies to makes it easier to acquire and sustain new technologies, such as cloud computing, that are integral to the multidomain fight, Iyer said.

In his first few weeks on the job, he’s been talking with four-star and three-star commanders across the Army about what challenges they want to solve using new technologies.

“If there is a commander out there in the field that wants to leverage technology to meet the mission outcomes, and there’s some policy that’s standing in the way, to me, that’s the first thing we’re going to go after,” Iyer said. “That just cannot be.”