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Intel IT Accelerating Our Future

Archie_Deskus
Employee
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As one of the world’s largest semiconductor chip makers, Intel’s vision is to be the performance leader that unleashes the potential of data. In this era of rapid change and distributed intelligence, we see artificial intelligence (AI), 5G network transformation and the intelligent, autonomous edge as the fastest growing opportunities for Intel and our customers. As we have transformed to position our company and our customers for growth, Intel’s Information Technology (IT) team has partnered with the business to drive innovative solutions with emerging technologies.

archie-2021.jpgWe are committed to a culture of constant innovation and business partnerships to accelerate value for our customers.


Adapting and Delivering in a Time of Challenges


Our digital transformation was well underway when the COVID-19 pandemic made computing power even more essential and caused us to expedite our plans. As an essential industry, Intel’s ability to meet its customers’ demands for more product depended on keeping employees safe and productive under extraordinary circumstances. We needed to enable our worldwide manufacturing operations to continue uninterrupted even as the world changed overnight.

Most of our 110,000-strong global workforce transitioned to working from home in a matter of days. This required us to enable remote capabilities to monitor and control our factory operations; install and troubleshoot manufacturing equipment; keep a complex global supply chain flowing in the face of burgeoning customer demand; and connect our extensive ecosystem of employees, customers and suppliers to communicate and collaborate to keep our business moving.

We had built a strong foundation prior to the pandemic and we worked together with our business partners to identify priorities and swiftly implement changes that would drive the best results for employees and Intel’s ecosystem. In a world of social distancing, restricted travel and working from home, we learned to adapt our culture and work styles to support an effective and motivated team. We continue to address these challenges while supporting Intel’s strategic transition for a world in which everything looks like a computer and enabling a significant expansion of the company’s capacity.

 

Innovation at the Heart of Change


2021 Intel IT APR


Companies that embrace innovative technologies and adopt new approaches are better positioned to develop new products, services and business models; create new market opportunities; and meet changing market demands. Multi-cloud, AI and machine learning, edge-to-cloud, 5G and advanced cybersecurity are the next wave of game-changers. These innovative technologies are opportunities to develop new products, change the way we go to market, meet changing market demands and deliver new value to our customers.

As Intel takes advantage of these disruptive technologies, our products become more intelligent and highly integrated, driving greater complexity and a higher volume of transformative programs. Intel IT sees this as an opportunity not only to help drive Intel’s product innovation but also fundamentally change the way we do business.  We are rapidly embracing new technologies, adopting differentiated hyperscale computing, and have doubled our high-performance computing (HPC) capacity to simulate new complex product architectures in our energy-efficient data centers.  Furthermore, the value proposition of AI is being realized across Intel. For example, we are using AI to automate and enhance our product validation capabilities, and to create more intelligent products that reduce power and improve both performance and battery life.

 

Focusing on the Experience


Our employees, customers and partners live in a world of consumer technology with intuitive, powerful and engaging experiences. We’re inspired by the power of giving people intelligent, usable tools that abstract away complexity.

The rapid expansion of technology, creating millions of smart connected devices, has generated an unprecedented amount of data with immense insights into customer behavior. Unleashing the potential of this data is central to providing the experiences customers want and need. For example, AI provides data insights that enable Intel’s sales force to better target customers with relevant and valuable solutions, as well as the ability to determine the right product performance and pricing structure for customers. We are also reorganizing and consolidating our data for greater availability and reuse, enabling us to get products and solutions into customers’ hands faster. These solutions help transform both our employees’ work and Intel’s relationships with customers.

 

Modernizing Business Continuity


Traditionally, business continuity plans assumed a subset of business operations may be impacted by limited disruptions, such as a natural disaster that impacts certain areas, loss of power at a site, or supply chain issues for a product line. Before 2020, planning for a risk that stretched across an entire global business was rare. But, while it unfolded over a few weeks, COVID-19 ultimately hit every segment of our business across all geographies and sites simultaneously. Traditional business continuity concepts were suddenly insufficient. The lessons learned from the pandemic will result in more mature capabilities and more resilience against future risks.

As the business environment changes, we must constantly reassess the risks. On the security front, Intel IT has been keeping Intel IP, company and employee data secure for decades. However, the explosion in the number and complexity of cybersecurity threats makes it imperative to move to a “zero-trust” model.  Today, with our extensive global footprint, partner ecosystem and solutions running in the hybrid cloud, we believe this model will best protect Intel’s most critical IP, data and assets in a more flexible and distributed future.

 

Purpose, Potential and the New Normal


A crisis can bring people together, enabling innovative thinking and change. The pandemic showed opportunities to improve operations, deepen collaboration across the company and accelerate change in ways that will help us better serve.  We’re still defining what the future of work will look like, but what we’ve learned will aid us as we move toward more flexible, personalized and immersive work environments that support different roles and work styles, and power new levels of collaboration.

Our digital transformation journey continues by accelerating product engineering cycle times and enabling the end-to-end integration and automation of our core business processes to strengthen our execution. Engaging our employees and putting them at the center of driving our digital transformation is our key to continued success.

Intel’s purpose is to create world-changing technology that enriches the lives of every person on Earth. That purpose continues to inspire us as we build on our achievements from the past year to accelerate Intel’s growth and in turn help our customers and partners grow.

You can find out more about our recent accomplishments and how we are moving forward by reading our “2020-2021 Intel IT Annual Performance Report.”

You can also keep up with our progress at www.intel.com/IT.

 

—Archie Deskus,
Senior Vice President and Chief Information Officer, Intel Corporation