From Monolithic to Modular: How Village Roadshow’s CIO Aligned Business and IT to Transform the Company

Welcome back to Orchestration Insights – where I share the highlights from my discussions with our guests on The New Automation Mindset podcast. If you're short on time, this is your go-to for actionable takeaways from each episode.

"Technology is not just a tool, but a transformative force that can unlock new opportunities, enable innovation, and connect with people in a way that truly matters.”

– Arul Arogyanathan

In today’s edition of Orchestration Insights, we’re kicking off the recaps of our fourth season of the “New Automation Mindset” podcast. It’s been incredibly rewarding to interview some of the world’s top CIOs and other IT leaders, and I hope that everyone listening and reading has gained just as much valuable knowledge as I have. 

There are many important takeaways across all of these discussions. Still, one thing is clear: enterprises can no longer afford to invest in expensive, multi-year overhauls of large, monolithic systems.

With tighter budgets, growing market pressures, and the push for more automation, orchestration, and AI, the focus must be on targeted IT projects that closely align with key company goals and produce quick results. 

To drive this change, CIOs must eliminate the barriers separating business and IT, according to Village Roadshow CIO Arul Arogyanathan . In this podcast episode, Arul makes the convincing case for why the two previously siloed functions should align their strategies and collaborate to deliver faster, cheaper, and more impactful initiatives. 

This is a great episode for any CIOs struggling to get their organizations to reimagine how they can connect with audiences in an increasingly digital world. 

Arul’s Career Journey 

Arul has an incredibly diverse background leading technology teams in industries like healthcare, energy, and even toll road management. But when he joined Village Roadshow in 2021 at the height of the COVID-19 outbreak, he was faced with a unique challenge: transform the Australian entertainment giant so it could thrive in a much different, post-pandemic world. 

Instead of immediately overhauling a fragmented, outdated technology ecosystem, Arul took the time to figure out the core business objectives that IT must support: do more with less, deliver projects faster and cheaper, and make the company more agile. He quickly realized the transactional relationship between IT and the business was a major roadblock. To break down the barriers between the two divisions, he built “fusion teams” that blended experts from both sides. 

He also consolidated overlapping systems and capabilities to cut costs and drive efficiency, as well as invested in fit-for-purpose tools that would enable more self-service capabilities. The result is a radically different Village Roadshow, one where IT is foundational to improving the guest and employee experience, enhancing customer loyalty, fueling growth and innovation, and supporting operational efficiency. 

Learnings from Arul

1. Don’t just rethink technology, rethink how the business operates: Evaluate workflows and organizational structure to bring IT and users together. Invest in technology to support these new fusion teams. 
2. Simplify, standardize, and rationalize: Eliminate IT redundancies and inefficiencies. Avoid overlapping capabilities and disconnected systems. Ensure technology is interoperable. 
3. Prioritize fit-for-purpose ecosystems: Evaluate technology on its ability to support larger business objectives. Invest in self-service systems to drive faster automation, cheaper integration, and closer collaboration. 
4. Think beyond the ERP: Identify targeted areas where digitization, innovation, automation, and self-service can help with core strategic goals. 
5. Pivot from monolithic: Build modules for common components like authentication, authorization, identity management, and payment. Invest in a centralized platform to make API integration easy.  

Over the last four seasons, Arul and many other guests have emphasized the importance of close collaboration between IT and the business. With speed and efficiency only getting more important, technologists must ensure they are serving users with the exact tools and capabilities they need to succeed. 

But collaboration means more than just aligning on goals. As Arul notes, CIOs must also provide self-service capabilities so users can begin to independently build their own solutions.

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There are so many more great conversations coming up in season 4. Subscribe to be notified of guests like Daimler Truck’s CIO, the Chief Architect & CEO at Co Valere Technology Consulting Group, and many more. 

Catch season 4 wherever you get your podcasts: Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, or on Workato.com/podcast.