Ecosystems Make or Break Technology Adoption: Insights from CIOCAN Peer Forum
By Jennifer Kervin | Published August 30, 2025 | Digital Journal
At the recent CIO Association of Canada’s (CIOCAN) Peer Forum held in Ottawa, Michael Lewis, Chief Technology Officer (CTO) at Management Controls, delivered an insightful and candid talk on the critical role ecosystems play in technology adoption. Drawing from nearly two decades of experience developing software solutions for industrial giants and their extensive contractor networks, Lewis highlighted how the interplay between different user groups can determine whether technology thrives or fails.
Lessons from Experience: When Nine Months of Work Leads to a Hard Pivot
Opening his presentation with an uncommon admission among technology leaders, Lewis confessed, “We spent nine months trying to make the right decision, and I got it wrong.” This costly mistake involved a prolonged evaluation of a reporting tool that ultimately lost out to Microsoft Power BI, after users made it clear the in-house system was inferior.
Reflecting on the experience, Lewis shared how turning back was difficult but necessary. “We’re going to live with this solution for a really long time,” he said. “Unless I come in and tell you and we switch, then we’re going to be living with this pain for years.” His transparency underscored a vital lesson for CIOs: sunk costs should never justify continuing with inadequate platforms.
The Power of Rigorous Checkpoints and Structured Feedback
Lewis emphasized that adoption hinges not just on product features but on whether all stakeholders—owners, vendors, and front-line users—find real value in the technology. To navigate complex ecosystems involving multiple interdependent groups, his teams rely heavily on rigorous checkpoints and ongoing feedback loops.
One example involved a mobile timesheet tool that initially passed internal expert reviews but failed completely when trialed by customers working in remote environments. Quarterly advisory boards composed of diverse representatives acted as vital gatekeepers, surfacing friction that could have led to market failure had it gone unchecked.
“The product management team is refactoring ideas continuously, but without those checkpoints, we’d waste resources on solutions that aren’t market viable,” Lewis said. He pointed out that nearly 40% of employees came from customer roles, providing valuable internal insight but reinforcing the need for external validation to avoid blind spots.
How AI Finds Its Place in Ecosystem-Focused Solutions
Lewis also shared innovations shaped by ecosystem considerations, particularly around the strategic use of generative AI. His team developed a multilingual chatbot designed to support vendors with real-time answers and enable contract approvers to query terms instantly—critical in environments where procurement documents frequently remained inaccessible in physical files.
Initially skeptical about jumping on the chatbot trend, Lewis grew convinced as the project directly addressed persistent business challenges, including high contractor turnover and limited knowledge transfer. The AI tool has since earned a prestigious CIO 100 award and demonstrated how artificial intelligence delivers value when linked to specific problems rather than novelty.
Rethinking Contracting with AI-Driven Transparency
Another significant breakthrough came from applying AI to scrutinize traditional lump-sum contracts. Lewis recounted a $600,000 contract tied to an estimated 10,000 hours of work, only to discover through data that just 4,900 hours were actually logged—effectively doubling the hourly cost. Procurement teams lacked leverage to challenge these figures until AI was used to align contract language, workforce data, and market benchmarks.
This transparency empowered both owners and vendors: owners could negotiate fairer rates, while vendors could demonstrate compliance with labor regulations and crew requirements. “Both sides left the table better informed,” Lewis noted.
Leadership Lessons for the Ecosystem Era
The overarching message from Lewis’s talk was clear: ecosystems magnify both risk and reward, making multidisciplinary buy-in imperative for success. CIOs must cultivate processes that spotlight emerging pain points early, embrace the courage to admit when a strategy fails, and ensure new technologies genuinely solve real-world problems.
“When you have an ecosystem-type product involving multiple user communities, these considerations become even more critical,” Lewis explained. “Disciplined governance is protection, not bureaucracy.”
He concluded that though checkpoints, previews, and the willingness to reverse course may seem to slow momentum, they safeguard against wasted effort and preserve stakeholder trust.
Why Ecosystem Thinking Matters
Ecosystems create a narrow margin for error: a feature that benefits one user group but hobbles another can cause systemic breakdowns. Leaders who adopt humility, prioritizing evidence over ego, spare their organizations long-term frustration and build credibility by demonstrating responsiveness to real feedback.
Lewis encapsulated this ethos succinctly: “Admitting a mistake is cheaper than forcing adoption of the wrong tool.” The practical guardrails of early validation and open communication, though sometimes perceived as onerous, are essential survival mechanisms in the complex, interconnected world of technology ecosystems.
Digital Journal is the national media partner for the CIO Association of Canada.
About the Author: Jennifer Kervin is a staff writer and editor at Digital Journal based in Toronto.
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