Finding the Right Balance Between Autonomy and Scale
CIO, Monday, July 20th, 2026
CIOs should centralize where scale matters and decentralize for responsiveness, revisiting the split as maturity changes.
Paul Krebs, former CIO at Koch Industries, argues that operating models should be designed intentionally around business architecture rather than ideology.
Capabilities such as infrastructure and security benefit from centralization, while others may shift between models as organizational maturity evolves. The key distinction is understanding when standardization differs from centralization.
Krebs also recommends making the cost of complexity visible to stakeholders and revisiting operating model decisions regularly as circumstances change.