CIO? This should be your current Agenda
The current IT agenda is centred on foundational areas like optimization, security, enterprise resiliency and ensuring that new digital initiatives are running on all cylinders and delivering stated business outcomes.
CIOs are increasingly seen as corporate changemakers, taking the lead on business and technology initiatives. They have a leadership role in defining and spearheading digital innovation, which is all about transforming the customer experience across channels. CIOs remain the go-to resource for navigating technology decisions; they are either categorized as strategic advisors who proactively identify business opportunities and make recommendations or are viewed as consultants, providing advice and guidance on technology selection.
CIO Rule Number 1
The first rule of being a CIO remains as ‘always talking to colleagues in business terms, so they understand how you’re delivering for them.’
CIO Priority 1
Many companies are coming off a two-year cycle of digitization, meaning that priority one is ensuring that digital investments are fully optimized and are delivering value.
CIO Priority 2
Increasing cybersecurity protections to minimize corporate exposure considering the seemingly constant ransomware attacks and high-profile data breaches. Security and risk management (especially to enable hybrid work) is the highest-ranked technology initiative currently commanding IT investment. Companies are adopting a defensive posture (i.e., identifying and thwarting attacks) and mapping out an offensive strategy to get systems back up and running in an expedited timeframe calling for business continuity plans, crisis, and disaster management.
Article on How to Avoid an IT Disaster
CIO Priority 3
A pivot back to foundational IT work with transformational activities such as modernizing infrastructure and applications, moving data centres to the cloud, aligning IT with business goals, and strengthening IT/business collaboration by cultivating the IT/business partnership.
Functional tasks like improving IT operations and systems performance and controlling costs.
In the Queue
A business strategy, driving business innovation, IT strategy and identifying opportunities for competitive differentiation.
CIO Challenge Number 1
Managing Shadow IT - solutions implemented by Business Units in isolation from IT. With the consumerism of IT and cloud computing, the meaning now includes personal technology that employees use at work or cloud services that meet the unique needs of a particular business division supported by a third-party service provider or in-house business group instead of by corporate IT. Shadow It also represents a huge security risk.
Link to Article Why you need to adopt Shadow IT
CIO Stress Factor Number 1
How to strike the right balance between business innovation and operational excellence. Bess Healy, CIO at Stamford, Conn.-based financial services company Synchrony, says it is a matter of having to do both “The fundamentals are key, but not at the expense of innovation. We can’t take our eye off the ball or lose an opportunity to seize on the acceleration we are driving every day with our digital-first experiences and modernization.”
CIO Stress Factor Number 2
After a wholesale pivot to remote operations in 2020, CIOS are turning their attention to preparing for the transition to hybrid work, including the upgrading of networks, reconfiguring conference rooms with new camera technologies, changing business processes to better support collaboration, and equipping employees with proper equipment setups, both at home and in office.
CIO Stress Factor Number 3
Transformation of existing business processes, including automation and integration, while improving customer experience as well as employee productivity.
In the End
In the end, it all boils down to a CIOs ability to think business first as well as getting his staff to think business first and technology second. Every CIO must cement partnerships that will keep IT relevant and in high demand despite the ups and downs of investment cycles and year-over-year shifts in technology focus. It remains one of the corporate world’s most demanding jobs, second only to CEOs but it’s also a wonderful challenge and done well, is great fun.