The CIO has a new set of priorities and problems: Here’s what’s on their to-do list
The last few months has put CIOs and their teams under huge strain, as they made great efforts to keep businesses connected as staff shifted to home working. But tech chiefs will face a new series of demands on them in the next few months as they are asked to push forward with their digital transformation plans and introduce new technologies – even as they struggle with shrinking budgets and the constant battle to find the best qualified staff.
According to research by recruiter Harvey Nash and KPMG six out of ten (61%) CIOs report that IT leaders are more influential as a result of the crisis. The question now is whether CIOs will retain that new influence.
“CIOs have pulled off what most of their executive peers would have considered impossible just a few months ago. I think they’ve gained a lot of credibility. They proved that accelerating the digital transformation at scale wasn’t just possible but an imperative,” says Steve Bates, principal at KPMG.
The survey polled more than 4,200 digital leaders globally and found that companies spent the equivalent of around $15 billion extra per week on technology during the first three months of the crisis. CIOs spent the money on cloud computing and security to enable secure home working.
And that remote working is here to stay – 86% of IT leaders moved a significant part of their workforce to remote working during lockdown, and 43% expect more than half of their employees to work from home after the pandemic.
Culture represents another area of significant change. As a result of remote working, 70% of IT leaders report increased collaboration between the business and technology teams. IT has in the past been seen as business backwater. In the past six months, the tech team has been the business enabler.
Where do we go from here?
But next comes a new set of projects for the CIO and the IT team. For almost half (47%) of IT leaders, COVID-19 has permanently accelerated digital transformation and the adoption of emerging technology, such as artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning (ML), blockchain and automation. To be really influential in the longer term, CIOs will have to do far more and give the business the emerging tech it wants.
“The CIOs that hold on to their influence are going to recognise that they’ve got to continue to accelerate this adoption of differentiated technologies and capabilities and they’re going to move the needle on investments of cognitive, on zero-trust security, on hyper automation, on blockchain and advanced analytics,” says Bates.
