The world of technology is becoming increasingly intelligent, interconnected, and inducing a constant pressure on CIOs to uncap innovative trends that can help them outperform in their respective business domains. It goes without saying that rampant technological innovations and its wide-stretched acceptance by companies have left no corner untapped with respect to transformation. Be it Amazon Dash that has made shopping simple or Google Wallet that offers fast, easy and free way of spending money.

But, the real question arises here, how far these innovations have entrenched, and whether all companies are able to capitalize upon these new tech-driven innovations? For organizations in a quest to jump on the bandwagon, it is obligatory to have economical and effective methodologies in place, to stay relevant in the competitive business landscape.

This blog will highlight some of the top concerns of CIOs in the coming year:

A recent report by The Society for Information Management Systems (SIM) highlighted the key concerns that CIOs would face in the coming year. In this blog, we will try and deconstruct a few of these for our readers:

Alignment of IT with the Business

It is not a new concern for IT leaders. As the business priorities and directions to meet the set objectives are getting changed with the passage of time, it has become essential to upgrade your systems to address emerging industry needs. IT leaders are struggling to adjust and realign conventional systems with the overall business objectives.   

IT key executives need to fathom about what the business endeavors to achieve, what are its priorities and key business stake holders. In addition to this, they also need to focus upon how profit margins are created across the business units. Eventually, they need to assist business units plan about how operational, strategic and particularly pacing technologies can help them touch the finishing line.

Security and Privacy

Over and again, each passing year, security related issues arise before the leading CIOs. 68% CIOs cite security as the topmost concern. Here we go again and again. Who doesn’t want to secure its sensitive data against external sources? Not to mention that digitalization is influencing. Who doesn’t want to integrate privacy metrics to safeguard their digital applications? Obviously, every business requires stringent security, because transactions are increasingly turning digital; cash is disappearing; and global transaction process is pervasive.  The real problem of security is not with CIOs. In fact, it is allied with CFOs, and they pull their feet back when it comes to investment on transparent security and encryption standards.

Expeditious IT resource delivery and Time-to-Market

Needless to say that cloud computing delivery models including infrastructure (IaaS), software (SaaS), and support for new application development (PaaS) have not only significantly shirked the development and deployment lifecycle, but also helped in bringing operational costs down. However, the speed and efficiency of IT time-to-market are still top concerns for many IT technocrats.

Innovation: When you question any CEO about innovation, their response would always be “YES.” But, the reality is quite different. These CEOs do not want to step out of their traditional business practices, and remember they are required to say ‘yes’. However, the one who wants to lead with innovation factor without incorporating right strategies fail most often. So, why do we ask again and again, if innovation is important to them?  Of course, it is vital and always will be - to create productive business graph. They fail just because they don’t have the right tactic, money, time and resources to leverage upon.  

Business Productivity & Efficiency

Being a business pioneer, who does not envisage for enhanced productivity and efficiency to scale the growth graph upwards? Well, it needs a host of efforts and support of right professionals. But, how many CIOs do understand this business model properly and support it with the righteous technology? It’s surprising why they might list business productivity and efficiency as concerns.  

IT Value Proposition to the Business: It is directly proportional to the concern “Alignment of IT with business”. Ostensibly, the truth about successful alignment and effective IT value propositions is credibility that comes with thorough knowledge, proof, trust and strong communication skills- wrapped into the world of business.

IT Agility and Flexibility: Agility and flexibility come with cloud delivery & ingenious outsourcing. IT key executives recognize that they must stay flexible in order to keep up with overall company goals and priorities. CFOs are likely to agree with the statement– large CAPEX technology investments no longer make any sense to your business. OPEX expenditures are the bastion to bring agility and flexibility.

IT Cost reduction and controls: Here, cloud hosting hits again. CIOs should follow OPEX rule to optimize costs and provision more control on IT resources. Globalization of technology resources slashes down the technology costs; however, this holds a place in top CIOs concerns, as well as the aim that IT become -agile, swift, more-efficient and innovative.  Beyond IT cost reduction part, CIOs are concerned about business cost reduction and controls. They should always be ready to help their internal clients in order to broaden their cost brackets.

Business Agility and Flexibility: CIOs should be concerned about Business Agility and Flexibility- it is because when their business user’s pivot to new business processes and entire business models, they must be quick to render effective support to them- without stressing themselves how hard it is to change anything. In the end, you can’t lead your business with innovation while stuck in an inflexible environment.

The Bottom Line: CIOs need to stop blaming such concerns as these are part and parcel of overall business economy. Instead, they should strive to integrate ingenious technologies and tap on the evolving trends to unlock productivity and efficiency. On the top of it, CIOs should shift their perspective more towards business technology integration than on ‘alignment’. They shouldn’t whine about how typical is to define the ‘business value of IT, as this approach will act as a weapon to annihilate such concerns.