The year 2021 and the pandemic have clearly highlighted the essential role that technology plays today. The latter will inevitably play an increasingly important role for both individuals and companies. CIOs are responsible for technology within their organization, and must constantly monitor the appearance of new tools and methods in the coming years. So here are 7 major challenges & priorities for CIOs in 2022.
1-Meet the challenge of teleworking:
Organizations evaluated their IT workforce and identified where investments are needed. Last year, the three largest expenses planned by organizations were related to employee training, retraining, and development. The goal is to ensure that employees have the appropriate knowledge and expertise.
The pandemic and widespread use of teleworking have led organizations to re-invest in their staff and workspaces, which means that CIOs need to identify ways to modernize IT services. The investments devoted to teleworking include purchasing software to facilitate remote work and collaboration (such as Slack and Notion).
As the graph below shows, investment in remote workers has moved to the top of the list of planned changes in IT personnel investments, up from sixth place last year. Investments for skills improvement and employee retraining has fallen slightly to second and third positions but are still among the top priorities.
Outsourcing is still in sixth position. However, it can be noted that more and more large technology companies are now planning to reduce their outsourcing-related investments.
2-Optimize interfaces and improve the user experience:
Digital transformation requires investing in innovative technologies and value streams. For employees to adopt transformation technologies, it is necessary to do everything possible to improve the user experience.
It is therefore essential that a company's investments improve customer interfaces and user experience. For example, setting up a CRM for an SME with a good user experience improves business productivity and data security - elements that are now key to IT security. The revival of ERP, which is reflected in more intuitive interfaces, mobile applications, data update in real time, and the arrival of predictive functions (for example, anticipation of delivery delays in the supply chain) is contributing to the transformation of internal applications of organizations.
In this way companies can gain a competitive advantage in a changing digital economy. The transformation of interfaces is very beneficial, but CIOs should always be cautious about the risk of developing vulnerabilities and increasing risk for the company.
The CIO must also keep abreast of the latest practices - for example, advances in lead generation via Facebook Ads to attract Internet users to a dedicated page.
3-The challenge of cybersecurity
Digital evolution can improve the user experience but can also lead to security issues in IT systems. Although many companies are making progress in cybersecurity, malicious actors are also becoming more sophisticated and threat vectors are increasing.
Cybercriminals often succeed because of under-protected computer systems. Phishing or ransomware today represent formidable threats. Preparing for these threats is a major issue for CIOs.
4-Make tools accessible from the cloud:
80% of organizations are turning to data solutions and cloud-based tools (e.g. Unify.com). This is reflected in the rise of cloud data warehouses (note the record IPO of Snowflake in 2020.)
CIOs will be at the center of this essential evolution to remain competitive and manage a sustainable IT infrastructure.
The most obvious reason for this evolution, that places the cloud as a leading player in 2022, is the death of the office. As the pandemic has led to the widespread use of telecommuting for company staff, it is essential to have a common and accessible infrastructure for employees everywhere. CIOs will need to optimize their investments in the cloud.
With an ever-growing number of tools, the challenge will be to bring these essential tools together into a seamless digital experience. This is where the employee experience intranet or platform comes in. A modern intranet overcomes the challenges of a disparate technological landscape by promoting adoption and use of best practices and tools.
In this way, investments made to assemble tools in the cloud will improve employee productivity.
On the topic of application transformation, for example, the Adecco Group in France was able to increase the adoption of Microsoft365 best practices tools within its organization by using its intranet as a launch pad for productivity applications.
5-Integrate operational teams in the use of data:
65% of CIOs gave their operational teams digital tools leveraging data, AI and security (e.g. idc.com). This will expand their productivity, adaptability and decision-making in the face of rapid change.
A greater focus on front-line workers is essential to obtain real-time information about customer behaviors, trends and external conditions. These employees ensure the day-to-day functioning of the enterprise, so it is normal to invest in them.
CIOs will focus their technology purchasing decisions so that operational teams have access to these digital tools, including the use of data. One of the most essential is the implementation of a mobile internal communication solution.
This can provide a direct communication route from the CEO to the employee “in the field.” It can also be connected to HR systems, which means that everyone can quickly pass on important updates and information to front-line employees.
6-Developing smart decision-making:
Organizations that never dreamed of digitizing their operations were forced to completely transform their approach. Automation has played a big role in this change, enabling companies to foster intelligent decision-making and optimize costs while ensuring uninterrupted operations.
Hyper-automation of processes appears to be one of the new responsibilities of CIOs. According to Gartner, "Hyper-automation is the idea that everything that can be automated in an organization should be."
With hyper-automation, CIOs can implement new technologies that enable business process automation, robotic processes and the implementation of artificial intelligence (AI) to support end-to-end automation and deliver a superior customer experience.
Smart decision-making also requires constant and accurate monitoring of brand activity on social networks, and the use of social listening tools such as Linkfluence or Meltwater is increasingly becoming a matter of course for many CIOs.
7-Developing a more adaptable AI:
Smarter, more responsible and scalable AI will lead to better learning algorithms and shorter time-to-value. Companies will start to demand more systems based on artificial intelligence, and they will have to find a way to evolve technologies, which so far has not been easy.
AI technologies must be able to operate with less data by using "small data" and adaptive machine learning techniques.
These AI-powered systems must also protect privacy, comply with national regulations, and eliminate bias risks in order to help create a more ethical AI.
You can find the original article (in French) here.
