The CIO agenda in 2023: Driving growth and transformation

The strain is on for CIOs in 2023, consultants say, as chief data officers are referred to as upon to drive development and transformation, not simply maintain the information middle buzzing and enterprise software program working. 

“It’s about ‘present me the cash,’” Janelle Hill, chief of analysis for Gartner’s CIO apply, instructed VentureBeat. After a decade of investing in digital, she defined, organizations wish to know the worth of their investments, whereas on the similar time accelerating digital initiatives equivalent to synthetic intelligence and hyperautomation — and guaranteeing safety and privateness throughout an increasing assault floor. 

Based on Gartner’s 2023 CIO and Know-how Govt Agenda, launched in October, CIOs count on IT budgets to extend 5.1% on common this 12 months — decrease than the projected 6.5% world inflation fee. That creates a triple squeeze — financial strain, scarce and costly expertise, and ongoing provide challenges — heightening the need and urgency to understand time to worth.

This particular difficulty from VentureBeat kicks off the brand new 12 months by tackling these points head-on. It contains deep dives into how CIOs can impress the board, and stakeholders, by getting probably the most worth from information analytics, cloud platforms and even the metaverse. We’ll additionally concentrate on hiring and retaining IT expertise to speed up digital initiatives whereas constructing manufacturers, and discover how AI and automation may help obtain sustainability, overcome biases, tackle provide chain challenges and implement safety by the tech stack. 

The CIO position has ‘by no means been extra strategic or near the enterprise’ 

“I bear in mind a time when IT was a fortress — the massive IT tank that did all of the expertise,” recalled Penelope Prett, chief data, information and analytics officer for Accenture. “What’s actually been fascinating to observe is how briskly the position has accelerated as an ombudsman and a catalytic change agent for expertise impacting enterprise efficiency.” 

These adjustments had been accelerated in the course of the COVID-19 pandemic, mentioned Fletcher Previn, SVP and CIO at Cisco. 

“The CIO and the entire IT workforce, to a big diploma, is within the enterprise of assembly unmet wants,” he mentioned. “The pandemic created a sudden, pressing, lengthy record of unmet wants — the CIO was actually on the middle of what wanted to be achieved for companies to climate that storm.” 

Consequently, he mentioned, the CIO position “has by no means been extra strategic or near the enterprise.” The CIO is now seen as extra of a workforce chief executing an organization’s transformation, reasonably than only a needed value to maintain the corporate’s infrastructure buzzing.

“It’s a false impression, or no less than a miscalculation, to think about the CIO as a type of conventional back-office position and this expense that you just want you didn’t have,” mentioned Previn. “An excellent CIO wants to know agile methods of working devops software program improvement, automation, person expertise and design, analytics and information, after which the enterprise goals. After which, at similar time, be capable to lead a company, drive a expertise technique and appeal to the most effective individuals.” 

For Juan Perez, CIO of Salesforce, a key factor is establishing “enterprise intimacy” in an effort to improve the CIO’s relevance and talent to ship enterprise worth to the C-suite and board, amongst different stakeholders. Enterprise intimacy allows the CIO and their workforce to drive outcomes and improve productiveness and effectivity at scale, as a result of it results in a larger understanding of enterprise wants, he defined. 

“CIOs have a dotted line to each enterprise chief — together with the CEO, CFO, CMO and others — every of whom is being requested to do extra with much less,” he identified. “By intently partnering with key enterprise leaders, CIOs may help prioritize amid price range constraints and ship the expertise wanted to extend effectivity, enhance outcomes and decrease prices.” 

At John Deere, the CIO position has developed to be a deep influencer and key enabler of a company’s technique, mentioned CIO Raj Kalathur. Kalathur detailed the corporate’s transition from manufacturing heavy equipment to making use of information, automation and autonomy to develop new services and create extra customized experiences for purchasers, sellers, suppliers and Deere staff. 

“For instance, we revealed a monetary ambition to attain a 20% working return on gross sales for all tools operations by 2030,” he mentioned. “In help of this ambition, John Deere is advancing our core manufacturing expertise stack to unlock vital financial worth throughout our operations. We’re positioned to leverage industry-leading applied sciences (5G connectivity, IoT platforms, digital twin/digital thread) to optimize labor, cut back property/stock and enhance high quality and buyer satisfaction.” 

The adaptable CIO

Jane Zhu, CIO of Veritas Applied sciences, leads a mixed group that features IT, facility, finance shared service, information analytics and program administration features. These obligations, she mentioned, give her a singular alternative to see how the enterprise features from finish to finish and apply that information to make the CIO position simpler.

“I see the position of the CIO as being adaptable and forward-thinking as digital transformation continues to be top-of-mind,” she defined. As many organizations attempt to always be extra environment friendly, extra versatile and subsequently extra worthwhile, she added, CIOs should lead the cost in serving to firms adapt to advances in expertise and the complexities that come together with them, particularly in regard to new cloud applied sciences equivalent to collaboration instruments to help an more and more distributed workforce.

That doesn’t imply that CIOs solely care about expertise and can’t be people-oriented leaders inside a company, Zhu emphasised. 

“Essentially the most profitable CIOs are going to have the ability to steadiness and collaborate with different members of the C-suite to drive significant outcomes for the complete group,” she mentioned. “This additionally implies that we have now a serious hand in guiding the IT tradition inside our organizations, which is particularly vital to foster given the rising impression of the cyberskills scarcity on staff inside IT.” 

Forrester Analysis VP and senior analysis director Matt Guarini lately predicted that 80% of firms will pivot their innovation efforts “from creativity to resilience.” That’s, fewer moonshot investments, and extra concentrate on short-term good points to make companies extra productive and adaptive in unsure occasions. Which means turning to applied sciences that ship instant worth, like AI, automation and machine studying. 

“I feel it’s clear that the trail to delivering extra from our backlog at a higher-quality stage, with decrease threat and fewer audit findings and so forth, is automation, AI and reusing issues that we’ve already constructed,” mentioned Cisco’s Previn. “Automating the complete construct, take a look at and deploy phases of what we do is a large focus, together with all of the controls.” 

Salesforce’s Perez added that companies will search for methods to make it simpler for workers to get their jobs achieved. This can embrace infusing synthetic intelligence and automation throughout each line of enterprise — to avoid wasting time, and to extend worker satisfaction by automating repetitive duties to assist each workforce concentrate on probably the most impactful work.

“Automation will more and more grow to be ubiquitous as a result of it reduces the work that people need to do on repetitive or monotonous duties, which implies extra time to supply a greater expertise for purchasers and decrease stress for inner groups,” he mentioned. “Actually, 79% of automation customers say these instruments gas productiveness.”

AI can even assist improve income by delivering deep insights about each particular person buyer based mostly on previous interactions, he defined.  

“For instance, monetary options firms can use Salesforce’s Einstein AI expertise to extend gross sales win charges by merely offering its gross sales reps with AI-powered insights in actual time, or use AI to extend the accuracy of a money receivables forecast, or allow customer support groups to scale by robotically delivering AI-based product or help suggestions,” he mentioned. 

Cybersecurity and the CIO

Cisco’s Previn recalled that when the pandemic hit, the preliminary focus was on having sufficient VPN capability and working remotely. However the focus rapidly shifted to safety. 

“What do we have to do to shore up our safety and remodel our community?” he mentioned. “The main target grew to become: Clearly that is going to be an everlasting means of working — what are the long run penalties of this?” 

That angle is mirrored in a Gartner report that discovered that two-thirds of respondents mentioned that cyber- and data safety can be a high space of elevated funding for 2023. As firms look to handle the enterprise threat posed by escalating threats, Gartner forecasts that worldwide data safety and risk-management spending by finish customers will attain $188.3 billion in 2023, up 11.3% from 2022. Gartner estimated that spending on safety would develop 7.2% in 2022 in contrast with 2021.

Total, CIOs should foster a tradition of belief throughout their organizations to boost worker and buyer experiences by making safety seamless and frictionless throughout individuals, processes, technique and platforms, mentioned Milind Wagle, CIO at Equinix. “A radical safety framework ensures that innovation and daring methods are grounded with the suitable risk-appetite.” 

The race for tech expertise

Based on the Gartner report, many CIOs proceed to wrestle to rent and retain IT expertise as they purpose to speed up digital initiatives. Nonetheless, the survey recognized quite a few untapped sources of expertise expertise. For instance, solely 12% of enterprises use college students (by internships and relationships with faculties) to assist develop technological capabilities and solely 23% use gig employees.

“The enterprise is simply so extremely depending on expertise, and all people’s struggling to get expertise expertise — they’ve misplaced expertise by the Nice Resignation,” mentioned Gartner’s Hill. “Talent areas which might be highly regarded, like cybersecurity, AI, any type of superior analytics, even cloud migration — they only can’t discover sufficient individuals to try this.” 

There could also be a possibility to select up some expertise from the Huge Tech layoffs, she mentioned, however added that certainly one of Gartner’s largest messages to CIOs is to cease utilizing the identical typical methods everybody else is utilizing to draw expertise. 

For instance, “Break the boundaries that your organization artificially imposes that can restrict your expertise, like one particular person, one job, one supervisor,” she mentioned. “If I’m a knowledge scientist working for the CMO and I’ve a sluggish interval, why can’t I work someplace else and use my expertise elsewhere?”  

Right here’s the conclusion: Greatest alternatives for the CIO

Total, the CIO has an incredible alternative, mentioned Equinix’s Wagle, who defined that the CIO position comes with “a unprecedented vantage level of visibility into each single facet of a complete group’s operations.”

CIOs may help break down silos, he mentioned, as a result of they’ll perceive what’s going on in all divisions of the enterprise. “We will establish the place expertise may help improve productiveness or herald efficiencies to drive the corporate’s general success.” 

Immediately’s CIO, he emphasised, ought to “declare their rightful place” within the management. “Undertake a strategic accomplice and in-service mentality,” he mentioned, “to make each different C-suite chief profitable.” 

The chance proper now, added Accenture’s Prett, is what she calls probably the most “open-minded time within the historical past of the world” in relation to expertise. 

“Individuals who had beforehand rigid stances about what they considered expertise or its use, that they had all these paradigms damaged in the course of the pandemic,” she mentioned. “They’re open to listening to tales that they may not have contemplated earlier than, so the chance is to begin speaking.” 

It’s a second in time, added Gartner’s Hill, the place a CIO can actually exhibit their enterprise govt management competency. 

“In 2020, in the beginning of COVID, there was a must go [to] distant working virtually in a single day,” she mentioned. “And boy did the CIO step up; they gained great credibility.” 

However now it’s one other second, she added, when CIOs must ship and exhibit how expertise may help the enterprise thrive and develop. 

“Now’s the time to essentially deliver it ahead in a enterprise context,” she mentioned. “That’s the most important alternative.”