Today’s CIO issues

Gone are the days of the tech function working in a silo. Today, CIOs should actively coordinate and orchestrate their fellow tech leaders as well as their business peers to co-create a vision and tech strategy that aligns with, and furthers, the overall enterprise strategy.

Talent strategies should evolve in tandem with the tech landscape. What worked yesterday may not work today. Now is the time for CIOs to build an aggressive tech talent strategy and pipeline by creating an inclusive, mission-based culture focused on innovation and the developer experience.

The current excitement around gen AI creates a new strategic opportunity for CIOs to push for investments in building robust data and analytics capabilities that could not only further the impact of AI/gen AI, but also improve business outcomes and drive growth.

CIOs should reevaluate and modernize their core tech stack, including data centers, networks, applications, and processes to be able to unlock strategic business outcomes. Instead of taking a piecemeal approach, CIOs should evaluate what's delivering business value and build from there.

CIOs are increasingly adopting a modular, platform-centric technology approach as they seek to better serve customers and have a more flexible, seamless setup. This approach can reduce system complexity, increase scalability and allow organizations to incorporate new technologies more quickly.

As tech budgets continue to increase, CIOs should ensure they're measuring the business value of tech investments and articulating them in a way that everyone, including the board, understands. Communicating technology's impact shouldn't be an afterthought; it should be a primary focus and goal.

CIOs should consider creating an IT governance framework that aligns with the latest legal and compliance requirements while actively managing cyber threats. The priority may no longer be preventing cyber attacks, but rather putting the processes in place to ensure resiliency when they inevitably happen.

Partnerships can be an invaluable resource, bringing new expertise, talent, and innovation capabilities to the table. To maximize the impact of these partners, treat them like any other investment with measurable KPIs, accountability and established objectives.

Budgeting shouldn't be another annual task. Instead, organizations should take a more agile approach where they can reprioritize and reallocate funding based on new opportunities, like gen AI. CIOs should see themselves as portfolio managers who operate in the same manner as venture capitalists.

Tech can do more than cut costs. It can also drive growth. CIOs should consider developing innovation playbooks that outline how teams can scale an idea. Having repeatable processes in place puts an expectation on the entire organization to bring forward new ideas that can drive growth.