Tops Priorities for 21st Century CIOs
Today’s CIOs face a complicated landscape of emerging technologies, qualified employee shortages, and a rapidly changing job description.
To perform effectively as a CIO in today’s complex corporate landscape, it’s necessary to be highly adaptable in order to accommodate the demands of a constantly changing role. Today’s CIOs do far more than simply oversee their company’s IT departments and need a holistic understanding of the business that encompasses the overall goals of the business, including the needs of customers, employees, and stakeholders. The following are the top priorities faced by CIOs going into the 2020s.
State-of-the-art Technology
As advances in technology continue to develop at an astonishing rate, CIOs know the advantages of keeping current with state-of-the-art innovations. Emerging technologies in artificial intelligence, in particular, are happening extremely fast.
Investing in People
Today’s CIOs place great value on attracting and retaining the right people for their businesses. Part of this strategy involves the cultivation of the type of corporate culture designed to act as a natural attractant to the best and brightest talent in their given industries. However, they also know that hiring the right people is just one component of investing in people, and are developing onboarding processes and retention strategies with the goal of getting valued talent to stay with the company. Employers are also utilizing the “stay interview” strategy where they meet with valuable employees on a regular basis to determine how they can continue to create the kind of workplace environment in which that employee can thrive.
Today’s CIOs face a particular challenge when it comes to sourcing and retaining talented IT personnel. With IT technology changing so quickly, companies are finding it challenging to find applicants for IT positions that have up-to-the-minute skill sets. In a survey conducted by Robert Half International Inc., 80% of 2,800 U.S. employers report having difficulty with filling open IT positions in their businesses.
Automation Tools
Automation is also high on the list of priorities for today’s CIOs. Although it can’t match human creativity and ingenuity, artificial intelligence and automation have the potential to save businesses vast amounts of capital. Automation increases productivity and allows employees to concentrate on the bigger picture involved in their jobs because they won’t be bogged down with repetitive, boring tasks.
Cybersecurity
As high-profile hacks continue to make the news on a regular basis, CIOs continue to focus their attention on ways to circumvent cyber attacks and to mitigate the potential damage if they do occur. As virtually the entire global business community is now online in some form as well as its customers, almost everyone is vulnerable to cyberattacks, making it imperative to devise effective defense strategies to protect corporate infrastructure as well as individual employees and the consumer base. Storing customer data, in particular, is important to CIOs in light of consumer privacy regulations that are becoming increasingly common, such as the state of California’s Consumer Privacy Act and the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation.
CIOs will wear many hats as the 21st Century continues to move forward, with their roles expanding to include nontraditional aspects of the job. No doubt the job will continue to evolve as the century grows older.
