JANUARY 25, 2022
The global pandemic has forever altered many things — the way we work, live, shop, and connect with one another. It’s also permanently elevated the role of CIO to one of critical importance. At first, CIOs were relied upon for business continuity, remote work capabilities, and rapid digital transformation to meet customer needs and preserve the business.
As the disruption continued, CIOs kept rising to meet new challenges – from cybersecurity and data protection to organizational change and operational efficiencies. I wrote last year about how they could maintain their ‘superhero status’ in 2021, and by all accounts, their importance to the C-suite has not diminished. CIOs continue to deliver value through technology at the pace and scale their enterprises demand.
The need for continued agility is reflected in our first theme, as well as in Gartner’s 2022 CIO Agenda. According to Gartner, it’s necessary for CIOs to master business composability – or applying “modularity to any business asset so that leaders can quickly, easily and safely recompose them and create new value in response to disruption.”
The idea of value creation in response to disruption is reflected in three themes we think CIOs will be focused on in 2022:
Mastering the Art of Change and Adaptability
Constant change has influenced businesses at a greater scale than ever before, and CIOs are learning the art of adapting to these transitions with ease. In 2022, CIOs continue to build agile environments, modifying and evolving to whatever comes their way.
Accelerating High Growth and a Data-First Mindset
As the economy makes a comeback, enterprises across the globe have moved into high growth mode. Data & analytics remains a high priority for CIOs, as they look for new opportunities to expand business and reach their customers in new and unique ways.
Empowering Talent, Protecting the Enterprise
CIOs must balance two ongoing challenges - securing the enterprise and building a robust team of digital professionals. Thriving organizations hope to stabilize their cyber defenses, while growing the skills needed to advance the digital enterprise.
The pace of organizational change is unlikely to slow down anytime soon. CIOs’ strength as leaders lies in their ability to continue to quickly adjust and continue to meet the needs of their business.
I particularly like this sentiment from the Gartner CIO Agenda: “At successful organizations, the CIO will act as evangelist, engineer and orchestrator, as he or she views change as a tool.” Change has been a valuable tool for many CIOs in the past two years, enabling them to accelerate technology priorities and make major improvements to their capabilities during the pandemic.
We will continue to fine tune what CIOs are focused on into their specific, mission critical priorities for the year as we receive responses to our annual Leadership Perspective Survey. This feedback from the CIO community helps us to facilitate valuable discussions on your most important challenges at our community events.
by CIOs, for CIOs
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