Technology leaders are responsible for driving change in their organisation’s IT infrastructure. Their priorities are business-focused to reflect the realities of digital business, and so, their strategic priorities differ to the CEO. Here is a summary of the top strategic CIO priorities for 2020:
Accelerate innovation
With innovation comes significant operational and business benefits. CIOs want to see a higher level of innovation across their IT departments in 2020, with unique profit-generating products and services that go beyond upgrades and vendor products. CIOs want to see their IT departments do more than maintain what they have.
Data analytics
Data analytics has become a significant priority for CIOs in recent times because it can enable a company to make faster, more informed business decisions that are backed up by data. CIOs who have not already invested in data analytics are likely to in 2020, as a way to optimise and improve operational efficiency and capability.
Digital disruption
CIOs have become increasingly aware that there are start-ups out there who innovate quickly and blur the lines between industries. Companies like Uber and Starling Bank are examples of companies who have achieved this. CIOs are now more inclined than ever to fundamentally change their business model or products and services to ensure what they do stays relevant and in demand in the face of digital disruption.
Hybrid infrastructure
CIOs who work for a company, organisation or enterprise with a public cloud or on-premise IT infrastructure are increasingly considering adopting hybrid infrastructure to increase control, speed, security, scalability and reduce operational costs.
Composability
CIOs looking to modernise their data infrastructure have composability high on their strategic priorities in 2020. Composable infrastructure reduces provisioning time from weeks to minutes and utilises automation to reduce human input. It also helps ensure the right resources are available during peak periods.
Take human error out of the security equation
Humans aren’t perfect and CIOs are responsible for the security of their applications, systems and IT. These two facts worry CIOs, who see the best solution as being taking human error out of the security equation altogether. This requires autonomous security, updates, patches and investment.
Invest in more talent
Automation is all well and good, but not all IT can be autonomous – and innovation is certainly not something that can be automated. CIOs are aware of this and want to invest in more talent, from data engineers to application architects.
Automate to cut costs
In line with composability, CIOs are aware of the benefits of automation. Implementing software-defined data management and automation reduces costs and frees up resources to enable more agile IT. Full automation is a way away for many organisations, but storage automation is at least a very achievable goal for most.
We hope you found this summary of the top strategic CIO priorities for 2020 useful. If you have any questions please do not hesitate to get in touch.
