When it comes to what’s to come — based on where we just were — some priorities for CIOs sound like continuations of maturing works in progress, while others will require greater agility to wrestle with emerging tech still in its infancy.
With the merging of operational efficiency and embracing new technologies, today’s CIOs are under increasing pressure to do more with less and become both technologists and business leaders, says Sunny Azadeh, CIO at digital services company GlobalLogic.
“In a world underpinned by change, it remains constant that digital transformation must be a core organizational competency,” she says. “The most pressing responsibilities for CIOs in 2024 will include security, cost containment, and cultivating a data-first mindset.”
Here, we detail those and others that comprise eight of the top priorities for CIOs in 2024.
Building and deploying intelligent automation
CIOs will need to operate more efficiently by accelerating the benefits of automation. Henry Schein, a distributor of medical and dental supplies, is aiming to do just that as it elevates its use of automation.
“With a focus on automation for customer service and telesales functions, we’re looking at intelligent automation solutions that can help improve customer engagement and self-help capabilities,” says Chris Pendergast, the company’s SVP and CTO.
And Steven Palmese, CIO at Presidio, a digital services and solutions provider, says he’s further leveraging automation for synthetic transactions and performance monitoring within the company’s network and contact center environments.
“We’re using bot technology to automate back-office processing of invoices and order entry,” he says.
While overall IT spending may increase, every CIO needs to recognize the need to enhance IT productivity while aligning investments with the fiscal goals of the business, adds Praniti Lakhwara, CIO at cloud security company Zscaler.
“Among the various strategies at our disposal, automation stands out as a pivotal solution,” she says. “In 2024, my team and I will explore automation solutions that can streamline critical, time-consuming tasks, and contribute to a more efficient digital infrastructure.”
For CIOs, 2023 was the year of cautious experimentation for AI tools. But in 2024, CIOs will shift their focus toward responsible deployment, says Barry Shurkey, CIO at NTT Data, a digital business and IT consulting and services firm.
“While there remains a lot we don’t fully understand about AI, including its associated risks, there are many opportunities to take advantage of moving forward in business and life,” he says. “Falling behind in the AI adoption race can pose significant challenges for organizations.”
While AI as a topic is huge now in concept, CIOs will be pressured by boards, CEOs, and business leaders on how it will impact the business, says Sal DiFranco, managing partner of global advanced technology and CIO/CTO practices at talent advisory firm DHR Global.
“In many cases there’s a positive outlook on driving automation, making employees more productive, and enhancing supply chain and commercial capabilities utilizing AI,” he says. “CIOs will feel pressure to help develop strategies around it to stay ahead of competitors and enable their business.”
One of Lenovo’s priorities is examining and evaluating the benefits of new AI tools and determining where the value in AI lies for the wider business, says Art Hu, SVP, CIO, and chief technology and delivery officer, solutions and services group at Lenovo.
“One of the company values that we invest in is our ‘Lenovo powers Lenovo’ concept where we productize internal solutions that meet customers’ needs to access the solutions we develop and use internally,” he says. “AI holds significant promise and we’re already unveiling AI-powered tools we use to deliver better outcomes for ourselves and our customers.”
Investing in generative AI
More than half of CIOs will invest in generative AI over the next 12 to 18 months, according to the most recent PwC Pulse Survey.
“Generative AI investments will play a critical role in improving employee productivity and user experiences, whether that’s with GitHub Copilot for programming, OpenAI for content building, or a chatbot for customer support,” says Chetna Mahajan, chief digital and information officer at Amplitude, a digital analytics platform. “With investments in our employee user experience, we ultimately improve the experiences of our customers and partners.”
However, one of the questions CIOs have about this disruptive technology is how do they govern generative AI, says Daniel Saroff, group VP for consulting and research at IDC.
“Also, CIOs are asking what processes other people are using around determining proof of concepts, use cases, and ROI for generative AI,” he says. “They’re also asking how to get truth from fiction from what service providers and consultancies tell us they can or can’t do around generative AI.”
Shurkey says that CIOs need to ensure that generative AI tools are used safely and responsibly, and that they’re controlled by governance processes so adoption aligns with the organization’s unique goals and needs.
In 2024, generative AI will also be one of the main focus areas for James Fairweather, Pitney Bowes’ chief innovation officer, who heads up the company’s innovation strategy as it continues its digital transformation.
“I expect to see an explosion of what I am terming ‘context-initiated generative AI,’ which will extend prompt engineering to include the analysis of data in context,” he says. “We’ll see generative AI systems, coupled with other technologies, able to process on a larger range of inputs than prompts, including interpretation of time series data, image data, and other information in context. The systems will have the ability to internally trigger output based on anomalies spotted in continuous input streams.”
The demand for these types of capabilities will drive roadmaps as organizations seek to use generative AI in more use cases focused on addressing exceptions in processes, including client support, manufacturing, service execution, and operations, he says.
Aligning IT with business goals
In 2024, companies will continue to make sure technology actually drives a business result, says Ted Schadler, VP and principal analyst at Forrester Research. And Wayson Vannatta, CIO at Nintex, a provider of process management and automation software, will do exactly that.
“One item on my agenda will be to encourage and ensure that our IT team deeply understands and aligns with the business’ broader goals,” says Vannatta. “If CIOs can instill greater business acumen in their tech teams and break down the silos between business and tech functions, they can greatly broaden their scope and influence.”
As GlobalLogic’s Azadeh gets ready to determine her 2024 budget and digital transformation priorities, she’s also focusing on developing a strategy to serve to evolve business models, enable the business to operate more efficiently, and mitigate AI-related risks.
“These priorities must fundamentally tie back to the business’ priorities and goals,” she says. “This involves also knowing when to pull the plug on some projects and prioritizing areas to invest in more.”
Strengthening cybersecurity
Recent ransomware attacks have highlighted the ability of malicious actors to harness new attack vectors, even in heavily secured environments, says Doug Ross, VP and head of insights and data at Sogeti, part of Capgemini. Consequently, CIOs must keep cybersecurity and implementation of zero-trust principles as key priorities.
Snow Software’s CIO Al Pooley agrees.
“When looking toward 2024, cybersecurity remains my top priority given the wide range of threats that exist today,” he says. “It remains a challenging area as it’s not a technical initiative, but one that must expand across the whole business. The entire organization needs a strong security mindset, from our finance team to our developers, and IT plays a big role to make sure we reward the right behavior.”
Sundhar Rajan, CIO at Casepoint, a legal technology platform provider, says for 2024, he’s also focused on leveraging proven technology and strengthening the company’s first line of defense — its employees — to bolster its cybersecurity posture.
“Your employees in every department are your first line of defense,” he says. “So we’re doubling down our efforts to increase security awareness on our team. This will help us continue to build on our culture of continuous improvement, and the belief that everyone in the organization plays a role to encourage incident reporting practices and maintain peak security.”
Information security and risk management are always top priorities for Fleetcor Technologies’ CIO Scott DuFour as well, and 2024 will be no different.
“We’re more focused than ever on deploying the right processes, resources, and solutions to combat bad actors who are becoming more sophisticated by the day thanks in part to new technologies,” he says.
Getting serious about retiring technical debt
Technical debt remains a critical issue for enterprises, with almost 70% of global CIOs and technology leaders saying it has a “significant or high impact” on their ability to innovate, says Cory Gunderson, EVP, global solutions at consulting firm Protiviti.
Results from a Protiviti survey show that on average, almost a third of an organization’s IT budget is devoted to technical debt, which drains labor resources, adds complexity that makes new projects harder to deliver, and requires costly spending on extended vendor support, he says.
As such, CIOs must get serious about retiring technical debt, which is just what Rebecca Fox, group CIO at cybersecurity company NCC Group, aims to do.
“The last few years have seen a sprawl of technology introduced to fix tactical challenges: a global pandemic, rapid response to business changes, growth in the cloud, and exponential increases in data,” she says.
Few technology functions have been able to stand still long enough, and it’s hard to say no to business demands as business leaders will typically do them anyway, Fox adds.
“Resolving technical debt is important,” she says. “I’ve ensured we have clear processes to add new technology into the business, and I’ve reviewed existing technology and platforms to identify duplication and target legacy systems first, or environments where we knew we could improve the customer experience.”
Stepping up the data literacy game
Other concerns for CIOs heading into 2024, likely driven by generative AI, revolve around data, says Gartner’s Saroff.
“A lot of CIOs come to us asking how to get their data houses in order, and how to ensure the quality of their data and structure it effectively,” he says. “They want to know how to handle access to their data as it comes in faster.”
NCC Group’s Fox says CIOs are in a place where they have more data than they know what to do with, all sourced from multiple processes and systems.
“Having an up-to-date data strategy is critical to the success of any CIO,” she says. “We are the champions of the data in our businesses and we have to lead from the front on this.”
Jen Felch, chief digital officer and CIO at Dell Technologies, understands the importance of getting her data house in order. And as such, says she’ll continue to place unwavering focus on data as well as security in 2024.
“They are fundamental to our AI strategy, with data serving as the fuel that propels us forward,” she says. “And they’re essential to the work our teams are driving across the business.”
She also adds that data must be clean, accurate, and unbiased to maximize its potential.
“Our focus is on curating reusable data and AI insights,” she says. “You can’t predict every trend, but preparing our data sets to be ready when opportunities arise will only benefit us in the future.”
Assessing cloud computing strategy
Mark Angle, chief cloud operations officer at OneStream Software, says CIOs will place a strong emphasis on cloud migration by looking beyond the basics.
“For many organizations, cloud migration is no longer just a convenience but a critical necessity to ensure business viability,” he says. “To effectively address this priority, organizations must focus on developing and executing comprehensive strategies that encompass several key aspects, such as data classification, security, and resource optimization.”
Scot Baldry, CIO for corporate technology at JPMorgan Chase, says his company will continue to optimize its public cloud use.
“This will allow us to reap the benefits of strategically scaling our compute as our business needs change,” he says. “And we’ll remain committed to helping our team members develop the modern skills they need to optimize use of the public cloud.”
Heading into 2024, Oracle’s IT department will also continue to provide the highest levels of availability, support, security, and customer experience as possible, says Jae Evans, global CIO and EVP at Oracle.
“While we continue to make smart choices and invest in key initiatives to support the needs of the business, the cloud has provided much flexibility and savings,” Evans says. “And by using more efficient, cost-effective cloud infrastructure and applications, IT can invest those savings in areas that can help differentiate and grow the business.”
Presidio’s Palmese also says he’s aiming to take the company’s cloud strategy to the next level and optimize cloud costs so IT can reinvest resources in strategic priorities for growth, innovation, and improving internal and external customer experiences.
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