CIOs emerge stronger from the pandemic

Competing priorities and new challenges become the key to success for IT decision makers. This is the conclusion of technology intelligence solutions provider Snow Software in its study “IT Priorities 2022”. […]

89 percent of IT executives state that the role of IT has often been underestimated in the past, but with the COVID-19 pandemic it has been underestimated even more and is now seen as indispensable. 90 percent of respondents stated that they are now viewed as more trustworthy advisors to their own companies than ever before. As a result, efforts towards digital transformation and innovation in companies are on the rise: Nine out of ten IT decision makers report that the pace of digital transformation in their companies has increased significantly in the past year, and another 94 percent say innovation for them is their company priority. maximum.

Rapid digitization is a challenge

However, this simultaneous acceleration of digital transformation and innovation efforts can present a challenge. With increasing investments in various new technologies, IT leaders must continue to update, monitor and manage existing technologies within their organization. With the increased implementation of technologies, big innovations and more employees, complete transparency is becoming increasingly important for IT departments in order to maintain a high pace of innovation, increase return on investment and maintain control over the vast amount of technology. In this context, the use of technological intelligence – the ability to know and manage all technological resources – will be critical to success.

“I am sure we will look back to 2020 and 2021 as a time of fundamental change, but a time that helped give CIOs and IT leaders a greater role in shaping strategies and goals that drive future revenue growth and can drive innovation,” he said. . Alistair Pooley, Chief Information Officer at Snow. “Change will not slow down, so it is now important for IT and business leaders to have excellent visibility into their technology portfolio. This is the only way you can manage technologies effectively, optimize expenses and reduce risk in order to better weather global crises in the future and keep your company on the path of growth.” success “.

More results from the survey:

• Double burden through accelerated digital transformation and technology inventory management: 93 percent of IT decision makers said the pace of digital transformation in their companies had increased significantly by 2021. During this time, the focus shifted from operational continuity to managing growth initiatives and improving customer experience. 94 percent of CEOs said their companies have innovated when it comes to information technology and technology resources, but are now challenged to innovate while spending too much time responding to problems (71 percent).
• Hybrid forms of work continue to grow and are successfully implemented: The majority (90 percent) of IT executives believe that their company can now handle mixed forms of work efficiently. At the same time, they are concerned about not hiring enough IT staff and staying with the company in the long-term to handle the growing number of remote workers (78 percent).
• Companies increase their technology budgets: The largest growth over the past 12 months was seen in the areas of security and cloud.
• IT managers remain optimistic about the new challenges: Top priorities for the coming year include introducing new technologies to improve day-to-day operations (30 percent), reduce IT costs (28 percent), and improve customer service and satisfaction (28 percent). However, priorities sometimes compete with each other, so CIOs must take a modern approach to managing their technology infrastructure. Therefore, 93 percent of those surveyed believe that IT departments should invest in tools and technologies in order to extract added value from their data and turn it into usable information.
• Technology Gap in IT Investments: IT executives are driving digital transformation around the world and are planning to spend more resources on different investments. Not so in Germany: here IT managers often say that they want to spend less on different technologies in the coming year.