The CIO role has changed drastically in recent years to keep pace with the rate of Digital Transformation. Ryan Worobel, Chief Information Officer at LogicMonitor, discusses the catalyst for this progression and the part CIOs will play in the self-healing enterprise.
The tech industry has faced incredible volatility over the past six months, with a storm of economic uncertainty causing delayed and cancelled contracts across the sector. In fact, it was reported that UK technology and telecoms companies issued 16 profit warnings in Q1 alone, the highest figure since the start of the pandemic.
As the tech sector continues to evolve, so too does the role of the Chief Information Officer (CIO). Just 10 years ago, the CIO was more of a support function role, working in the background alongside the rest of the C-suite. Now, the CIO’s role is much more strategic. The modern CIO makes high-value contributions that are often inseparable from their firm’s wider business strategies. So, what has spurred this shift and what’s next for the CIO?
The changing role of the CIO
Historically pigeonholed as ‘tech bods’, the CIO’s role was to oversee the enterprise’s information highway. Fast forward a few years and it was the CIO’s responsibility to implement and oversee Digital Transformation initiatives. Today, technology underpins almost every organisation and the CIO plays a critical part in deciding which products and services are best suited to driving success for their business.
Now, it’s not enough to have a deep understanding of enterprise technology – CIOs need to be able to make a call on when budget should be allocated to projects and when it shouldn’t. CIOs are no longer looking inward; they need to have a holistic understanding of the organisation.
This shift in the CIO’s role and responsibilities is in direct response to the rapid acceleration of technological change. A McKinsey report published in 2020 detailed how Digital Transformation leapfrogged several years of progress in a matter of months, pushing companies over the technology tipping point and transforming business forever.
For CIOs who had long fought to accelerate the momentum of Digital Transformation within their organisations, the COVID-19 pandemic presented an extraordinary window of opportunity. While the window initially opened due to necessity, it is, in many ways, yet to close. For their organisation to stay relevant, CIOs must take Digital Transformation to the next level, which for some, means building new, digital businesses.
Communicating ROI
In this landscape of rapid digital disruption, technology has become more critical than ever before. While the C-suite of almost all organisations now recognises the importance of digitisation and are prepared to invest in the necessary technology to transform their organisation, they expect to see a return on their investment (ROI). Demonstrating ROI is key to securing the necessary budget for the right tech, especially during times of economic uncertainty, where spend is under scrutiny. CFOs want to be assured that a new product or service will not only help to streamline internal processes or improve customer experience, but that it will boost the organisation’s bottom line, too.
Cybersecurity remains a priority for organisations across industries and a good example of how CIOs can demonstrate how tech investment can minimise risk and enable innovation. Ultimately, the ROI on cybersecurity is all about cost avoidance; it’s about maintaining reputation and minimising payout.
Moving towards a self-healing enterprise
Gartner identified the ‘Digital Immune System’ as one of the Top Strategic Trends for 2023 for organisations to optimise their operations. The report found that the majority (76%) of teams responsible for digital products are now also responsible for revenue generation. CIOs are among those looking for new practices and approaches that their team can adopt to deliver better business value, mitigate risk and increase customer satisfaction, and a digital immune system can provide such a roadmap.
Digital immunity brings together data-driven insight into operations, automated incident resolution and software engineering within IT operations and security in the application supply chain to increase the resilience and stability of systems. By 2025, Gartner predicts that organisations that opt to invest in digital immunity will reduce system downtime by up to 80%, which will translate directly to higher revenue.
The next step for CIOs beyond building digital immunity is to make the move towards a self-healing enterprise; one that is not only resilient but can identify and address issues before they come to fruition. To achieve this, CIOs need to prioritise technologies such as AI and next-gen hybrid monitoring. AI will have a huge impact on IT infrastructure – we’re only just scratching the surface of what this technology can do.
Harnessing the power of AIOps
AIOps (or AI for IT operations) platforms apply Machine Learning (ML) and data science to help solve IT operations problems and increase proficiency. AIOps combines Big Data and ML functionality to enhance all primary IT operations functions, including identifying, troubleshooting and resolving availability and performance issues. The real power of AIOps lies in the ability to consume and analyse the ever-increasing volume of data generated by IT and present it in a practical, actionable way.
CIOs need to invest in an intelligent monitoring platform that can cut through the noise to quickly surface information that minimises downtime and maximises performance. By introducing AIOps capabilities, monitoring platforms can provide the intelligence needed to help IT operations succeed, even in today’s increasingly complex environments.
It’s a time of change for the tech industry and CIOs will remain pivotal as organisations navigate this change and continue to drive progress. The role of the CIO already has and will continue to expand beyond tech to influence broader business decisions. While we can’t predict what’s around the corner, one thing is for certain; those that are unable to keep pace will struggle to remain relevant.
