Over the past two years, CIOs have become the heroes of a surprise pandemic, driving digital transformation initiatives in a variety of fields.
In the Asia-Pacific region, 87% of CIOs have implemented new technologies, IT strategies and methodologies to adapt to the new routine, most of them aimed at improving customer service, reducing risk, increasing scale and enabling remote work. We have also seen technology initiatives such as data analytics / business, cloud enterprise applications, machine learning (ML) and artificial intelligence that stimulate investment in IT, which of course is backed by a significant shift from old local solutions to the cloud.
How CIOs develop
As the economy recovers from the pandemic, directors of information campaigns need to put in place and increase the innovation of the pandemic era.
Due to the fact that employee flexibility is becoming paramount in hybrid work environments, the CIO’s focus is now, more than ever, multidimensional; they need to not only prioritize security, conserve, and reduce risk, but also increase IT operations and improve performance by upgrading the infrastructure and landscape of the applications they manage.
Of course, CIOs are not immune to external factors. The pandemic has forced many to reconsider their career priorities in what is called the “Great Resignation”.
Analysis of Workday’s plans to lay off employees between October 2020 and October 2021 found that 25% of the world’s workforce exhibits an increased risk of extinction, with the technology sector hit hardest with a 43% increased risk of turnover. Comments related to flexible working have increased exponentially and are now at the core of employees ’expectations regarding future work.
Against this background, organizations need to rethink their approach to employee management, which means using technologies that enable a hybrid workforce while cultivating mutual trust in a remote work environment to focus on results rather than hours worked.
As all businesses become dependent on agility from improved digital processes, IT leaders are increasingly expected to help their companies make progress. The demand for digital innovations that provide value to the entire ecosystem, rather than the point solutions caused by the pandemic, has increased dramatically.
Implementing pandemic-era innovation
The commitment of CIOs to promoting digital innovation can pay off in tackling the uncertainty of the pandemic era. But moving forward, they now need to address issues caused by software used as discontinued measures in the process; for example, difficulties in consolidating heritage and new technologies that cause opacity of IT infrastructure or harmonization of different systems where there is no single source of truth. Bad data turns into bad AI / ML. This could undermine the CIO’s investment and ultimately hamper its ability to make the right decisions quickly in today’s fast-paced business landscape.
With so many moving parts in a hybrid work environment, it’s easy to see how a disgruntled, uninvolved workforce can become an operational challenge. A progressive CIO should also consider how the end-user experience can affect employees; fragmentary or frustrating end-user experiences can have a deadly effect on employee satisfaction, business efficiency and, in turn, productivity.
Scaling barriers
The CIO’s most valuable resource is not technology, but people. Recognizing this, much attention needs to be paid to empowering employees, who then help stimulate innovation from within. To this end, CIOs need future-oriented platforms that can scale along with business, where technology can be abstracted from application functionality and evolve as market demands change.
Improved automation and data-based strategies will provide more accurate and accurate data that will allow faster decision making, simplify business processes and more meaningful work for employees. One of the most powerful weapons in the CIO’s arsenal is a combination of data and complementary analytics that allows businesses to get valid information that drives innovation and predicts multiple plans and scenarios to choose the right one that fits the goal and quickly fails those who does not.
Finally, it all comes back to the importance of end-user travel and customer experience. By creating an organizational culture and foundation where key transformations are employees, CIOs can gain a deeper understanding of employee preferences and customer expectations to inform and improve productivity – great examples include the ability to have a quality mobile experience or empower employees to overcome challenges while work remotely.
Even as we come to life after a pandemic, it is more important than ever for IT leaders to use the right tools and strategies to make innovation and organizational agility a significant reality. Being able to talk directly about your employees ’priorities will help you achieve noticeable results: increased satisfaction, productivity, and retention. In turn, this creates an enabling environment for innovation and a smarter and more sustainable enterprise.