Recognizing that organizations are forced to respond to a rapidly changing business landscape, we’ve provided information and strategy to re-examine CIO and CTO priorities. Over the last year-plus of tumult, the organizations that have adapted with agility are keeping afloat. Still, a lot of that agility has been reactive. Now is an excellent time for organizations — both surviving and thriving — to think about long-term, proactive strategies for success.
Our guide is intended to help CIOs and CTOs move forward with revitalized priorities. Consider this final article a quick reference guide.
Re-examining Priorities for CIOs & CTOs: Where is the Customer? – Be There!
As CIOs and CTOs re-examine priorities for 2021 and beyond, we suggest an important goal. That is to find out where your customers are and be there. It sounds simple, but it’s all about customer preferences and leveraging technology to meet those preferences.
A KPMG report says organizations need to know both their customers and their customers’ circumstances. The organizations that do best are those that adapt to customer needs on a deep level. There are a few ways to get to know your customers this well, which will improve your overall business and profitability.
Social listening is one very effective way to use technology to understand your customers better. Follow keywords, topics, and content relevant to your organization and analyze what you find. Enterprise content management is another method, allowing organizations to organize customer information efficiently.
Re-examining Priorities for CIOs & CTOs: Using Intelligent Decision-Making to Accelerate Automation
Hyper-automation is a tech trend for 2021 and beyond, using historic analysis of data and real-time data to make an AI take action. Accelerated automation takes a hard look at legacy programs and does everything possible to automate quickly. Gartner lists this approach as one that can drastically lower operational costs for organizations.
Re-examining Priorities for CIOs & CTOs: Will We Personalize and Customize Mobile Communications and Contactless Solutions?
Customers want contactless, personalized, and mobile customer service solutions. CIOs and CTOs need to invest in the technology required to understand the specifics of their customers’ needs and to implement these solutions. Whether it is a contactless payment method, voice search capability, increased AI integration, or something else, it can’t be done without tech.
Re-examining Priorities for CIOs & CTOs: In-person and/or Remote Operations – How to Balance?
Organizations are grappling with remote capacity and what it will look like post-COVID. Organizations are realizing the value of WFH options, yet many are not ready to adopt an entirely remote workforce. There are options balanced in-person and remote operations, with your technology and security selections influencing the efficiency and stability of the environment.
Re-examining Priorities for CIOs & CTOs: Personal Development – Constantly Improving and Iterating
Organizations need to lean into a growth mindset and embrace failure while constantly improving and iterating. CIOs and CTOs can be a good example of this within the corporate culture, adapting to change without the binary of success and failure. You can also measure how well a growth mindset serves your organization with performance metrics, measurement, and monitoring.
Re-examining Priorities for CIOs & CTOs: How to Realize Value in IT – Before Asking for More Budget
Like every other budget in tenuous economic times, IT budgets are being heavily scrutinized and every dollar must be well worth the spend. CIOs and CTOs need to show the rest of the organization how to realize the value in IT investments. While the value and impact of technology is easy for tech-oriented people to see, it requires some more translation to everyone else.
Re-examining Priorities for CIOs & CTOs: Choosing Technology That is Critical to Survival
This is another area where the ability to be proactive instead of reactive is important. Organizations that are reacting to uncertainty, both economic and otherwise, are more likely to fall behind in the long term.
In terms of technology, organizations should be investing in the technology that allows for survival, well in advance of actually needing it. As cybersecurity experts share, organizations need to invest in IT before the storm to adapt quickly. That includes cloud migration, cybersecurity education, threat solutions, digital sales tools, AI, self-service, and more.
Re-examining Priorities for CIOs & CTOs: How to “Productize” Your IT Solution (Rather Than Just Building a Project)
CIOs and CTOs can shift away from heavily project-based work and adopt the productization approach instead. This means packaging tech products with services that go along with them, such as maintenance services. The tech teams that work on projects are responsible for maintaining the result, creating a full-service approach that gives users everything they need.
Our technology will help you productize your IT solutions and make great progress in all these re-examined priorities for CIOs and CTOs. GroupLink everything HelpDesk, GroupLink Workflow Process & Incident Tracking, and GroupLink for SafestSchools all have excellent eWorkflow, WFH and ITSM capability. For more information, contact us using our online form, at 801-335-0700, or via email at info@grouplink.net.