CIOs have a lot of priorities in 2022, chief among them being an urgency to build, develop and maintain a flexible, agile, and modern cloud infrastructure. This is to ensure the business remains competitive and adaptable and is in a position to respond to consumer needs and market changes via powerful technology stacks.
A lot of this stems from the need to digitize two things: firstly, outdated, or legacy technology within the business that is no longer fit for purpose and secondly, possibly the entire external customer experience. This is a lot to manage and a lot of responsibility for one individual, the CIO will be relying on internal stakeholders, industry experts and a leadership team for support.
In this article we will look at some of the reasons why a modern technology cloud computing or hybrid cloud infrastructure is needed today.
Meeting customer expectations
For starters, we live in a digital world and a digital economy where customer expectations and opinions have a significant impact on bottom line revenue, this is indisputable. So, there is a need to meet these customer expectations and ensure they remain satisfied and loyal. Customer acquisition is hugely important but so is maintaining a customer base with a strong retention policy.
Customers have a lot of choice these days, and in a digital world, it is not very difficult to switch allegiance and loyalty to another digital offering. Customers can be fickle, they talk a lot and interact with each other via online forums and social media, the voice of the customer has never been more powerful or influential.
Their expectations in the digital world stem largely from their experiences in their personal lives using digital technology. It is an on-demand world where they require instant gratification and access to information, products, or services. This means there is an inbuilt demand for original, creative, and exciting interfaces, apps and customer facing websites. They want to be able to get what they want and when they want. Often, they are unwilling to compromise on quality. modernization and user experience.
A chief information officer needs to build a modern cloud environment in order to meet these demanding and growing expectations. A system of interlinked technology stacks and digital cloud platforms that are focused on excellent user experience, intuitive design, impressive visuals, and value add-ons that the competition or on-premises/ public cloud options just don't offer. By doing so, the customer can then know that their experience is a priority and that these digital platforms were designed with them in mind. Having such technology will only enhance and benefit the customer user experience and give the company a better chance of standing out from the competition.
Wholescale digital transformation
CIOs at multinational companies around the world today can expect to be heavily involved and even leading on companywide digital transformation initiatives and IT operations. Some of these pipeline projects may have been put on hold during the pandemic, but now that we have emerged into a changed business processes environment and global economy, there is a need to hit the ground running with these digital transformation projects to make sure an organization is ready to seize new opportunities and create new revenue streams in new markets.
A CIO will therefore need to oversee a large-scale digital transformation project, prioritizing which business functions and units to digitally upgrade first, and help other business leaders like the CFO decide on which investments are the most urgent and worthwhile for their business agility needs. Long term value, data management, cybersecurity, automation and future proofed technology all come into play here. It's a delicate balancing act and one that the CIO must get right as a lot of time and money will be invested in a digital transformation and ecosystem application development which will come under intense scrutiny from decision-makers with the expectation of positive results.
Thinking about the long-term value instead of the short-term value is also important when it comes to implementing a successful digital transformation and SaaS cloud adoption project. Only investing in short-term transformations could prove to be unsustainable and require more investment than they are worth, taking the time to invest in a technology that will be a more permanent part of the company will ultimately lead to being more worthwhile and add more scalability benefits to the business. Implementing the right long-term cloud strategy will help create a more advanced infrastructure within the company.
There is nothing easy about being a CIO in 2022, but there is also a real opportunity here to get ahead of the curve and carve out a space in the market that just might be there for the taking. A successful digital transformation will mean the deployment of technology stacks and the upskilling of a global workforce to use this technology in order to gain a competitive advantage, it must be planned and executed with timing and precision, but it is achievable.
Delivering on priorities and strategies
A CIO is part of a wider leadership team that will have met and developed the plan at the start of the year, some of these strategies and priorities will be deliverables for 2022 and others will be about the future of the business. It is really all about remaining relevant and competitive, while identifying areas for growth and scaling.
The CIO will require the successful implementation of a modern and agile cloud services infrastructure to help the leadership team and the company as a whole deliver on all of their priorities and strategies. If the strategy is to scale into specific new countries and markets, they will need new technologies that enable them to do this in the most operationally efficient manner possible. Once in these new markets, there will be a requirement to catch the imagination and interest of consumers with products and services that differentiate themselves from their competitors. Again, this can only be achieved with the right mix of people, technology, and process- operating in a modern cloud infrastructure will be crucial to success here.
Priorities and strategies are thoughts and concepts that are put down on paper but to see them come to life, a series of actions needs to be followed through on. A modern cloud infrastructure can be introduced and leveraged to connect and enhance inter-related business units in a way that optimizes productivity and efficiency. This is the kind of IT infrastructure that puts the foundations in place for long term success and helps ensure that the wider organization is on the right track to deliver on pre-agreed priorities and strategies.
Creating a modern cloud infrastructure could prove to be highly beneficial for any organization and the CIO can be very influential when it comes to implementing such a structure. Having a cloud technology infrastructure which can meet customer expectations and facilitate the delivery of business priorities and strategies will be very high on their agenda.
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