The complexity of a CIO’s job is increasing at an unprecedented rate – and today goes beyond definitions of merely keeping the technology lights burning
A study from Adobe has found that security is the top priority of 82% of CIOs. The “2019 CIO Perspectives Survey – U.S. Market Topline Report,” surveyed over 200 CIOs from U.S.-based companies. As per the study, 68% of CIOs believe cloud migration and 66% believe modernization of platforms were other essential priorities. Meanwhile, only 25% of CIOs feel their work is differentiated from competitors. The job of the CIOs is becoming complex as they have to take care of several aspects, including rising security issues, digital transformation growth, and customer experience.
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One of the most important priorities of CIOs is to enable customer experience (CX); however, only one in 10 CIOs said CX is their primary responsibility as the CMO or COO most often leads it. The survey revealed that 57% of CIOs believe CX is more of a focus as compared to last year.
The study found that digital transformation is still in its infancy. Only 15% of CIOs gave good ratings for their companies for having advanced digital maturity. Technology brands were most likely to rate themselves as advanced, while CIOs from the financial services industry were more inclined to give low rating their organization.
The study revealed that CIOs are focusing on AI, although they still believe the technology has not reached its full potential yet. Less than 20% of organizations currently leverage AI to streamline and speed up processes, found the study. Fifty-five percent of CIOs believe AI and ML are vital to meeting customer experience goals. They believe these particular technologies will have the most significant impact on improving customer experience, chatbots, and IoT.
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The study says CIOs understand the value that AI can bring to their business; however, the implementation can be difficult. Companies need to understand whether they have the right data to consider the implications that AI will have on business processes. Moreover, there is a shortage of talent that has a deep understanding of technology. Data integrity issue has affected companies for quite some time, and it still remains a challenge for IT leaders, found the study. In fact, only one in three CIOs said their companies are doing a good job integrating and leveraging data to offer personalized customer experiences.
Meanwhile, 15% of CIOs agreed their organizations can leverage real-time data. Seventy-five percent of them said their companies plan to increase their use of real-time data in 2020.
CIOs and the IT department are the enablers of CX within businesses today. They are not managing the customer experience, but they are making technology and decisions that will help fuel CX within the enterprise.
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