With the start of a new year in the rearview mirror, CIOs and IT leaders face a variety of challenges. From charting through the ongoing pandemic to hurdles spurred by the Great Resignation, the path ahead is complex — and yet, opportunities for innovation remain strong.
On the bright side, IT budgets are on the rise. In fact, according to Gartner, IT budgets are expected to climb by almost 4% in 2022, the fastest growth in over a decade. While this may put more responsibility on the shoulders of CIOs and IT leaders, it gives them the capital needed to lead digital transformation efforts. Today’s savvy CIOs are doubling down on investments in artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) to automate processes and unleash the power of data so their organizations can reach new goals.
While some challenges for 2022 are nothing new (e.g., talent recruitment), others have rapidly escalated (e.g., maintaining hybrid environments, sustainability). On that note, let’s take a closer look at some of today’s challenges and, in turn, opportunities for innovation.
1. Finding Top-Rated Tech Talent
Attracting and retaining top tech talent has been an ongoing challenge for CIOs and IT leaders, and the pool only seems to be getting smaller. As more companies look to hire those with the right skills to lead digital transformation efforts, the competition levels are higher than ever. That’s because almost every company is vying for candidates from the same talent pool.
In the digital, hybrid work era, enterprises are placing a higher priority on hiring skilled tech employees. However, a recent wave of resignations is creating more org chart holes to fill with fewer available candidates, especially since many qualified professionals have chosen to stay out of the corporate world altogether (for now, anyway).
To help overcome this critical challenge, enterprises need to continue investing in company culture initiatives, collaboration tools, and training to maintain their current talent and attract the best possible candidates for open positions.
Now that remote work is the norm, with 80% of workers using collaboration tools, CIOs and IT leaders will need to take a closer look at their infrastructure and solutions to run an effective digital, hybrid workforce. This includes evaluating and updating infrastructure that may be lagging behind from the pre-pandemic days and integrating cloud-based collaboration tools that solve for dispersed employees. Solving these challenges will also support discovering and retaining top-rated talent.
In our recent three-part Future of Work blog series, we took a deep dive into how Google Workspace enables enterprises with a secure, scalable, and easy-to-use solution for the trek ahead. From assessing collaboration tools and meeting ever-evolving worker preferences to the essential role adopting organizational change management plays, Google Workspace is helping solve some of the most complex collaboration challenges.
3. Addressing New Security Concerns
Today’s IT leaders no longer focus solely on security within their own four walls; they must expand their protection to include employees’ workspaces and mobile devices. The pandemic’s continued impact on enterprise security is unprecedented, and with the uptick in sophisticated cyber attacks and threats, security is a moving target. Additionally, compliance requirements continue to evolve and increase, and in a virtual landscape, meeting those requirements is a whole new ballgame (especially across healthcare, manufacturing, and financial services).
With work no longer a physical place, security models are critical, especially in the cloud. Enterprises and essential organizations need to protect not only their users but also their critical data. They simply cannot afford the catastrophic damage a security incident brings. Used by more than five million organizations worldwide (from healthcare and large financial institutions to retailers with hundreds of thousands of employees), Google Workspace has security ingrained throughout.
To learn more about Google Workspace security, download Google’s latest security white paper.
4. Tackling Sustainability
Data centers, servers, devices, and networks: They all require massive energy usage. According to a BBC article, 3.7% of global greenhouse gas emissions can be attributed to devices, the internet, and their supporting infrastructure, which is comparable to the output of the airline industry. That percentage is expected to double by 2025.
To overcome this challenge, CIOs should take steps for real actionable change to reduce their company’s environmental impact. Moving to the cloud is a step in the right direction. For example, Google Cloud data centers use much less energy than typical data centers to help enterprises reduce the carbon footprint of their IT.
Today’s sustainability-focused leaders are also achieving green goals through our parent company Atos’ Decarbonization Center of Excellence, which guides global organizations to reduce carbon in core digital and business processes.
5. Contending with Cloud Transformation
Our Mavens wouldn’t describe cloud transformation as a challenge as much as they would an opportunity, but, indeed, enterprises across verticals like finance, manufacturing, and retail are still getting their bearings when it comes to the cloud. While the benefits are unmatched, a rapid move to the cloud coupled with poor planning and lack of guidance almost always presents cost inefficiencies and disruption across an organization.
As a leader in solving complex challenges and creating enterprise opportunities, Maven Wave enables CIOs to harness the cloud — whether that means for the first time or ramping up initiatives. With 11 Google Cloud Partner Specializations, including Cloud Migration, Security, and Enterprise Collaboration, we understand the challenges and implications cloud models present and realize it’s no small feat.
A Look Ahead
As CIOs continue to navigate these obstacles and embrace a digital future, they can rest assured that — with proper planning and support — the road ahead is bright. From the famous words of Albert Einstein, “In the middle of difficulty lies opportunity.”
Maven Wave’s first-hand experience and insight into CIO challenges and the evolving landscape have helped us deploy industry-leading solutions for the world’s top brands. Learn more about how Maven Wave empowers IT leaders with the ability to solve these challenges by visiting our services page.
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