7 IT Trends for CIOs to Know

To be successful in today’s constantly evolving technology landscape, CIOs need to stay on top of the latest technology developments to keep their organizations competitive and relevant in the marketplace. 

But given all the advancements, it can be challenging to decide which ones to prioritize to make informed business decisions that scale your organization across all fronts.

In that light, here are seven trends CIOs should know as we transition into 2022 and beyond:

1.      Rise of the Connected Hybrid Workforce and Hybrid Workplace

By 2022, 65% of CIOs will digitally empower and enable frontline workers with data, AI, and security to extend their productivity, adaptability, and decision-making in the face of rapid changes. 

With the COVID-19 pandemic disrupting the traditional work as we know it, it has ushered the hybrid workforce and workplace. This has caused a heavier technology dependence than ever before as businesses look for more flexibility and mobility out of their teams. 

As such, the move to hybrid means that all eyes are on CIOs to put in infrastructures that connect remote workers to deliver on organizational goals. Looking forward, CIOs will need to up their leadership skills to effectively manage a hybrid workforce and workplace across different locations and positions.

CIOs must take more responsibility and focus on frontline hybrid workforces to enhance business operations and connect experiences. This includes investing in and training hybrid workforces in core competencies, including strategy, security, social responsibility, digital capabilities, etc., while equipping them with the right tools and technologies to stay on top of their game.

2.      Cloud Goes Vertical

Cloud and data center spending is skyrocketing as organizations offload business processes to the cloud to achieve flexibility and efficiency. The global spend on cloud services is anticipated to exceed $482 billion in 2022 - up from $313 billion in 2020.

With such strong growth for cloud infrastructure, CIOs should watch how their organizations rely on their data centers and the cloud for different types of workloads. These days, hybrid clouds based on private-public architectures are increasingly common. Still, it’s also likely that many new applications will begin running almost entirely in a public or private cloud while at least some existing workloads remain on-premises.

In particular, industry clouds are gaining fast adoption, according to Deloitte, as hyperscalers (like Google, AWS, and Microsoft) and launch business-as-a-service models. The industry cloud market is growing. It is estimated that nearly 64% of the US$1 trillion cloud market could benefit from industry clouds—a US$640 billion potential market.

3.      Increased Focus on Cyber Security

The landscape of cyber threats is constantly changing, and unfortunately, these threats are only getting more sophisticated. As a result, the cost of cybercrime continues to rise. 

The average cost of a single data breach in 2021 was US$4.24 million, a 10% increase from 2019.  Cybersecurity Ventures also expects global cybercrime costs to grow by 15% annually over the next half decade, rising to $10.5 trillion annually by 2025, up from $3 trillion in 2015. 

Traditionally, security has been a CIO task. And even as most companies invest in security teams and infrastructure, CIOs are still expected to be vigilant and lead the front against security threats. Consequently, CIOs must establish holistic approaches that incorporate defenses against internal and external threats while ensuring proper usage of organizational security tools and resources. What’s more, CIOs must collaborate with security execs to prioritize comprehensive security strategies centered on an inside-out approach while identifying areas for improvement. 

4.      Rise of Hyper Automation

The worldwide market for technology that enables hyper automation will reach $596.6 billion in 2022. This is up from $481.6 billion in 2020 and a projected $532.4 billion in 2021. Hyper automation has shifted from an option to a condition of survival.

Hyper automation focuses on the continuous integration of automation into business operations. Many of today’s businesses are already automating repetitive tasks but on a surface level. 

As machines get smarter, faster, and more capable every day, the need for humans in basic organizational tasks lessens. It may take another ten or twenty years for complete hyper automation, but in 2022 it will be impacting nearly every industry. By 2025 or 2030, that number is expected to rise exponentially. It might not impact your industry directly—yet—but as an informed CIO, you need to know what business heights are possible with hyperautomation.

5.      Intelligent use of Data and Analytics for a Single Source of Truth 

In recent years, businesses have been generating vast chunks of data to deliver personalized customer experiences. By 2025, IDC says,  “worldwide data will grow 61% to 175 zettabytes, with as much data residing in the cloud as in data centers.”

Looking forward to 2022, CIOs need technology that can genuinely interpret and act on all of that data by providing a single source of truth. This is where intelligent use of big data and analytics come in. CIOs will need to incorporate big data technologies into their software applications, websites, devices, etc., to understand their customers better than ever before. As a result, organizations will create new business models based on that understanding and offer more products tailored for specific needs at specific times. 

Besides, making sense of data will help CIOs and the overall organization access and comprehend digital data to make better decisions, uncover new opportunities, mitigate risks, and provide actionable insights that help with efficient operations, team collaboration, and optimized processes.

6.      Widespread Adoption of AI and ML

AI and ML technologies are already revolutionizing how work gets done. As these technologies continue to advance, their use will grow in tandem with technology that automates tasks and processes in organizations. The adoption of these technologies is expected to rise considerably in 2022 and years ahead. 

Data centers are expected to be responsible for much of these gains. Machines will lead to a significant share of data center workloads by 2022. Security technology will also improve dramatically as it becomes infused with AI capabilities (Cyber AI).

As AI becomes more mainstream within organizations, adoption will spike as more CIOs must start looking for ways to implement AI solutions into their business practices. CIOs can no longer afford to ignore artificial intelligence; they need actionable insights and analytics that only AI can deliver, or they risk being left behind by competitors who embrace them first.

7.      Adoption of Business Composability

Gartner's CIOs and Tech executives survey notes that enterprises must embrace business composability to thrive through disruption in 2022 and beyond. What does that mean for today's CIOs? And what should be done to prepare for such disruption? 

To continue delivering value and competing in a global economy, CIOs must start making important decisions regarding their organization's technological future. Effective business composability requires both software-based solutions and organizational culture shifts and changes in thinking/doing regarding approaches to supporting the core functionality of IT organizations. All this while allowing them to help customers rethink how they approach technology while still meeting budget targets or being cost-effective. Notably, high-composability organizations leverage IT better.

 Is your Business Future-ready?

Stay ahead of future trends with Pronix Inc. For CIOs, keeping pace with theany different technology trends in IT is a big job in itself. Understanding these developing trends and how they will affect your organization can be challenging.

Get in touch with a clound computing outsourcing expert today to learn how Pronix Inc. can support your digital strategy to help you build a future-proof organization that stays on top of the latest and relevant IT trends.