Information systems are currently evolving faster than practitioners can learn about them. Old methods of doing business are flying out the window, and new tools are replacing them at a staggering rate. Just a few short years ago, mobile apps were only for early adopters, and “the cloud” was just a fluffy gathering of moisture in the sky. Today, businesses run on these new technologies and entire industries have crept up surrounding them.
5 Problems CIOs Will Face This Year
Enterprises, and even smaller businesses, must adapt to this new reality and figure out ways to make tech work for them instead of the other way around. In order to accomplish this, corporate tech leadership is faced with innumerable challenges. Here are five that we deem to be especially pivotal.
1. Making Data Both Secure and Accessible
Once upon a time, all the data companies needed was housed securely on in-house servers, which were controlled by dedicated staff reporting directly to the CIO. Today, employees are using their mobile devices for work purposes as well as personal use. Mobile devices significantly increase productivity, but they also present new vulnerabilities to security and privacy.
In order to ensure that your company’s trade secrets and customer records don’t leak into the wrong hands, techies are charged with finding solutions that protect the data. On the other hand, security often correlates with compromised accessibility, which might or might not defeat the purpose of mobile business tech. It’s a matter of finding the right balance. Moreover, instituting protection solutions on a device level only just doesn’t do the job, there are too many of them, and they are too vulnerable. The emphasis must be on securing the information itself.
2. Adopting New Tech Without Compromising Productivity
It seems like there are new amazing tools coming on the market every day. By the time a CIO has time to investigate and choose a new technology solution for a specific business need, the next generation solution has popped up to replace it.
Technologies that take too long to be implemented are likely to be outdated by the time they can be utilized. CIOs need to be on the lookout for tech products they can implement almost immediately, remaining focused on agile, iterative improvements as an ongoing process. This is why RMAD platforms are poised to take off in 2015, empowering IT departments to deploy new business apps within a few days.
3. Creatively Leveraging and Managing a BYOD Policy
Another key trend for 2015 is that more businesses are requiring employees to supply their own digitally connected gadgetry. With BYOD (“bring your own device”), more work will be done on smartphones, tablets and laptop computers, and IT teams will have less control over how these devices are used. Another key outcome of the BYOD trend is the increased diversity of operating systems and hardware makes and models that need to connect to your company’s data systems safely.
Aside from security concerns, CIOs will also have to figure out how to keep all these disparate devices communicating with each other efficiently, so that work is not disrupted by lack of communication. They’ll need to tackle BYOD holistically, thinking in terms of EMM (enterprise Mobility Management) rather than simply focusing on MDM (Mobile Device Management).
4. Adopting Agile Development
These days, technology plays a key role in all aspects of business development, including the optimization of business operation processes and customer-facing systems. IT teams are playing an increasingly vital role in the improvement and expansion of businesses, as IT has evolved from a maintenance focus to one of proactive innovation.
CIOs need to be willing to take risks, change up their technology and implement new solutions that can take their businesses to new heights.
5. Systems Integrations
Many companies are locked into old technologies that can’t be upgraded or replaced without a huge investment of time and money. With today’s systems being based more and more exclusively in the cloud, where next-generation tech reigns supreme, maintaining access to legacy data has become a big issue.
Integrating older systems with newer ones is a difficult challenge, but when done properly, it increases efficiency across the board.
CIOs Rising to the Challenge in 2015
Like the year before it, 2015 will be a year of rapid changes that CIOs will have to address in order to thrive. Each organization has to find the solutions that work best for its size, mission and distinct workflow.
Luckily, we are entering 2015 with a large variety of potentially game-changing solutions for integrating tech into business. It’s just a matter of researching and choosing the ones that are the best fit for your company.