10 future trends and how CIOs can keep ahead in 2021

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After a year disrupted by a global pandemic, the next normal is starting to take shape. Here’s a look at what’s ahead for IT organizations.

As the COVID-19 pandemic has unfolded, CIOs have faced epic challenges unlike any they’ve previously weathered. For many business leaders, recovery isn’t just a return to their former state but a top-to-bottom rethinking of what business they need to be in and how their business must be run. As the chief owners of the digital infrastructure that underpins all aspects of modern enterprises, CIOs must play pivotal roles in the road to recovery, seeking the “next normal” while still performing their traditional roles.

The following predictions, based on the IDC FutureScape: Worldwide CIO Agenda 2021 Predictions, present information about technologies, markets, and ecosystems to help CIOs better understand future trends and their impact on the enterprise, and offer guidance on complex, fast-moving environments, proposing prescriptive, actionable recommendations for the next five years.

1. 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. Businesses need teams and workers to function more autonomously, making decisions in the face of great uncertainty. Frontline workers are in the best position to gain real-time knowledge of changes in customer behaviors and external environments. But they need access to data and intelligent tools embedded in their workflows in a seamless fashion. CIOs will need to bolster IT capabilities in data science, AI, and human-machine interface and advanced intelligent workflow design.

Recommendations:

  • Acquire talent through hiring, development, and partnering ahead of the curve to avoid critical gaps.
  • Create centers of excellence (COEs) for data/analytics, AI, machine learning (ML), and workflow and task automation.
  • Ensure strategies, policies, and tools are in place to secure sensitive data and ensure proper usage.
  • Plan for the evolution from directed digital workers to hybrid digital/human workers to self-governing digital workers.

2. By 2021, unable to find adaptive ways to counter escalating cyberattacks, unrest, trade wars, and sudden collapses, 30% of CIOs will fail in protecting trust—the foundation of customer confidence. According to a recent IDC survey, 63% of organizations are investing in cybersecurity to build digital trust for customers, employees, and partners. Despite these investments, almost one-third of CIOs will fail to fully surmount the fallout from adverse events as the intensity and diversity of threats escalate, resulting in degradation of trust in their businesses. CIOs will be expected to lead all technology aspects of risk management for the enterprise and its ecosystems at a time where funding is scarce and scrutinized.

Recommendations:

  • Rethink risk management strategies in the new context of high volatility, increased threats, and business uncertainty.
  • Embrace modern practices and leverage proven frameworks like NIST.
  • Create trust objectives and strategies to focus efforts on high-payoff initiatives.

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