Three key challenges for technology leaders in 2022

By Katrina Troughton, General Manager, IBM Australia & New Zealand. December, 2021

If we thought 2020 was a year of great change and volatility, then we could characterise 2021 as a year of great agility.

Organisations continued to face a multitude of converging issues this year – from ongoing and rapid digital transformation to increasing societal expectations to do more to combat climate change. Some of the biggest challenges were related to people as the pandemic made many people reassess their lives: where they work and live, and their purpose.

?Through all this, CIOs have been vital in supporting their organisations navigate change and embrace opportunities. In the process, they have become one of the most powerful players in the C-suite, as business leaders recognise technology’s transformative ability and importance in almost every part of a business.

Looking ahead, we believe there are at least three key challenges for the CIO in 2022 and beyond:

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1. People and skills

One of the most pressing challenges for CIOs in Australia and New Zealand is finding and retaining people with the right skills. With our borders closed or restricted since the start of the pandemic and organisations ramping up their business transformation programs, there has been an acute shortage of the skills required to deliver much-needed digital projects.

CIOs have the opportunity to enable their organisations to win the talent battle by creating positive experiences and inclusive cultures for employees by widening the talent diversity aperture and tapping into non traditional ‘pools of potential’. There is an opportunity to explore new ways to create pathways into technology careers and the workforce of the future, including experimenting with apprentiships and other “work while you train” constructs. This focus on skills must also drive a culture of relentless learning – a cultural cornerstone of success in the future.

CIOs also have an increasing role to play at the intersection of people and technology. Along with corporate culture, technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI) and automation can help create better work experiences and give employees a greater sense of purpose. It is also a powerful enabler of impactful Diversity and Inclusion (D&I) policies and Talent Acquisition strategies, from ensuring gender equity in hiring targets to providing access to training in all layers of an orgnaisation. Diversity of thought drives innovation – and innovation is the key for this country’s economic and societial recovery.

Many CIOs in Australia and New Zealand see process automation as a key area in which technology will have the greatest impact over the next three years, according to IBM’s latest CIO study. Their organisations are investing heavily in AI and automation because it will aid decision making and improve productivity and wellbeing for their people. That in turn will give people more time to focus on purposeful work and enable them to achieve more while reducing stress. Now is time for technologists to step up and prove that IT can help in this area.

Meanwhile, remote and hybrid work is here to stay for a significant proportion of workforces. At the start of the pandemic and during the massive shift to remote work, CIOs were essential to ensuring employee productivity, supporting everything from cloud-based collaboration tools to new digital communications tools like AI-enabled chatbots. Fast forward to today, nearly two in three employees surveyed by IBM report they would prefer to work exclusively remotely or in a hybrid model, if given the choice.

The hybrid work environment will be profoundly different to more traditional workplaces where location and presence are paramount. CIOs must continue to be at the centre of efforts to establish a productive, supportive, inclusive and enriching work environment. That means putting the employee at the centre of experiences and using technology to break down silos and empower people to collaborate and innovate, no matter where they are working or the role they occupy within the organisation.

2. Technology and Trust

Unlocking the value of data is vital for creating new revenue streams and opening up new markets – something we expect to see much more of in 2022 and beyond. However, it relies on data transparency and governance, and ensuring it is used in trusted ways.

Trust is the common denominator of the successful uptake and application of transformative techonologies such as AI and automation.

Again, take the “war for talent” for example. In 2022, organisations will increasingly need to rely on automation and AI to augment their workforces and underpin the productivity increases required to address critical skills gaps which have been exaserbated by the ongoing border closures and international travel bans during 2021.

However, only by embedding ethical principles into AI and other data-rich applications can organisations build and maintain trust among employees, customers, regulators and other stakeholders. By having sound data governance policies and safeguards we will be able to get the most out of these technologies.

Trusted technologies and data embodies the greatest opportunity of this era to define change and address the societal, environmental and economic challenges faced by humanity today - from helping to adress skills shortages and global pandemics to social injustices and climate change.

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3. Sustainability

Speaking of climate change, this issue was firmly on the corporate agenda during 2021. With the outcomes of the global COP26 conference, organisations are clear that climate responsibility is core to their social licence to operate and their ability to meet stakeholder expectations moving forward. This has created a sense of urgency to cut carbon emissions and achieve other environmental, social and governance goals.?

Technology leaders have a pivotal role to play in supporting this momentum, with 55 percent of Australian and New Zealand respondents to our CIO study expecting technology to have a significant impact on their organisations’ sustainability initiatives over the next three years.

In this area, IBM has introduced an Environmental Intelligence Suite (EIS) that brings together AI, climate science and weather data with data from business operations to help organisations become more resilient and sustainable. The EIS can monitor for disruptive events such as bushfires and floods, and send alerts. It can also measure and report on environmental initiatives and operationalise carbon accounting.

Organisations can also deploy technologies such as AI, blockchain and the Internet of Things (IoT) to reinvent workflows across functions such as procurement, supply chain and energy management. In addition, businesses can modernise their computing infrastructure and applications in line with responsible computing principles to cut energy consumption.

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Be ready for anything

Nothing brings on instant reprioritsation for an organisation, and CIOs, like a cyber security incident. This was again highlighted recently with the discovery of the Log4j vunerability.

As remote work and an increased “digital footprint” became even more critical to keep businesses running during the pandemic, so too did the need to secure it. This increased digital presence provides an increased opportunity for cyber criminals.

In 2021, an IBM threat index report showed that Australia was the third most attacked country in Asia Pacific after Japan and India. The average cost of a data breach for Australian companies?was AU$3.7 million?per incident, up 10% from 2020 and hitting an?all-time high?in the last 12 years. The?rapid shift to remote operations?during the pandemic led to more expensive data breaches as well.

Australian companies that adopted a?zero trust security approach?were better positioned to deal with data breaches - those with a mature zero trust strategy had an average data breach cost of?$2.73 million –$1.54 million lower?than those who had not deployed this approach at all.?Cyber security will continue to be one of the great challenges of our era.

If 2021 has taught us anything, it is that the most valuable attribute CIOs and organisations can hold is the ability to adapt quickly to the unknown. CIO’s have amplified the powerful role that digital technology can play in making organisations more agile, human-focused, flexible and sustainable.

We look forward to continuing to support the CIO journey, navigating successful strategies to support people and enhance skills, building trust in technology to enable game-changing techonologies to scale, addressing key sustainability goals and building the right zero trust security approach – all while remaining agile and able to respond at speed to whatever 2022 brings.