One positive outcome of the past two years of business upheaval for CIOs is that digital business has accelerated beyond anything they could have imagined or planned. Digital strategies are now core to the overall business strategy, elevating CIOs to a place of increased influence.
Accelerating digital business comes together in a variety of ways in their function and enables the CIO to be a true partner to the business. From improving customer experience to finding and retaining digital talent, top priorities for CIOs are also critical to the overall organization.
More than 700 CIOs from leading companies around the world indicated their most important 2022 priorities across the business, as well as within their own functional areas.
Goals for the Business
Improving the way their business functions in terms of efficiency and productivity is the number one priority for CIOs at the enterprise level. Driving growth is a close second, followed by digital business acceleration.
Focusing on Cybersecurity Strategies
CIOs reported that their top priority for 2022 is cybersecurity strategies, followed by data & analytics. These two areas of focus switched places since our last annual survey of IT leaders in 2021. In addition, Digital Talent moved into the top five – perhaps reflecting the need for talent and skills in the current environment.
Goals & Challenges
Thus far in CIO responses this year, cybersecurity strategies took the top spot from data and analytics for IT leaders. CIOs shared their specific goals for cyber initiatives and the challenges to achieving them.
Investing in Cybersecurity
The top priority — cybersecurity — is reflected in how 60% of CIOs plan to invest their resources this year, and their other top spending areas mirror their priorities.
At Evanta, we survey our C-level communities annually to learn their top priorities, along with the challenges they face and the goals they set for the enterprise. This data is invaluable, enabling us to highlight trends, develop discussion topics and match like-minded peers based on the real-time needs of CIOs. To join the conversation, find your CIO community.
Based on 700+ CIO responses from Evanta’s proprietary Leadership Perspective Survey, February 2022.
by CIOs, for CIOs
Join the conversation with peers in your local CIO community.
