News Feature | January 27, 2016

What Are Your IT Clients' CIO Priorities For 2016?

Christine Kern

By Christine Kern, contributing writer

What Are Your IT Clients’ CIO’s Priorities For 2016?

PwC conducted a Twitter poll asking more than 1,000 people what the CIO’s priorities should be for 2016. Although the results of the poll could help CIOs focus initiatives, it is also valuable for insights for IT solutions providers as you work with CIOs to design solutions and as you approach them to make your next sale.

In a guest column for CIO Dashboard, Chris Curran, principal and chief technologist in the U.S. advisory practice at PwC, outlines the top four priorities revealed in the poll that can help fuel business growth:

  1. Mobile Apps. This was the top choice for a CIO’s top priority (40 percent of the 1,000 poll respondents). Curran points out only a few enterprises have employed mobile to drive transformation and enhanced customer experiences and there are several things to keep in mind, including customer needs, as well as existing and new business models. Currans says the mobile strategy should be platform and device agnostic.
  2. Data-Driven Insights. Curran says the information derived from Internet of Things (IoT) solutions can help companies prioritize and allocate resources, improve safety, reduce waste, streamline production, optimize use of labor, and build customer relationships. Of those surveyed, 25 percent believe this should be CIOs’ top priority.
  3. More Collaboration With The CMO. 21 percent of poll respondents say the top priority should be working more with the chief marketing officer. Curran says this is encouraging in light of findings from PwC’s Digital IQ survey that revealed the CIO-CMO relationship is among the weakest in companies. He comments, “Without a CIO-CMO partnership, digital deployments are shallow instead of deep, and fail to live up to their revenue generating potential.”
  4. Emerging Technology Evaluation. Curran warns CIOs that as they evaluate emerging technologies — the vote from 14 percent of poll respondents as the top priority — that if this process is vendor-driven or technology-driven, the business can wind up with a solution that isn’t right for them or one that employs technology for “technology’s sake.” He advises CIOs — and, in effect, their solutions providers — to create solutions that respond to the unique needs of the business.