Tasked with increasing organisational agility and streamlining operations cost, 57% of CIOs in Singapore think at least half their current tech stack is serviceable but could be improved, according to Lenovo.
Research commissioned by Lenovo reveals that CIOs are more involved than ever before in areas outside their traditional technology purview, such as business model transformation, corporate strategy, and sustainability.
Fieldwork for this study was conducted via a quantitative survey from December 6 to December 21, 2021, among a total of 86 CIOs from Singapore. Respondents included CIOs of companies and organizations with at least 250 total employees.
Nearly all (93%) respondents believe their roles have evolved and expanded in the past few years, and that they are being asked to make business decisions that go far beyond technology.
They now cover non-traditional areas such as digital transformation and business process automation (65%), data analytics and business reporting (51%), and business model transformation (45%).
Also, 83% say the CIO role has become more challenging compared with just two years ago as they are confronting a vast array of unique challenges, from the increasing use of AI and automation to talent acquisition in a global, remote workforce.
CIOs find it most difficult to solve challenges related to data privacy/security (77%), cybersecurity/ransomware (74%), keeping up with technological change (72%), adopting/deploying new technology (72%), and cloud transformation (65%).
The majority of CIOs in Singapore believe their role in the organisation has increased in influence, with four in five saying they have a greater impact on their company’s overall fortunes than other C-Suite positions.
As the CIO role expands and evolves, respondents say that their technology vendors play an invaluable role in their company’s overall success.
Business would feel an impact in no more than a few weeks if they halted spending on digital transformation initiatives, according to 60% of respondents. This speaks to technology’s role as a critical component of the business, not just a source of cost efficiencies.
Looking ahead, CIOs expect to turn to their vendors to help them solve a myriad problems in the next five years, including increasing their organisational agility (62%) and simplifying the configuration, deployment and maintenance of technology (50%), and optimise costs (49%).
Considering their new challenges and evolving responsibilities, CIOs suggest their current tech stack has much room for improvement.
Given the chance to reboot from scratch, most CIOs (57%) say they would replace half or more of their company’s current technology.
Compared to the previous year, 60% of companies are using more Device-as-a-Service in their tech stack. As business models change, nearly all CIOs (88%) would definitely or probably consider adding new aaS offerings over the next two years.
