IDC predicts that by 2026, 60% of CIOs will find their roles being challenged by line-of-business (LOB) counterparts who can better demonstrate the ability to align technology with the organization’s mission and customers.
IDC says the CIO has proven to be critical as organisations try to stay resilient and execute on their digital transformation strategy. CIOs who demonstrate a mix of purpose-driven and people skills now co-lead with their business counterparts to demonstrate and align technologies to sustainable business outcomes.
IDC also noted that many CIOs now often find their voices drowned out by LOB managers who are heavily involved in making technology decisions. This inconvenient truth has put many CIOs at a crossroads in their careers.
If CIOs are to play a technology/business orchestration role in the leadership team, part of their effort will involve building or strengthening relationships with business counterparts.
“CIOs are building digital business platforms that can support extensive ecosystems to seamlessly create and deliver products, services, and experiences and to continually improve on them,” said Linus Lai, chief analyst and digital business research lead at IDC A/NZ.
“In this new world, the role of the CIO has evolved to be one that is a digital business enabler using technology to compete.”
Linus Lai
IDC's top CIO Agenda prediction
#1: Chief Business Technology Officer: By 2026, 60% of CIOs will find their roles being challenged by LOB counterparts who can better demonstrate the ability to align technology with the organization’s mission and customers.
#2: Dream Team: By 2025, 50% of CIOs will increase their reach and impact by effectively governing pervasive IT, spanning LOBs and ecosystem partners and optimizing services from the best contributors.
#3: Operating Model: To address the increasing volatility of market and customer needs, by 2026, 50% of CIOs will use an operating model design to optimize value stream, agile architecture, and risk management.
#4: Resilience: By 2024, 40% of CIOs will actively harness resilience capabilities as a competitive advantage to deliver financial, supply chain, ecosystem, and sustainability differentiation.
#5: Deep Automation: Through 2025, only 30% of CIOs will achieve a truly intelligent enterprise that blends AI/ML and deep automation, with speed and scale to monetize changing business environments.
#6: Human–Machine: To cope with skills shortages, labour needs, and work that is beyond human abilities, by 2026, 50% of CIOs will broadly augment critical systems with embedded intelligence and automated technologies.
#7: AI Efficacy: By 2025, 60% of CIOs will rely more on operational data and information collected on the edge as businesses look to act on multiple-source real-time data for faster decision-making.
#8: Social Media: By 2026, 40% of CIOs will be tasked with using technology ethically to gain insights into employee experience and their perceptions of the company's offerings and enable them to amplify the brand.
#9: Sustainability: Through 2027, 80% of CIOs will provide governance in selecting clean information technology, holding partners accountable and managing systems with sustainability metrics.
#10: IT Budget: By 2026, with 40% or more of IT spending as a service, the use of short-duration capex cutting tactics will be constrained, instead requiring lasting opex resets of 10% to 30% in software and resources.
